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Ekiti: The Fountain of Knowledge

By Alonge Olufemi Alonso



No doubt, Ekiti is the smallest and the youngest state in South West Nigeria. The state was carved out from Ondo State and when Late General. Sanni Abacha, the then head of state pronounced the state in 1996, there was wild jubilation in both Ekiti and Ondo.

While the people of Ekiti were happy for their liberation, the people of Ondo State were happy that relief has finally come. I heard people in Akure saying their state would now be peaceful as the troublesome people among them had been given power and liberty to stand on their own.They were saying petitions would stop in their state.

As small as the state is, nobody in the state jokes with education. We don't produce many successful business men and women but we have many professors.

During military era, the state was lucky to produce Col. Adekunle Fajuyi and General Adeyinka Adebayo as Governors of the South West region.

In politics, Ekiti cannot compete with other states in Nigeria.We are only interested in education. Ekiti is the fountain of knowledge but despite our knowledge, the state is not as developed as other states in the country.

There are still some communities in the state who are yet to have access to good roads and amongst our professors, no one has ever come out to take the state to the mainstream of Nigerian politics.

Before now, no name in Ekiti can be mentioned anywhere near politics at the national level. Though power tussle or political crisis between Late Adekunle Ajashin and Chief Akin Omoboriowo in 1983 will make many people think Omoboriowo would have taken the state far in politics.

Since democracy returned to the country in 1999, Ekiti is the only state where emergency rule was declared. Ekiti has produced four indigenous governors with the Acting Governors

Our political immaturity is recognised world wide. The state is always in the news for controversy because some set of elites who are not politicians want to be the ones to determine who governs the state and anytime those in their good books are not the ones in power, they fuel political crisis in the state.

They didn't come out publicly to associate themselves with a certain political party. Majority of them did not visit the state for almost two decades , yet they write a lot of articles on the dailies to tarnish the image of the state thinking they are hitting the 'stranger' in power.

They rely so much on the lies being peddled by some set of politicians and instead of them to verify what they are being fed with, they rush to media to attack those in power.

They didn't register at home, they have nobody to convince and they were not seen anywhere in Ekiti during 2014 governorship election. But, immediately after the election, they came up with a lot of unpleasant write-ups to discredit results of the election.

Due to media hype, they believed Dr. Kayode Fayemi was fully on ground and thought a man who defeated him at the polls lacked the wherewithal, strength and intellectual capacity to coast home with such a beautiful victory.

Few of them who travel home one or two times in a year always criticise those in government for not doing the right thing. It is on this note that I will implore those Ekiti elites who refused to join politics to stop criticising those playing the game. If they are so sure of themselves, they should come down home and take the same risk which politicians are taking.

It is time for Ekiti to produce great politicians like Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, Chief MKO Abiola, Chief Earnest Shonekan and Prof. 'Yemi Osinbajo. The above - mentioned people are all from Ogun State in the same South West Nigeria and anywhere politics in Nigeria is being discussed, no name mentioned here will be skipped. So, our elites who love to stay outside to criticise should join the moving train of Governor Ayodele Fayose in his bid to take his politics out of Ekiti State to test his popularity at the national level.

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