MANY waited with bated breath for the Yuletide to come. They expected a Christmas with a difference following assurances from Ekiti State Governor Ayodele Fayose that every family would have a fowl to kill, rice to cook and some money for merriment.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) in the Fountain of Knowledge State had in one his early broadcasts immediately he took the saddle on October 16, 2014, told his army of supporters that the birds were already being reared to meet the December 2014 target.
Those who heard the promise wondered the possibility of nurturing a poultry bird to maturity within three months. Christmas was just a month and half away from October 16, 2014. The largess was to launch the ‘Stomach Infrastructure’ policy.
Fayose, shortly after his inauguration at the Oluyemi Kayode Statdium, Ado-Ekiti, spoke of his plan to make ‘Stomach Infrastructure’ one of the cardinal policies of his administration. To him, ‘Physical infrastructure’ without ‘Stomach Infrastructure’ makes no sense.
As a matter of fact, he promised to create an office of Special Assistant to the Governor on Stomach Infrastructure to effectively drive the policy and ensure that there is food on the table of every Ekiti person.
Fayose also revealed during his inauguration that he had given directive for the commencement of the rearing of chickens to be distributed to the people of the state during Christmas which was about a month and half away.
The governor took a step further during his maiden media chat known as “Meet Your Governor”, where he emphasized the importance of his stomach infrastructure policy as he promised to appoint ‘Assistant Governors’ in all the 16 local government areas to. The job of such officers is to take the policy to the grassroots.
He said: “I will appoint Assistant Governors in all the 16 local government areas because everybody cannot personally reach me in Ado-Ekiti. The local people approach these Assistant Governors for assistance like cash and materials anytime they want to celebrate special occasions like weddings, naming ceremonies, funerals and other functions.
“The Assistant Governors will be my representatives in the local government areas and they will process requests for assistance for onward transmission to my office.”
Three months into his administration, the Assistant Governors are yet to be named. No thanks to the shrinking and irregular handouts from the Federation Account to the states.
The Yuletide might have come and gone but the dusts kicked up by the governor’s goodwill will take more time to settle down as the gesture was viewed differently across the state.
Offering more explanations on the Stomach Infrastructure mantra of his principal, Fayose’s Special Assistant on Information, Youths and Sports, Mr. Lanre Ogunsuyi, described the policy as the governor’s immediate intervention to banish hunger from the land.
Ogunsuyi said: “Ekiti people, who had adopted the 0-1-0 or 0-0-1 feeding formula because they could not afford three square meals, would appreciate what Stomach Infrastructure is all about.
“What this means is that we are going to return our people to the path of development by first of all ensuring that there is food in their stomach and we will also make sure there is money in their pockets.
“We are doing this because the people have been so impoverished so much that they cannot pay school fees, their utility bills and so on. So, we are going to revive their economy by making sure that artisans get jobs and workers’ salaries are paid on time. The multiplier effect of this is that the people would be prosperous again.”
The governor made good his promise when on December 18, last year, he personally gave out rice, chickens and vegetable oil to residents.
The distribution, which began in Ado-Ekiti, the state capital, saw interested members of the public trooping out in large numbers to collect their Christmas package from Mr. Governor.
Fayose said the gesture confirmed the importance of the people’s welfare to him as a person, adding that his administration would always strive to improve the welfare of the people “who, against all odds, returned me to office with a landslide victory, after eight years.”
The governor explained that the poor financial status of the state would not deter him from reaching out to them because “I made a covenant with God that I will ensure that the people are liberated from the shackles of poverty.”
Not left out were uniformed personnel who also went home with their own share of the largess.
Buy the time the curtain was lowered on the distribution, about 80,000 birds and 100,000 bags of rice had been shared out in a state inhabited by more than two million people.
Teachers in public schools- though on Christmas vacation – had their own package sent to schools. The head teachers/principals had taken delivery of the consignment for onward distribution.
Apart from the creation of distribution points in the 16 local government areas, collection centres were also created in the markets to ensure that no section of the society was left out.
A beneficiary, Mr. Idowu Jewoola, who resides in Ado Ekiti, said he was thrilled receiving the largesse from the governor which he described as a “rare privilege”.
Jewoola said: “The governor himself handed over to me rice, chicken and money. This is a rare occurrence here and you can see that everyone is happy and appreciative of Fayose.
The stomach infrastructure train also moved to Ikere-Ekiti, the second largest town in the state where people also turned out in their numbers with the beneficiaries praising the gesture.
Mrs. Eyitayo Adekola, a resident of Ikere-Ekiti, said the gesture confirmed Fayose as a man in touch with the grassroots.
Another beneficiary Gabriel Aluko, a student, saw the rice and chicken as extra to the slash of tuition at the state-owned university.
But the rare gesture has its own share of controversies.
Besides the fact that some unscrupulous residents took undue advantage of it to get double and triple rations, many returned home from the distribution centres frustrated. Many secondary school teachers said three of them would have to pair to get a chicken.
At one of the distribution points, Fayose embarrassed a desperate would-be beneficiary. He sent him out of the queue for having the effrontery to queue up for rice after receiving “a handsome financial assistance” from his office few days earlier.
There were also complaints in some public schools that the number of chickens allocated to them fell short of the number of staff on the payroll.
The Nation learnt that 17 chickens were allocated to each of the public primary and secondary schools in most parts of the state.
A teacher, , who pleaded for anonymity in one of the secondary schools in Ikere-Ekiti, told The Nation that sharing 17 chickens in a school with staff strength of 94 teachers became herculean.
In some schools, many teachers just did not see the rationale in spending more than what they could use in buying a chicken in their community on transportation for the chickens. Many said they were not impressed with the size of the chickens which they considered as “not big enough”.
The Nation gathered that in a particular school, many of the chickens died because the intended beneficiaries did not show up and there was nobody to feed them.
A local government official, said although he got rice and chicken, but that he would have loved that the two-month arrears of salaries being owed council workers were paid.
“This would empower me to buy myself the best of Christmas gifts,” the council staff said.
The gesture also became a bone of contention between the ruling party and the main opposition in the state.
The APC accused Fayose of throwing overboard the various empowerment programmes initiated and implemented by his predecessor, Dr. Fayemi for stomach infrastructure that has turned Ekiti people to beggars.
Taking exception to the brickbat, the PDP accused the APC of hypocrisy. It said leaders of the opposition party also reached out to their supporters at Christmas.
“It is hypocrisy at its peak to do what you abuse someone else of doing,” PDP Secretary Tope Aluko said.
He went on: “They abuse us for providing immediate succour for our
people. They described stomach infrastructure as an insult to Ekiti people. They said it does not add value to the people; it diminishes their self-esteem, it diminishes their sense of self-worth and it denigrates what politics ought to be about.
“After condemning the concept, isn’t it rather too late that the APC people are just realising that poverty should be addressed by providing immediate succour because poverty is poverty; it knows no religion and it has no tribal mark; and it affects everyone of us?”
The APC State Publicity Secretary, Taiwo Olatubosun, berated the Fayose administration for treating Ekiti people as beggars.
In a statement, Olatunbosun said: “The governor has turned Ekiti people to beggars by giving them handouts in form of kwashiorkor-infested chickens not bigger in size than ailing pigeons.”
He said Ekiti people have now seen the deceit of a man who claimed to be the friend of the common man with his callous attitude to the same people he claimed to love at a time they should be happy.
Olatunbosun said: “Governor Fayose gave two ‘congos’ of rice and miserable palm oil not up to a litre – all totaling N700 – to each worker that the governor had earlier deducted N2,000 from his salary for Christmas gift.
“This is in contrast to Governor Kayode Fayemi who empowered the people through agriculture, cooperative and employment and apprenticeship schemes involving over two thousand youths, which helped the people to earn a living and made them happy for four years as against Fayose’s tokenism as Christmas gifts.”
The APC spokesman said that instead of Fayose to build on these laudable schemes, he had cancelled all the programmes, rendering the youths jobless and cancelled many promotions in the civil service and dismissed many workers for the offences they did not commit.
He explained: “Fayemi last year paid civil servants 30 per cent of their salary as Christmas bonus. He also paid their leave bonus while their December salary was paid on December 18.
“In contrast, Fayose has refused to pay civil servants their September salary even though he had collected September allocation from the Federal Government. Civil servants are yet to be paid as at December 22.
“Last year, apart from the 30 per cent bonus and leave bonus, all offices in MDAs (Ministries, Departments and Agencies) were given gifts but all these have gone under Fayose as workers are now praying for their September salary let alone December salary or xmas or leave bonus.”
He carpeted Fayose for making civil servants to go through harrowing experiences as many of them could not celebrate Christmas with their salaries “as many of them kept vigils at ATM points in banks till the wee hours of the Christmas day without receiving their pay”.
His words: “Governor Fayose should ask Ekiti citizens how Fayemi added value to their lives for four years. He didn’t wait till Christmas to pay N10,000 to over 20,000 youths in volunteer services for four years.
“He didn’t wait till Christmas before he paid N5,000 to 20, 000 elderly people in his social security scheme for four years in addition to feeding them with both cooked and raw food all year round.
“Fayemi trained over 500 youths under the Odua/Job Creation Agency Skill Acquisition scheme.
“Under the Youth in Commercial Agriculture Development scheme, over 600 young farmers have been trained and this generated about 15,000 direct and indirect jobs with the YCAD beneficiaries becoming employers of labour rather than beggars to be given handouts as Fayose is presently doing to Ekiti youths.”
Olatubosun urged Fayose to pay workers their entitlements and stop treating them like beggars, stressing that even though APC is not in power, each of the 177 wards across the state is receiving no fewer than 20 bags of rice from APC leaders to make the members happy while PDP leaders only take care of their families.
He concluded: “From what Fayose is doing, he is deliberately encouraging poverty so that people can be subservient to him and we sympathise with Ekiti workers and people who have suddenly been inflicted with miserable conditions by a governor touted to be the friend of the masses.”
The Stomach Infrastructure however sank deeper into controversy following the controversial transfer of the Mobile Police (MOPOL) Commander in the state, Mr. Gabriel Selenkere.
Selenkere’s transfer was over his alleged refusal to allow his men line up in public to collect the Christmas largesse.
The Nation gathered that Selenkere has since been transferred to MOPOL 45 in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
The conventional policemen had lined up to collect their share of the gifts but when it was the turn of mobile policemen, Selenkere ordered his men not to collect the gifts in full glare the public which he believed could be implicative.
His action was reported to have angered top government officials who saw his action as “rude, unfriendly and insolent.”
A police officer who asked not to be named because he was not authorised to speak on the matter, confirmed Selenkere’s transfer.
He said: “It is true that he (Selenkere) has been transferred as confirmed by signals for his transfer. The issue of Christmas gifts shared by the government was part of it but you know he has many issues as well bordering on his line of duties.
“It is true that he ordered MOPOL men not to collect the gifts and ordered them to go back to their bases despite the fact that the conventional police collected.”
But the Special Assistant to the Governor on Stomach Infrastructure, Mr. Ayo Arowolo Fayose’s said the idea is not all about rice, chicken and vegetable oil alone. He said the government also intends to make micro-credit loans available to citizens of the state to empower them.
According to him, the first batch of beneficiaries, who are market women, would soon be given micro-credit facilities to assist them in their businesses.
He explained that this would breathe life into their businesses and stimulate the grassroots economy.
Will the largesse be a regular bazaar or a one-off affair? Can the 80,000 birds and 100,000 bags of rice distributed in Decembers 2014 sustain a population of more than two million for a year? Can stomach infrastructure succeed without committing more resources to agriculture? Only time will tell.
