After all the hoopla about the June 21 election in Ekiti State and assumption of office of Governor Ayodele Fayose, the attention has turned finally to how far and soon it will take the new helmsman to prove the electorate right on their choice at the polls writes SULAIMAN SALAWUDEEN
The vast drama space which Ekiti became in the heat of the June 21 election has lately receded, yielding space for a palpably settled vista, where the actors have changed performances and expectations of residents assuming more prominence.
No more long convoys of siren-blaring vehicles in breakneck speeds heading in opposite directions; large gatherings of party peoples here and there about the state and almost at same time, spawning and spewing as much promises as they do diatribes across loud speakers; larger than life banners of seekers after the target seat in the state in open spaces, street sides, at spots both likely and unlikely.
While express pronouncements of the new Governor Ayodele Fayose have quite often betrayed awareness of the needs of the citizenry especially in terms of empowerment and livelihood, there also are such needs which residents from one community to another in the state, especially in Ado-Ekiti, capital of the state, seem to seek the state government’s urgent intervention.
These included good, motorable access roads in the communities; electricity power supply; provision of good drinking water; safety of lives and security of properties; and such other demands which the leadership’s routine neglect and pretence have accorded continuing relevance across the tiers in our immediate Nigeria milieu. But again, the issue is not entirely how quick will expectations be met, but even how far will remedies when offered would also last?
Motorable access roads in communities
As often generally acknowledged, the last administration of Governor Kayode Fayemi had, through its popular urban renewal initiative instituted lasting changes in road infrastructure in the state. All major roads in Ado and across other 132 towns and communities in the state have either been rehabilitated or reconstructed, while link roads through the towns have been generously attended to.
But the tales and experiences in the communities within Ado township much as elsewhere in other towns in the state, have remained baleful.
The jutting-jangling of movements resulting from erosion-afflicted passages and ways had constrained vehicle-using house owners in communities from Basiri-Nova area on Iyin road to Ajebandele on Ikere road, and other areas of the capital often to abandon the luxury of such blessings metres away from their homes and seek less pleasant alternatives.
Lamenting the fate of unmotorable link roads within the communities, Chief Nnamdi Iwuchukwu, a resident of Oke-Ala/Oseromi Church area in Basiri area maintained “Our major problem here is road. Next to it is electricity supply. The roads have been the trouble for us as long we came to settle”.
According to him, the situation has so many effects which he noted included denials of access to places; high cost of maintenance of automobiles; parking vehicles at distances and making do with alternatives like trekking or using commercial motorcycles to access locations.
Nnamdi’s words: “Most of those living anywhere here from Basiri to communities on Nova Road can no more drive their vehicles to their houses. Go and find out, the roads are just too bad. Although the last governor (Fayemi) tried on the major roads, the ones in the inner communities need to be given attention now.
“Even those who insist on managing the roads come to regrets almost all the time. Their vehicles spoil too often, constraining them to consulting the mechanics every other day. What really is the enjoyment in having a car when someone would seek the grace of the mechanic too often?”
“The new governor should assist us. We park our cars somewhere else and trek down to our houses. If we have loads to move to the houses from the vehicles, we carry them on our heads or we hire Okada (commercial motorcycles)”, he said.
As a way out, Nnamdi explained that “I know constructing drainages to channel the paths of flood will help the roads. I am not an engineer but if the government can construct drainage channels on the roads, the problem would be greatly solved. Just as the last government had focused on major roads, let Fayose concentrate on the roads within and between communities. We will be happy”.
The hills and the urgency of dredging
Findings however confirm that a major contributor to the worrisome situation of roads is the surrounding hills in most communities which channel flood water down the hillsides at a speed which must wash away road portions, rendering them most often impassable and their very habitations deluged.
Residents especially around Oke Ala said when floods rush down the hills, they also pack heavy quantity of sand alongside other debris onto the Iyin-Ado express road, a situation which almost always impose tasks on residents who often battle to clear away such dangerous debris off the road.
Nnamdi said: “Whenever heavy rain falls, large quantity of sand are washed unto the main Basiri Road which also tends to weaken the road at such unfortunate portions. But the sand can lie there unattended for days before someone comes to clear it away.
“As I have said, the solution is constructing drainage channels for access roads across the communities. These will also lengthen the survival span of the major roads that have been constructed”.
Regarding equal necessity of dredging to expand the path of flood, Idowu, a resident of Alafiatayo Street on Nova Road explained that when flood paths were constrained, the result had often been to find their ways anyhow with devastating results.
Her words: “Flood has done a lot of damage to us in this area as it had done in other areas in Ado-Ekiti and elsewhere in the state. Whatever any government does, if adequate attention is not accorded dredging, we will continue to suffer flood effects.
“Imagine the volume of flood water coming from Basiri, passing through Nova area up to Bawa Estate on Adebayo-Iworoko road and environs and the common effects it has been having on residents. The state government would have to take dredging more seriously if it actually wished to stop the experiences of devastations by flood during rains which have led to losses of both lives and properties.
Electricity supply/power generation
Recognising the extreme imperative of electricity supply to enhancing peoples’ empowerment/employment which he had popularly tagged ‘stomach infrastructure’, Governor Fayose at a maiden interaction with journalists after the June 21 election, maintained: “While it will not be practical or possible for me to promise to industrialise Ekiti, what I will do is to support available infrastructure to boost supply. This will help the artisans and attract investors”.
Indeed, the electricity situation in Ado, based both on experience and general opinion, has lately been parlous, with unsavoury tales of gridlock oozing as much from residents as from small scale industrialists, artisans and hoteliers.
Findings among residents, especially among the artisans and hoteliers, confirm the lack of electricity supply in Ado during normal work hours. The state capital was lately on permanent and unbroken black-out for six weeks.
The General Manager, Prosperous Royal Hotels and Suites in the capital, Tope Akinlaja, lamented that “Absence of electricity is the only major challenge facing all businesses here in Ado-Ekiti”.
Akinlaja said: “We hoteliers have been particularly hit by the problem of inadequate power supply, a situation which has forced us to run diesel-powered generators day and night with attendant effects on cost of our services. Most of our services would be less in cost by at least 25 per cent if electricity supply is better assured.
“The trend is already having an impact. While most businesses have wound up, the few available ones are reeling under insufficient public-owned electricity supply.
He equally clarified that individually and collectively, efforts have been made to see to the improvement of supplies to no avail.
“We have visited the Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC) to no avail”. If the new administration can meet with the suppliers, they will say what the problem is and what to do for us to have the change we need”, Akinlaja said.
Provision of drinking water
Despite huge attention of the last administration in Ekiti State to improving residents’ access to good drinking water through multi-layered policies and programmes, not much was availed as residents, especially in. Ado-Ekiti still sought water through non-public, often unsafe, arrangements.
This much was admitted by the Special Adviser to the former governor on Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Mrs Bunmi Dipo Salami, who attributed the development to the ageing water infrastructure instituted by past administrations and the huge cost needed for reversals.
The issue came up recently at a two-day International Experts Seminar on Water tagged ‘Water-Tech 2014’ where participants agreed that Ekiti would do with tailor-made solutions for different communities making up the state.
Speaking at the Seminar, National President of Association of Waterwell Drilling Rig Owners and Practitioners, Mr. Michael Ale, maintained it was an unworkable system to lay pipes to connect different communities when rocky hills feature the landscape everywhere.
Ale said the solution to the problem would come through sinking of boreholes for each of the communities which can then be encouraged to maintain the facilities through their own individual arrangements.
His words: “The geological features of Ekiti contribute to the reason the state doesn’t have water. If you see the undulating nature, it is not because the government is not doing its part”.
He tasked the Federal and State Governments on the need to increase access to portable water by brokering partnerships with competent local and foreign experts, adding the experience of the experts count for desirable solution.
Ale equally urged the State governor to see the importance of water to livelihood and achievement of his stomach infrastructure programme for the people.
He said: “His Excellence believes in stomach infrastructure. Stomach Infrastructure is 70 percent water because you can’t eat raw food or meat”, he said.
Safety and security of life property
The last administration went distances to improve the security situation in the state beyond where it met same on assuming headship in October 2010.
As often noted by then Governor Fayemi and acknowledged by many residents, there was marked and significant improvement upon the “one week, one trouble” phase which typified life then in the state.
To achieve this, it would be recalled, the governor donated about 40 well-kitted vans for day and night surveillance and patrols by the police and also commissioned a N20 million worth Security and Alert System to enable the Police monitor, through a control room located within the precincts of its headquarters, security situation especially in Ado-Ekiti.
Immediately noticeable then was the reduction in day-time armed robbery attacks in the capital in the period which spanned three years and which still subsists till now.
But crime rate across the hinterland and within communities has remained unbearably high, findings have shown. Few weeks ago, dare-devil bandits waylaid an Ibadan bound bus on Igbaraodo road, shot some occupants and made away with about N1.5 million, a development which was strangely denied by the police.
Fayose, who himself had recognised the need to sustain attainments of the last administration in the area of security, is being urged by residents to support existing infrastructure to improve the situation in the inner communities.
A resident who craved confidentiality said: “Though the situation is not like before, burglars and robbers are still very much around in Ado and do very well operate on inter-township roads.
“In Ado, they have continued to operate in areas like Odo-Ado, Dalimore, Oriire and Omisanjana areas where many residents have lost valuables and sustained gunshot wounds to the marauding hoodlums. Fayose needs to meet with police authorities to change this situation”, he said.
