THE ceremonies heralding the inauguration of Dr Kayode Fayemi as governor of Ekiti State heightened, on Monday, with an inaugural lecture delivered by a former Chair of English at the University of Ibadan and Professor of English at the University of New Orleans, Niyi Osundare.
Also on the occasion, held at the AB Foundation Event Centre in Ado Ekiti, there was a presentation of two books on good governance written by Dr Kayode Fayemi and a photo exhibition as well the presentation of prizes to winners of “JFK Essay Competition.”
In the lecture entitled: “Still In Defence of Lasting Values,” Professor Osundare advised the incoming Governor Fayemi to use the opportunity of his second coming to fight poverty and what he described as moral decadence in the state.
Osundare, a popular poet and native of Ikere-Ekiti held that politicians had been hiding under the sliding moral values of Ekiri people and poverty caused by a culture of laziness to cheat the system, saying the next government must tackle the menaces for history to judge him well.
According to Osundare, alleged moral degradation in the regime of outgoing Governor Ayodele Fayose accounted for the promotion of “stomach infrastructure,” among the people of Ekiti State.
He said it was regrettable how people viewed Ekiti around the world owing to how Fayose handled the state during his administration, saying the state had appeared to have no values by his conduct and utterances while in the saddle of governance.
The poet charged Fayemi to institute policies that would combat poverty and all forms of social ills, which he alleged had crept into Ekiti through the actions of politicians.
He said: “Ekiti were people that place the priority of knowledge, wisdom. They know the values of these virtues. They were regarded as extremely stubborn people because they won’t compromise their integrity for anything.
“These were times when education was a pride and we had the brightest academics like the late Professor Sam Aluko, Professor Adegoke Olubunmo, Chief Afe Babalola, Prof. Ojo Ugbole, and many others. We placed values on hard work, knowledge acquisition and our parents sold their farms and clothes to send their children to school. They knew the rights from the wrongs at that time.
“But there came a demagogue who ran the authoritarian government in Ekiti in a manner that had never been experienced by any State in Nigeria.
“He stopped at marketplaces to buy roast corn and ate in public place just to deceive the people when the majority of our graduates were not provided with jobs and farm products were wasting away and our value system collapsed calamitously.
“Education that was regarded as our best industry was not well funded and our graduates that had earlier been regarded as the best in Nigeria for decades became practically half-baked and unemployable. Book and elitist thinking were his enemies.
“The culture of stomach infrastructure was introduced and Ekiti became a laughing stock. How populism manifests itself and the politician banked on the vulnerability in the system to mislead our youths.
“With Fayemi coming on board, he needs to tackle poverty and reenact value reorientation in Ekiti. He must come with policies and programme of actions that will prohibit miracle centres where students passed without reading and make Ekiti vegetation centre of knowledge.
“His (Fayemi) nose and ears must be closed to the grounds, he must be close to the people and eradicate ignorance and poverty that make our people believe in stomach infrastructure.
“This is your (Fayemi) second chance and significant opportunity to rewrite your name in gold and make significant impacts on the lives of Ekiti people for real restoration of our value system.”
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