Governor BAO: Should We Tell The President? 

When the Ekiti State Governor, Mr. Biodun Abayomi Oyebanji, kowtowed the presidency in an appeal to help his government fight the attendant hunger concomitant with the removal of the country’s albatross of many decades – the fuel subsidy, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu as humanitarian and kind-hearted idiosyncratic of his persona granted a N100billion intervention fund for agriculture that would guarantee food sufficiency. Anybody would have thought such a humane gesture from Mr. President should have yielded quick results.

Ekiti State as the hub for agriculture produce would expectedly serve other South Western states thereby reducing the effect of food insecurity across the region. Little did the presidency know that Governor Oyebanji was only interested in bamboozling Mr. President for his ulterior motive. Those billions of naira for agriculture intervention may have been diverted into private pockets. Or how else can one describe a situation akin to a mirage? From a governor to the president, what audacity? Can Governor Oyebanji show the world video and pictorial evidences of the agriculture interventions?

It will interest not only Mr. President but also the general public that months, in fact, years after funds were released to Governor Oyebanji through the help of some links within the presidency for the cultivation of cassava in large quantity, not one bunch of cassava has been harvested on those lands, needless to talk of processing same. It is instructive also to state that Governor Oyebanji also got additional N100billion in two tranches of N50billion at different times for same agricultural purpose. Alas! Till date, nothing has come out of it.

The questions on the lips of every concerned Ekiti Kete are, ‘Where are the billions?’ ‘Where are the produce?’ ‘How much longer should the people wait to enjoy Mr. President’s kindness?’ It is a rude shock to even discover that the tractors brought and showcased on the cleared farmland, according to eye-witness reports, did not stay more than a week before they were moved out. What? Could it have been that those tractors were brought in as a decoy just so to hoodwink the public, and by extension, the presidency?

It suffices therefore, to say without equivocation that the fate of not only Ekiti people, but the entire South West hangs in the balance, a corollary of somebody’s cluelessness and wickedness. Today, rather than hunger abating across Ekiti landscape, the government of the day (under the tactless handler who was rewarded with such important office) has further exacerbated people’s condition with Ekiti people subjected to even harder untold hardship in the hands of Governor Oyebanji. Meanwhile, the irony of it all is that President Tinubu is constantly blamed by the people! Rightly so, anyone would say, maybe he is just being indulged by the system.

Ekiti people today are earnestly yarning for change. As much as they love Mr. President, of course, that was shown in their coming out in their numbers during the 2023 presidential election to vote en masse for him; they are obviously tired of reinforcing failure in the state and will speak through the ballot. They will not hesitate to vote against the All Progressives Congress (APC) should the incumbent government be forced on the party. One can only hope that Mr. President will intervene to save the party against the imminent disgrace that lurks around the corner.

The 2027 presidential election is a must-win for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in Ekiti State, and the journey starts now by uprooting the cancerous government as obtainable today.

Signed,

Akogun Bamidele Ajayi, 
Spokesperson, 

EKITI PROGRESSIVES FRONT (EPF)