[caption id="attachment_94625" align="alignright" width="640"] Eleka [/caption] PROF. KOLAPO OLUBUNMI OLUSOLA ELEKA, the Deputy Governor of Ekiti, was an accomplished teacher in the Department of Building, Obafemi Awolowo University for 24 years. He recently emerged the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party. As the 14 July governorship election approaches, Eleka fielded questions from TheNEWS team comprising ADEMOLA ADEGBAMIGBE, YOMI OSOBA and GBENRO ADESINA on his vision for Ekiti. AYODELE EFUNLA took the photographs. You were a lecturer and a researcher, how easy has your movement been from the academia to politics ? To me, it has been a very smooth transition. Already l have a background in the academic environment where we are taught to be diligent, focused and selfless. I believe these are qualities that have helped me greatly even in politics. Here l have learnt to observe things painstakingly, l have learnt to be patient and look at things thoroughly. These are attributes that are already inbuilt right from the academic environment. As a lecturer, l have learnt to wake up very early. I have learnt to stay late in the night to do research. I have learnt to adapt to different situations. Only a lazy lecturer will have a stereotype lifestyle in which case some will decide that they don’t want to get to work until 10am and leave around 2pm. You will observe that such lecturer will never get to the top as at when due. But a diligent lecturer, is one who must have learnt to wake up very early, and how to stay late in the night so as to do some academic work that you cannot do in the day time due to other academic activities like lecturing and attending administrative meetings. Also in politics, sometimes we stay late. Sometimes l have to wake up very early. I am the type that lives by example. It is my responsibility to get to the office by 8am or latest by 8:30am and I expect the workers under me to emulate that. This is what they have been doing actually. To me many of the things that are happening here are not entirely new. By the grace of God, I have gone through a lot of things in the academia and the inbuilt character, in built strength are also helping in this regard. Your father was the PDP man. Did he influence your choice as Deputy Governor to Fayose? When my father was selected to be the running mate of Dr. Peter Ayodele Fayose, l was not aware because I didn’t have so much interest in politics. I took interest in politics but not to the extent of active participation. At the time, I didn’t really know what went on in Ekiti politics and my father only discussed politics with me when I asked him about what was happening in the world of politics. Up to the time he was taken to Abuja to be shown to the party leadership and for documentation in Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, I was not aware of anything. As at that time, I was in Covenant University on leave. Suddenly, one particular day, specifically a good Friday and it was a very wonderful Friday of course, it was a day that was a turning point in my life. I called my father to say hello to him not knowing that he was with Dr. Ayodele Fayose. It was later that his call came in again and the voice I heard from the other side was the voice of Fayose, my governor. He did not even allow me to talk. He said l am Peter Ayodele Fayose. Where are you and I replied him that I was in Ibadan. He said okay, can you please see me today and l rhetorically asked back, ‘see you today’? I was wondering what was happening. He said come with your curriculum Vitae, CV, come with this and that. At that moment, I was with my mother in Ibadan. I told her what Fayose just told me. I added to her that l was not looking for employment. Then, my mother narrated some of the things that had been happening. That was how my journey of the deputy governor of Ekiti State and politics started. It took me time as a Christian to pray and to ask from the Lord, what is His mind concerning this issue. To me, when God is leading you, you have nothing to fear. It is rare in Nigeria, in our recent democratic experiment for a governor to wish that his deputy should succeed him. Why is Ekiti different and what are those things that have been keeping you and Governor Fayose going? In this country, it is very rare for you to see a governor coming out and saying that I endorse my deputy to succeed me. For this I am grateful to God and I am also grateful to Dr. Peter Ayodele Fayose. The inspiration I had when I came in was that I learnt that I should listen to him. Don’t forget, I read the constitution, I read everything. The position of the deputy governor is as directed by Mr. Governor and I made up my mind that I am not going to go beyond my bounds. So many deputy governors are having problem with their governor because while sitting on the seats of the deputy governors, they want to act like governors. That is totally wrong. In my own case, I made up my mind to support my own governor right from the beginning so that successfully, we can both exit after our four-year tenure. For him to endorse me, he said something. He had said that I am not his personal choice to succeed him or let me say that I was not his personal choice but this is a man so many people do not know some basic things about. He is a man that fears the Lord. Governor Peter Ayodele is a man that fears God. He is a man that prays a lot. You may think that because you believe he is outspoken, people believe that he doesn’t have very good attributes but those of us who are very close to him know that he is a very courageous man, the man that fears God. He is a man that believes so much in prayers. He subjected the issue of successor to prayer and he said that God led him to endorse me. If God has led him to endorse me, then he has nothing to regret. But I thank God for him because he also listens to the voice of God. He has done a good thing and this has been commended by other deputy governors across party lines. I have had discussions with my colleagues in other states and parties, they have commended him. They said he has given them a ray of hope and said that if they are also loyal to their bosses, and they serve very well, that one day their time will come. [caption id="attachment_94619" align="alignright" width="720"] TheNEWS cover design on Ekiti election[/caption] Why are you and your boss so confident that this election will be a walk-over and is it true that you have signed an oath of allegiance with Gov. Fayose? Propaganda! The power of the people is greater than the power of us who are in power. Federal might or no federal might, there is nothing called federal might when you have the Almighty God on your side. With God on one’s side, every other might fizzles out and evaporates. So nothing can stand before the mighty power of God. So in Ekiti right from the day we took over governance, we have been working as if there will be election tomorrow. We are in very close affinity with the people. If you do your opinion sampling, you will see that we are on ground. Ekiti people are behind us. It is not soldiers that will come and vote here, it is not the policemen that will come and vote here, it is the people of Ekiti that will come and vote. We have had a case of somebody from the opposition, who started his campaign but was prevented by the people of a community from entering the palace. In some other places, people threw sachets of water at him; they said they don’t want him. Some people lined up by the roadside and told him that they don’t want him. That is Ekiti people for you. What the opposition started and succeeded in doing in Ondo state cannot work here. This is Ekiti state. People are behind us. We are on ground. We have the support of the people. PDP is on ground here. Fayose is a popular governor and he is on ground. I, as the deputy, that popularity has also rubbed off on me. Don’t forget that I have warmed myself into the hearts of Ekiti people. I have interacted with them. Because Ekiti people want a listening governor, they will vote for me. They want a governor that is accessible; they want a governor that can be talked to, not a governor that will come with elitist attitude who will look at people as if they are poor and treat them with arrogance. Anybody that is arrogant to Ekiti people or that has elitist attitude is finished. Ekiti people need somebody who is accessible and who they can relate with. That is what we have done and that is why today we have the support of Ekiti people. I didn’t sign any oath of allegiance with my governor, Dr. Peter Ayodele Fayose. That is just propaganda. Apart from popularity and grassroots politics, what other virtues have you learnt and emulated from Ayodele Fayose? I like one thing in the Bible, it says, I have not received the spirit of fear but the spirit of power, love and sound mind. Fayose has been described by his wife, Her Excellency, Mrs. Feyisetan Fayose as a man that has the face of lion but then he has the heart of a lamb. That is a very good summary of who he is. Fayose is courageous, fearless, but then compassionate. He is generous and he is a man that when he sees people suffering, he becomes touched. He doesn’t like seeing his people suffer. That is why when you talk about stomach infrastructure, they don’t understand. In Yoruba, stomach infrastructure simply means ‘Okun inu, la fingbe tita’, that is when you have strength within, then you can excell. The little token we give to people is just to say that we care for them. From time to time, we will come around to show you love. So, the attribute of courage even in the face of adversity, the attribute of fear for the Almighty God, People see the Ekiti Governor as confrontational... It depends on your definition of “confrontational.” If you are speaking the truth, now tell me, of all what Fayose has been saying about Buhari, Obasanjo and many national issues tell me the one that has not come to pass? It is after all these have come to pass that they will say that Fayose has said this before. Don’t forget God will never lack a man to stand in the gap. There will always be a man to stand in the gap. When others close their mouths, God will always find somebody. Fayose is a man that is sent to this country. He still has a lot to do for this country. He is a voice raised by God himself. So when a man is speaking the truth, let us commend him. One beautiful thing about this man, Fayose (though it is very rare), if he toes a particular line, and finds out that it is wrong, he will apologise and tell you that based on the fact that is available to him he took that step but now he has discovered that that decision is not right. He will apologise. Look at the issue of Modu Sheriff, he thought that Sherif is a man you could bring to salvage the image and destiny of PDP but when he got to a particular point and discovered that this man had his own plan which is not going to help PDP, he never denied that he was one of those that brought Sheriff in, he confessed to that, that we have made a mistake. But thank God and he was one of the people that quickly took step to redress the untoward situation otherwise, we would have found ourselves in terrible mess in PDP today. So we should commend him. Were there occasions when you quarreled with him? You talk about misunderstanding, I am glad to tell you that no single day of misunderstanding between my boss, Governor Fayose and I. The secret is mutual respect. That does not say that I have not done some things that are wrong. Wrong in the sense that probably there is something I didn’t do right. He has his own way of correcting me. So, it is not misunderstanding. He is putting me right and that is part of mentoring. I am learning. If you become governor, won’t Fayose be the one running Ekiti? Won’t you cover his track. To me there is no track to cover. That is the truth. It is only when you have skeleton in your cupboard that is when you will be afraid. Don’t forget that Fayose himself has been saying that he is not afraid of death or incarceration. When your hands are clean, you have nothing to fear. By the grace of God, I am the vice chairman of the State Executive Council and I am deeply involved in the running of the activities of this government. We have been following due process in all that we have been doing. There is nothing to fear. The issue of whether he will not allow me to perform, I have responded to this in several interviews and I said I am a professor by the grace of God. I am a child of God and I am a pastor. It is absurd for anybody to think that a man who has been a professor, who has been in the academia for 24 years, will not have a mind of his own. I have a mind of my own. Loyalty does not translate to not having a mind of your own. In fact Mr. Governor has been telling me that the buck stops on my table. It is your name they will mention. We have been talking. He said when you give instruction to carry out a responsibility, you must take charge otherwise some people working around you will mess up things for you and they will not say it is Fayose, they will say when Eleka was the governor. Loyalty is not synonymous with being a stooge. For me, Fayose is a destiny helper to me. He is my mentor. He is the shoulder that God provided for me upon which I stand and I am rising. Do you expect me to take a cutlass and cut the shoulder that I am standing on? If I do that, I am coming down myself because that is the shoulder upon which I am resting. Let the whole world know now that I am going to take care of that shoulder. That shoulder that is taking me up, that is providing support for me, if they like let them interpret it to mean anything, it doesn’t matter to me. [caption id="attachment_94626" align="alignright" width="650"] TheNEWS team with Professor Eleka, right[/caption] For me Fayose is my destiny helper. He is the shoulder that God has provided for me upon which I am standing today and upon which I am rising. That shoulder must not fall. Now for whoever cares to listen, whether Fayose is in office or out of office, I will be loyal to him because that is a demand for me by the Almighty God. I will never betray him. I am going to be a model and a mode of good followership. Some deputy governors when they are in position, they are loyal to their bosses and their bosses supported them. When they become governor, they turn their back against their mentor and benefactors. What is your vision for the electorate in Ekiti? About my agenda, let me just summarise it. I call it the SHIELD Agenda. The ‘S’ stands for three things there: security, sustainable human development, and social empowerment. On security, this administration has been able to ensure that menace of armed robbery and kidnaping are curtailed. We can’t deny the fact that we have experienced issues like that just like in any other state. It is not peculiar to Ekiti State alone. But then, in terms of synergizing with the security agencies, we have been able to curtail their activities. For instance, some years ago, buggling of houses by armed robbers and other vices were very rampant but we have been able to burst that syndicate and today everybody is sleeping well. On kidnapping, you are all aware that there was a time many people were being kidnapped in Ekiti State. Again with the cooperation of security agencies, we are able to burst all their camps in all those forests where they have been hiding. Look at Efon, they were coming from Osun State creating problems between Efon and Iwaraja. Again today, we have been able to dislodge them. It becomes very important for me to sustain this issue of security because where there no adequate security there can’t be meaningful development. Ekiti state today is the first state to enact the anti-grazing law. Initially some people were critizising us even some states in the North. Today, they have sent for our anti-grazing law and they have started replicating what we have done here. When they saw that their people were being killed every day. This issue, the step we have taken by enacting anti-grazing law, putting in place the grazing marshal and monitoring team involving security agencies also have gone a long way in checkmating the menace of these herdsmen. Some herdsmen are good, they do their jobs normally but there are some killer herdsmen. They come around and destroy farms. Last year for instance, something terrible happened to a particular woman. She cultivated about 100 hectares of vegetable, cassava and other things and herdsmen came and destroyed the whole farm. The woman lost over N40m, but government had to encourage her. With the enactment of the anti-grazing law and stepping up the activities of the anti-grazing marshal and the monitoring team over there, we were able to curtail in Iyemero side the activities of these herdsmen. This woman was encouraged to cultivate another 100 hectares. She has fenced the whole place round because we told them that if you want to make this, make it total. If you fence your farm round, that will reduce access of these herdsmen. She has started all over again. Why I am saying this is that if you want to develop agriculture, adequate security is very important. If you want development, if you want to invite investors to come and establish their business here, security is very important. When I become the governor, I am going to improve on the current existing structure we have put in place in terms of making available modern security facilities that will be aimed at detecting security lapses here and there or any group of people that want to cause trouble with the assistance of ICT. About the sustainable human capital development, one of the things we have been doing is continual training and retraining, exposing our people to workshop, seminars, and updating their knowledge. We have sent some of our teachers abroad for training, local conferences and the rest. To me this is one area I have had deep input in this government and I believe it is an area I am going to improve on. Social security. Sometimes some people will tell us that ‘Owo arugbo’, the aged money, that we have cancelled it. We didn’t. In this particular case, the APC administration led by Dr Kayode Fayemi, started this social security scheme between 2011 to 2014 and terminated the programme before we came in. The programme was terminated by John Kayode Fayemi’s administration in June 2014. They paid an average of N76m monthly to 15,200 beneficiaries, average of N76m for 15,200, that is N5000 cash. Now we discovered that in this age it is fraudulent to pay this people in cash. Giving people money in cash and by hand is susceptible to frauduldent practices. A lot of people were not qualified to benefit. I know a 30- year old woman in Ikere Ekiti, my town, who was benefiting from what is meant for 60-year olds and above, all because she is a women leader of APC. When we came in we found out that it is not only the aged people that form the bulk of the vulnerable group, we repackaged the programme. Up till date we have paid N5, 000 monthly to 60,129 beneficiaries at a total monthly average of N32m. The money is paid electronically to the beneficiaries after we have done a well-documented data capturing. You must have a bank account to which we can pay this money to. That has reduced fraudulent practices and every vulnerable groups is involved not only the elderly. The youth, the poor and unskilled people are benefiting from the stipends. There are other empowerment programmes we do to alleviate poverty. For instance, we give N20, 000 to women selling petty things. That is what my stands for. As I said, we talk about continuity agenda. If you go to Lagos State for instance, Lagos State is thriving. Lagos State is massively developing. The Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) of Lagos State is increasing because it has a master plan. There is already a blue print. Governors that is coming in keys in and it becomes easier for them because all of them come from the same political family. Though, Lagos State is APC State, yet we must acknowledge a good system. The continuity in Lagos State is a very good thing that should be emulated. We are ready to emulate it in Ekiti State. That is why we talk about continuity agenda here. We want to continue from where we stopped. If there is anything we have started, I am ready to improve on it. I am part of this administration. I know what we wanted, what we want to do and our limitations and I know what I can add, the area of improvement. If I have run a programme for four years, I should be able to think of areas of improvement. What about healthcare? Also, healthcare development is our priority. We have done a lot in healthcare that I cannot itemize within this little time of this interview. One of the things that I have observed is that we need to upgrade our health centres and make them modern. That is one area I am going to concentrate on. Most of the services are rendered by comprehensive health centres. Most people that are being attended to on daily health needs go to these health centres. How many go to teaching hospitals? I will upgrade our health centres to be able to give better health service to our people. We are not able to do much here when we came in because of the economic challenges and lack of funds that we face.Thank God the whole thing is improving. I want to give kudos to some of our local government chairmen. They have done a lot in improving the facilities that we have in our various health centres. I remember, one day I stopped at a gathering where the youth of my community in Kajola Area of Ikere-Ekiti were having carnival. I stopped. I greeted them and interacted with them. They said they wanted me to come and support them. I said look, I am not going to give you money because if I give you money, you will just spend it. What project do you have in mind? I was very impressed when they told me that they wanted to have brand new generator for their health centre. I said wow, this is good. I said consider it done. I am going to personally provide that for you. That opened my eyes. There could be so many health centres that are having similar challenge. I took time to visit some health centres and I noticed some of the challenges they are facing. I will upgrade the health centres with modern facilities. I will ensure that people are able to access good health centres. The other things I have in mind is to ensure completion of the accreditation of the college of Medicine in Ekiti State University. This administration has done more than 80 percent. The next round of accreditation will be around November. I have interacted with them, see what the needs are and I believe personally as someone from the academic environment, the onus is on me to ensure that that accreditation is complete. Don’t forget that nothing was done in the place during the era of John Kayode Fayemi. Students were stagnant. It was in this administration when we came in that we took some steps and put in some facilities and today, they have been granted accreditation and the students have started writing their exams and being promoted. I had interaction with some medical students of recent, one of them is in 500 level, he has spent nine years. Nine minus five is four, that between 2010 to 2014 when Fayemi was there as a governor, he did nothing. So if he had done something, that four years of stagnation would not have been added to the year the medical students have spent. It is quite unfortunate. We believe by God’s grace, every other thing that need to be done will be done. We are doing a lot to improve the teaching hospital. Recently, a lot of damages were done to some buildings, almost 17 buildings were affected in the teaching hospital and this administration has successfully renovated all except one which is still in the process of rehabilitation. There is also a plan I have in terms of healthcare. We can have cottage hospitals. Primary health centres can be upgraded to cottage health centres and some comprehensive health centres can be upgraded to cottage health centres. I have seen a system somewhere which is working in which case we can have consultants from the teaching hospital coming over to these cottage hospitals maybe twice a week to consult. He is not there permanently. He is from the teaching hospital, he is a consultant. If you need special attention then you make yourselves available for two days. You will only need to add a little bit of extra incentive to cover transportation. What are your plans in the area of infrastructure? There is no administration in this Ekiti State that has surpassed Fayose in infrastructural development especially road construction and construction of edifices that will continue to be points of reference in Ekiti State. Look at the dualisation. He started the dualisation of Ikere-Ado Road in his first time, after he left, the road became damaged, the previous administration ignored that road. This is a major road that links us to Ondo State. Look at the traffic coming from Ondo State. That is where we have the highest traffic from Ondo State down to Ekiti State. That road became so bad that the previous administration ignored that road. He came in this term, improved on this road and extended it down to the roundabout, the centre of Ikere. Ikere people will never forget that. Today when you enter Ikere, you believe that you are already in Ado because there is no difference again between Ikere and Ado in terms of modernisation. Now you will notice that new development, high rise buildings are coming up by the road side. It shows that the government is developing. What is attracting that? It is the dualising road that is attracting that. The same thing in Ado, when he started dualisation of roads in his first term between 2003 and 2006, people were asking. Is it dualisation of roads that Ado needs now? We don’t need dualisation of road. But today if those roads have not been put in place, we would have been suffering from serious traffic jam almost everywhere because without those roads ease of traffic will be very difficult. Fayose is a very proactive governor. One of the things that I have learnt from him is also to give the attention that infrastructural development needs. He keeps saying, look you have to improve on this infrastructural development. Our flyover is meant to add to the existing infrastructural development. Look at the new high court complex, look at Oja Oba Market, all these again will affect commerce one way or the other, directly or indirectly. I have observed that there is a need for two things: bypass roads within Ado. I am going to add to that. And rural roads construction especially roads that lead to farms are going to be one of my major areas of focus so that we can open up our farm settlements, farm areas and it becomes very easy for people to bring out their farm produce for sale. [caption id="attachment_94627" align="alignright" width="640"] Eleka[/caption] We want you to speak on industrialisation... On industrial development, there is no state that can develop by relying only on government business. Presently, as it is, the only business we have in Ekiti State is government business. When you talk about location of industry, one of the factors that affect location of industry is infrastructural development, good roads, something that could attract people and make it look modern. Ease of traffic, etc. That is why what we are doing is building a foundation which I believe we are going to build upon when I become the governor by God’s grace. That one is not a controversy. By faith, I am already the governor in Ekiti State. We have put up a foundation. It is my responsibility to build on it. Industrially, it is my focus to give enabling environment to investors to come. Without power, there is no way we can have effective industrial development. If you want to look at the present power supply system, it is not the type that encourages industrial development; load shedding, poor voltage profiling etc. I have started looking at issues, some power technology solution, hybrid system. Not necessary solar or wind or hydro, hybrid system that could be brought in using turnover approach in which case government is not going to spend money there but it is going to give enabling environment to private investors that specialize in independent power generation and supply system. Let them come in. We are already in talks with some technology companies. I am already preparing myself. I am not going to wait till I become the governor before doing all these. I have started working. Here we produce a lot of yam and plantain and yet most of these things get wasted because we don’t have facilities to preserve them. Why can’t we convert them to other usable forms? It is not expensive to establish yam flower industry, cassava mill. Let us start from somewhere. We are not saying that we have to have a big industry at a goal. We can start from small cottage industry and gradually we will begin to expand. Rome was not built in a day. Bible says do not despise the little beginnings. Let us start with the small things. Education is our pride in Ekiti State. Unfortunately when we came in, the standard was low. The performance of our students was so poor that Ekiti State was between 29th and 30th position in WAEC and NECO and it was so terrible. A state where we pride ourselves fountain of knowledge. When we came in Mr. Governor asked me to supervise the ministry of education. Immediately I took off. We discovered two things. First the morale of the teachers was down because of the palpable fear that had been created in them that they would be sacked (that they would be made to write competency test by the Fayemi administration). So the teachers were no more productive. What do you expect? You don’t expect the students to do well when the teachers are not in their right mind. No teacher can be in his/her right senses if s/he is confronted with many challenges. He cannot think straight. He will not be able to deliver. That was what happened. We did our investigation. First, we have to motivate the teachers rather than harassing and intimidating them. I am a teacher myself. I know what it means to teach. It is a very big sacrifice to be a teacher. If you see a teacher, you are supposed to encourage him. What we now decided to do is that rather than harassing our teachers, we encourage and motivate them. We put up capacity building programme, on the job training, we organise workshop for them rather than all these one day workshop where facilitators will come and go. We make it resident. We involve resident approach to workshop training. Also, we are paying the allowances very well, correctly. We have paid January to August core subjects and allowances. We stop by August because by September, there could be transfer. Usually we don’t do transfer between January and August so that wherever you are, whatever we are paying you, you are entitled to it. Of course, we don’t pray that any of them will die but if anyone collects money beyond what he is entitled to, there is a system by which such can be deducted from their entitlement. The teachers are now happy that we are paying them in advance. When Fayemi was there, when he was leaving, he owed seven months: core subjects and rural allowances despite the fact that the money released through World Bank support was more than sufficient. We wonder what they did with that money. For now we are paying in advance. We have paid January to August. Some of the teachers have been sent abroad for training. One of the products of our journey abroad is the issue of technical education. When we finish now, I will take you to government technical college and you will see that we don’t tell lies in Ekiti. At present, we have evolved a programme in which we are transforming our technical schools from just mere technical school into entrepreneurial and vocational skills acquisition centres. That means we have to redesign and remodel the technical college. We have five technical colleges. We are starting with Ado government technical college, Ado. It costs us over 1.9b and the contractor has commenced work. This is a plan ( he shows it to the journalists). These are existing buildings which are nothing to write home about. This is the new plan. The new one will be with modern technical equipment. It is not just building. Part of the contract is equipping the school with modern equipment. What we plan to do is to limit technical education training and the vocational training for the students there between the hours of 8am to 4pm. From 4pm to 7pm, we will open the place up for youths to come in and learn something. There are so many youths hanging out in garages operating ‘Okada business and things like that. We want to encourage them to acquire a skill. These youths will be certificated after their graduation. It is going to be like six months or one year training. After this government will now stand in as a guarantor in a way of assisting them to look for soft loan that will help them to establish business and we will monitor them to ensure that what they are doing what is right. You will sign an agreement with the state government that if you don’t do this work, we will close down your business. This is our way of withdrawing youth from motor parks and crime centres and getting them engaged meaningfully. This will go a long way to address youth unemployment in the state. The truth of the matter is that government alone cannot employ youths. This is my idea by the grace of God in this government. This is part of the good things that I brought to this administration. We also discovered our students are failing in national examination because of poor performance in English and Mathematics. To address this, we organise extra classes for students between the hours of 3 to 5 from Monday to Thursday and 9am to 2pm on Saturday. We made it compulsory. We started exchanging teachers. The teacher teaching in school ‘A’ can be taken to school ‘B’. We ensure that the distance is not too far between one school and the other. It is not the same teacher that taught you during the normal hours of school that will teach you in the evening. In the evening classes, we ensure that the pattern does not follow the normal school period. This time around, we ensure that you concentrate on past questions. The government makes available to them a compendium of past question containing 11 subjects for the past six years. The one for this year was past seven years. We give the past question freely to all the students both private and public schools. We do not discriminate between public and private schools in this respect. Private schools were not excluded. All of them were given freely. That is the secret of our success. That was not done in the last administration apart from harassing teachers in various ways including asking them to write one stupid competence test. Also, we engage science teachers in the practical. Can you believe that a science teacher, a chemistry teacher who has been preparing students for WAEC and NECO confessed that he has lost touch with preparation of chemical solutions? Interestingly, the man was taught and he was very happy. That is just an example. On the job training is very important. Don’t forget that most of our universities have challenges. I am from the university environment. When somebody says he is a governor and all he is referring to is Obama, will Obama come and rule for you in Ekiti? We need home grown solutions. In the university, you discover that when you are doing practical for students, because of lack of facilities and materials, you discover that you have about six students to a particular set of practical materials. Most of the time, it is only one or two that will be prepared to participate. In advance countries, every student to his or her own set of materials. If a student has been lazy when he was in school and just managed to graduate with lower credit and now manage to get a job. When he was in school, he was always partnering with about five people to do practical using the brain of others to pass. Now tell me, when he becomes a teacher, won’t there be a gap? The best thing you can do once you have employed such a person is to brush him up. You discover him and brush him up. You teach him all over again. That is the approach that we are approaching and we have been achieving results. I am surprised that Dr. Fayemi in a recent interview was badmouthing the performance alleging that Ekiti State pays money to get high grades and that we are engaging in examination mal-practices. Indirectly he is indicting the teachers. It shows his hatred for the teachers. That is why if he becomes governor, I wish him good luck but he cannot because Eleka is becoming the governor come October 16, 2018 by the grace of Almighty God. [caption id="attachment_94628" align="alignright" width="507"] Eleka[/caption] What do L and D stand for in your SHIELD? The ‘L’ stands for leadership and governance which has to do with civil service reforms. ‘D’ stands for development of agriculture and tourism. I have mentioned about rural road construction leading to farms and engagement of youth. What we are doing currently is government giving enabling environment to invest in agriculture. First, let me give you a little example, Iyemero-Oke-Afo axis, we have many investors there now having large farms. That is why we thank God for our anti-grazing law. It has helped us a lot in this regard. Many investors are coming now. They are becoming more assured of the protection of their products. Presently in Iyemero, we have a company, ‘Promisepoint’ that has a cassava processing plant that can produce industrial starch and then opportunity for production of other products. The cassava plant can produce 350 tons per day. The company has massive cassava farm in Iyemero area. Now, we want to encourage the company to assist some farmers so that the company will become an off-taker for these farmers. We want the company to be buying up their products. This is the kind of enabling environment that government has to provide. Also in 2016, we had Agricultural summit which had led to a land bank development programme. The aim of the programme is to address shortage of arable land for farming across the state. This has led to the birth of Public Service Farmer Confederation, PSFC, ‘Agberemi’. The public servants have farm now, they have cultivated about 357 hectares of rice at Oke-Ako, Agricultural Growth Corridor there. Not only this also, we talk about cocoa, we know that Cocoa is one of the major cash crops which we have a comparative advantage in Ekiti state. But unfortunately, most of the cocoa plantations have old breed cocoa that are not yielding very well. We have modern new hybrids. What we have decided to do now is to establish cocoa cloner gardens. Some two years ago, we established five hectares, now we have started another establishment of five hectares. The idea is to be able to produce quality seeds and seedlings to replace all these old cocoa farms and establish new ones. The variety of cocoa we are propagating now in our cloner garden takes 18 months to mature, that you first of fall grow the seeds, it comes up, you have the pods, and from the pods you get the seeds which can be given to farmers to plant. It is high yielding, it can yield 1.5 ton per hectare. It is disease resistant. It may appears as if the efforts have not manifested physically, we believe that by December this year, we will be reaching around 18 months, that means the seeds will be ready for farmers to start planting. I have discovered that we have comparative advantage in the production of cocoa, cassava, rice maize and oil palm in this area. It is my vision to establish what I call centres of excellence in which case you clear large area of land and interested individuals within the community where this thing will be established will own some of these farms, government will come in initially, later we are going to shop for investors that can take over from government. The investors will be like off-takers. There will be a memorandum of understanding between the investors and the farmers. The investor will make available input for them, then he will off-take. That is after they have finished their production, he buys from them, deduct any amount of money it has cost the investors to give them input and the farmers will also have market for whatever they are producing. These are some of the schemes. On rice production, the challenge we are having for rice production is issue of land. It costs so much to clear land in this area. The amount of money you will spend in clearing of land in the southwest is more than enough to grow large hectares of rice in Kebbi or Sokoto. Sometimes I laugh when people compare Kebbi and other areas in the north with Ekiti or anywhere in south west. It is not comparable because the major component of cost here is land clearing. Thank God we are able to key into the DAWN commission programme. We have reached an agreement with Lagos State. Lagos State doesn’t have land but she has money but we have land. We have entered into the kind of agreement Kebbi State has with Lagos State. In spite of political differences? It doesn’t matter. This is southwest. There is synergy between Ekiti State and Lagos State that is why I like my governor. We have collaboration to drive rice valuation; over 10,000 rice farmers in Ekiti will benefit from the over 9,000 hectares. Lagos State is going to clear over 9000 hectares. The process has already started. We have mapped out the area for Lagos state to come and do that. Don’t forget it is our people that will work there. This will take lots of people away from joblessness. These are parts of the plans we have in developing agriculture. Presently, it is not that we don’t have rice mills in Ekiti state but most of these rice mills are on small scale. We need investors that can come in and establish rice mills large scale. If we are able to have this volume of rice production, definitely investors will rush down here. People that can come in and assist with the establishment of large scale rice mill production. We believe that we will get there. Let me go to the issue of tourism. The issue of tourism, if you look at Ikogosi Resort, the last administration under Fayemi actually spent about N2b to revive Ikogosi. The N2b involves money for restructuring the buildings, the working capital. There is a difference between Ikogosi Resort and Gossy Water. People out there lump the two together. Ikogosi Resort is still in existence and it is still working. The only one that collapsed is the Gossy Water which is actually a business venture of UAC not Ekiti State. The reason why Gossy Water collapsed was lack of power. The running cost was becoming too much for them, running on diesel and black oil and it became unprofitable for them to operate. The same power is the same thing that is affecting Ire block industry. Ire block industry also functions on black oil and diesel. It is still the same problem. Then Ikogosi Resort itself, a lot of work was done there actually. There are three sections of Ikogosi Resort: two of the sections of the resort were properly done but the third one which also has some of the hotel rooms were not properly done. Today, if you go there you will see that termites have invaded the structures up to the roofs. It is because, when you want to go into construction, the first thing you do is site investigation, do your site survey, what kind of soil do you have there?The soil is termites invested. They ought to have done a very thorough land treatment of the place before putting all those buildings there. It is a big minus for that project. That is why when people talk of sub-standard construction, that is exactly what is being referred to. Then the landscaping is not properly done to provide easy access to the hotel. I have a plan toward Ikogosi, not Ikogosi alone, Arinta Water Falls, Ipole Iloro, the two of them are in the same axis. Ipole Iloro, Ikogosi and Erijiyan, they have the same challenge of power. Most of those places have been without power for years. That is why we need the alternative off grid power supply for any industrial establishment that is going to be in place in that area. Arinta Water Falls is a place that could be developed. It is in the same axis with Ikogosi. If we are able to develop that place for tourism purposes and Ikogosi also, it is going to attract a lot of people. How do you hope to finance all these projects? If you observe I have been saying one thing. Government should not get itself involved in some of these businesses, rather it should provide enabling environment. We will kick start these programmes as a government. We are spending our money. The research that I did has revealed that there is a grant from World Bank that has to do with technical education but they must see what we have done. I got all these when we travelled abroad and I said okay, we will kick start it. Already we have been sending our (blue print) to the World Bank to come and see what we are doing. We are going to look for grant through them to complete the remaining technical colleges. Out of five, if we do one, they will not say we have not tried. We know we don’t have the financial capability to do all the five. When we do one, we can use it as case study and request for grant and I believe we will get it. We have good intention and good motive. IGR in Ekiti State is very low. This is the document of Nigeria Governors’ forum with source from national Bureau of Statistics, office of accountant general, and state government and budget IT Research. If you look at IGR, Ekiti is number 33 out of 36. When my brother Dr. Fayemi was here, he was saying that he was generating 600m per month. Please sir, these are the details of IGR generated in Ekiti State from the ministry of finance. These ones are even higher than what is reported here by this data from Nigeria governors. Nigeria Governors Forum 2011, 2.5b; (probably they don’t have enough information), 2011 from our record here, we have N3.4b; 2012, N3.8b; 2013, N4.4b. Let us look at 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, let us look at 2014 as base year, transition between the immediate past administration to the present. 2010 to 2013, the maximum generated in the last administration was 5.5b per annum. That is about N450m per month. That was the highest. Others. the record shows N4.3 or thereabout. Yet they told the whole world that they were generating over N600m per month averagely. That means we should ask Dr. Fayemi where is the remaining, the balance. If he generated so much, then he should come out and tell us where the balance is. When we came in they said we were lying. That we were not declaring the amount of IGR we are generating as if we are hiding the money somewhere. He should come and tell us where he has been generating N600m per month. Now look at 2015, you can see there was improvement when we came in: 2015, N4.3; 2016, N4. 8; 2017, N4.9; 2018, as at January to May, it was 2.3. That means we hope for more before the end of the year. Despite these, the IGR of Ekiti State is still very low. The truth of the matter is that there are lots of untapped sources of IGR. First, there is need to reshape the board of internal revenue and give it a more enabling environment, give them more incentive so that they will be able to move out. The issue of digitalisation, for instance, our C of O, the way C of O is being given, it is possible for two people to get C of O on the same land now. That is going to change. Nasarawa adopted that approach, though they spent a lot of money initially. More revenue is coming in. There is a particular area in Ado-Ekiti, all the buildings there do not have C of O because there is dispute on the land. It is government land but some people decided to sell it off before we came in and we discovered it when we came in and we have been having dialogue with the landlords. We have to use a softer approach. They have realised that the land belongs to the government and there is a need for them to pay something. By the time they start to pay now, all of them will be encouraged to collect C of O. A lot of millions of naira will come in there. Beyond that, issues like street naming, having a sound data base, how many houses do we have in Ado. We can get taxes from some of these areas also. If investors are coming, it means more taxes for us, more revenue. I am not saying we can build it up to a million in a day but it is a gradual thing. Industrialisation is very important. In Lagos State, government business is not up to 15 percent. The bulk of business in Lagos is more of private. That is why the GDP of Lagos State is more than GDP of many countries in Africa.