The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Ekiti

  • Ekiti APC: compensate market fire victims

    Ekiti APC: compensate market fire victims

    The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ekiti State has written to the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) to assist traders, who suffered losses when the Ado-Ekiti Main Market was gutted by fire in May.

    The former Speaker of the House of Assembly and a governorship aspirant, Femi Bamisile, who notified NEMA on behalf of the party, assured the traders that the agency would soon give them relief materials.

    He visited the market on an assessment tour at the weekend where he sympathised with the traders.

    The APC chieftain distributed petrol to about 250 commercial motorcyclists in the capital.

    He said the step became necessary, following complaints by the traders that some of them were excluded from the compensation package of the government.

    The ex-Speaker decried the government for the alleged selective compensation, which he described as “wicked and unpatriotic.” He condemned government’s plan to relocate the traders without giving them a viable alternative.

    Bamisile lambasted the Ayo Fayose administration for making the public to believe that the fire victims had been compensated.He said the APC-led Federal Government was responsive to the suffering of the masses, adding that it would do everything to make life easier for them.

    His words: “President Buhari’s government is for the masses. We won’t allow you to suffer just because your means of livelihood was consumed by fire.

    “I assure you that within the next 30 days, the relief will come. Our party would have done this earlier, but for the fact that the government publicised that you had been compensated. This deception shows the failure of governance and we will address it.

    “I have seen your pains and I have faith that the Buhari’s government to do the needful. The present government at the centre is different from other governments. The President runs a people-oriented programme and we are sure that the Federal Government will soon put smiles on your faces.

    “We have written to NEMA on your behalf and what I have seen here is as if the whole market was burnt. I have been told that 180 shops are affected and we will take an inventory of the goods that got burnt. My interest is to come and sympathise with you.”

    Two of the victims, Mrs Tijani Hafsat and Alhaja Taibat Bilau, who lost about N7 million property in the inferno, said they did not benefit from the state government compensation.

    They said they relied on trading as a means of livelihood and that it would be disastrous for them to be left without help.

  • Ekiti proposes life jail for kidnappers

    Ekiti proposes life jail for kidnappers

    The Ekiti State government has forwarded a bill to the House of Assembly proposing life imprisonment for any individual convicted of kidnapping in the state.

    The proposed anti-kidnapping law was one of the decisions reached at the State Executive Council presided over by the Deputy Governor, Dr. Kolapo Olusola.

    Briefing the press on Friday after the meeting, the Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Owoseni Ajayi, explained that the proposed law would halt the trend of kidnapping which reached an alarming proportion in the state between May and June.

    Ajayi stated that the law also proposed that all moveable properties used by the abductors would be confiscated by the state government.

    The Justice Commissioner said the state government considered the act of kidnapping, which is now rampart, as a serious social menace which must be discouraged and curtailed with a stern penalty that would curb the perpetrators and their collaborators before it gets out of hand.

    He also disclosed that the government had decided to review the tenure of local government officials from three years to two years to enhance more effective participatory governance at the grassroots.

    Ajayi added that the establishment of the Office of Public Defenders was also considered to enable the indigent with criminal cases have access to fair hearing by providing legal representation for them.

    According to the Attorney-General, all the bills had been prepared and would be sent to the Ekiti State House of Assembly in earnest for deliberation and passage into laws.

    Also briefing the press, the Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Kola Kolade, said the Council approval of Prince Ajayi Oluwasesan Omolagba of Odanaogun Ruling House as the new Oba to occupy the stool of the Alasa of Ilasa-Ekiti which has been vacant since 1st October, 2012.

    Prince Adetiba Jimoh Oluwagbemiga of Ogbalegbojuotupe Ruling House was approved to occupy the stool of the Ajagun of Ilumoba-Ekiti which has been vacant since 30th July, 2009.

    According to Kolade, all the necessary traditional and legal rules and procedures were critically considered and followed before the approval.

    The Commissioner for Works and Transport, Kayode Oso, said that the State Executive Council also approved the reconstruction of the failed culverts at Iwesu River and the bridge in Otun-Ekiti which had become a death trap to the people and commuters plying the area.

  • Ekiti teaching hospital staff trained abroad on patient management

    Ekiti teaching hospital staff trained abroad on patient management

    Thirty-four members of staff of Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital (EKSUTH) have undergone a five-day training to equip them for better service delivery.

    The training, which was organised by JFC Training College, London, United Kingdom, was aimed at making the workers imbibe new techniques in handling patients and conforming with the basic international health and safety regulations.

    In most of the health institutions in Nigeria, nurses, physiotherapists and doctors move patients in bed, wards and around the hospital manually, which poses problems to the staff and the patients.

    Moving and handling patients requires techniques which would also reduce the rate at which doctors, nurses, physiotherapists and other caregivers complain of backache while health workers should also be protected against infections.

    A team of resource persons who are experts in the fields of health and social care, first aid health and safety among others took the EKSUTH workers through practical and theoretical aspects of handling patients in line with modern practices.

    At the certificates presentation to the participants, Programme Facilitator, Prince Bisi Oyedele, described the performance of  workers during the training as “fantastic.”

    He said having undergone the training, EKSUTH workers are now competent to practise what they have learnt and urged the hospital management to provide them with equipment.

    The class governor of the participants, Dr. Taye Ige, thanked the management for organising the training, describing EKSUTH Chief Medical Director, Dr. Kolawole Ogundipe, as a “man of vision who stands by his words and a man who wants results.”

    Ige also extolled the virtues of the facilitator whom he described as “a good teacher and a man dedicated to knowledge.”

    Some staff said the training has empowered them and opened their eyes to the best new practices in handling patients.

    Dr. Emmanuel Toyin Adeleye of the Department of Internal Medicine said the training was all-encompassing and timely, noting that it has enriched their knowledge to add value to healthcare delivery.

    He continued: “The training was all-encompassing; it’s like meeting the needs of the time, getting the participants abreast of what’s needed on patient management.

    “This type of training is bringing us on the front page like other centres of excellence on patient management. It is beneficial to the community, to the hospital and to the workers.”

    Mrs. Abimbola Aladete of the Department of Paediatrics said training was very interesting.

    She said it was packed with various teachings on health and support, legal implications on injuries that can be sustained by patients, moving and handling of patients by means of instruments not common in the country.

    Mrs. Aladete said: “We have been here between Monday and Friday mornings and evenings. They are things we have known before but taking new shape makes us to see the programme as not tiring.

    “We learnt new techniques about first aid, essential treatment that can be given to people, even neighbours when faced with emergencies. We are privileged to be part of this programme.”

    Programme Facilitator, Prince Oyedele, in a chat with The Nation said the skills and knowledge gained at the training would positively rub off on EKSUTH as participants are expected to share knowledge with co-workers.

    Oyedele said further: “It is not just about moving and handling patients around, we have international best practices on health and safety, first and both theory and practical aspects.

    “This week has been so fantastic; you can see that they really need this in terms of their cooperation and patience in this class.

    “We have doctors, consultants, pharmacists, physiotherapists, laboratory technicians and virtually every department has been touched including security of environment of themselves and that of patients.”

    EKSUTH CMD, Dr. Ogundipe, said training and retraining of staff occupy a front burner in his development agenda for the health institution even though little resources are available in the state at present.

    He said: “We appreciate the fact that we don’t have so much resources in Ekiti State but we admit that in terms of healthcare delivery, Ekiti State is better than many of these states that have resources.

    “That is why we have put up this training, in some places, they have equipment but no manpower while in others they have manpower but no equipment.

    “We are discussing with the governor and he is excited to make this hospital comply with the latest trends. We have also made calls to philanthropists home and abroad.

    “Our aim is to ensure that all the staff are trained towards handling patients and those trained now will also help train others.

    “We are able to ask for  more people to be trained to so that the rest can benefit.”

  • Ekiti Kete, how market?

    Nothing more perhaps, depicts the starkness of Ayo Fayose’s Ekiti, than two pictures, of two governors, from two states, with two contrasting tempers: one forward-looking, the other firmly fixed in the past.

    Kaduna’s Nasir El-Rufai: with construction experts, at some work site, studying a sheaf of diagrams.  The imaging?  A 21st century futuristic governor.

    Ekiti’s Ayo Fayose: at an Ado Ekiti market, pricing ponmo and allied orisirisi, with his darling hoi polloi roaring; and salivating a putative life-time treat of gubernatorial stew!  Abiding image: a crude throw-back into the Medieval, if not outright, Stone ages!

    Yet, El-Rufai and Fayose are governors in today’s Nigeria.

    Ekiti Kete, famed land of professors, how market?

    Fayose, no doubt, is a master of full emptiness.  When the  barbarians over-ran Alexandria in ancient Egypt, their public enemy number one was the 700,000-scroll Royal Library of Alexandria.  So pronto, they razed it, for nothing scares a barren mind more than even the most routine of ideas.

    Like Barbarians in Egypt, like Fayose in Ekiti.  So, when others levitate the clouds for ideas, seeking solutions to developmental problems, Fayose plumbs deep into empty stunts, stunts he hopes would tantalise his people, and freeze their thinking, even but for a little longer.

    This is why El-Rufai would study maps; and Fayose would, with glee, price ponmo!

    Ekiti Kete, how market?

    Indeed, in Fayose’s Ekiti, it would appear morning yet on a long, long night.  At the beginning, it was loud emptiness muscling out quiet ideas.  But now, it is equal-opportunity vacuity, of different shapes and sizes, and rippling muscles, in a vicious combat for hegemony.  Fayose, formerly undisputed lord of manor, is therefore constrained to up the ante.

    First, a bitter rival for public attention rather audaciously decided to beat Fayose to his own game.  At his first coming, Fayose dazzled Ekiti with tanker loads of free water, the water of forgetfulness, which Ekiti drank to forget its essence.  By the time they woke from the watery drug, Ekiti Kete was almost undone.

    Now, that rival has reached for the jugular, Fayose’s beloved Okada riders, and declared free fuel for all, in this jungle of rough-and-tumble politics.  When the dust cleared, the riders reportedly declared themselves ready to be spoilt silly by whoever supplied free petrol, even — heresy of heresy — asking Fayose to stand up for the new champion of dramatic emptiness!

    Then, a renegade former “Speaker”, who was a rebuke to the law, his own conscience, decency and even common sense, suddenly remembered he had principles, alleging that he was a victim of Fayose’s use-and-dump tactics!  He declared himself liberated from Fayose’s potent spell of one-man show.

    Even, some elements in the Ekiti Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have joined the restiveness, with a splinter group and youth vanguard declaring themselves ready to confront the hitherto popular — more of notorious — Leviathan of Ekiti streets.

    Geez, the Fayose revolution seems set to devour own scions!

    But for the rambunctious Fayose, it is time to up the emptiness.  First, was the ponmo show, of the latest gubernatorial cook in town, boasting a glittering CV of an illustrious career as Danfo driver.

    Then, the latest outpouring of gubernatorial tomfoolery: the appointment of a 72-year-old reported “illiterate” as local government caretaker chairman, with a graduate as blissful personal assistant!  Whatever the illiterate lacked, the graduate sidekick can make up, right?

    Can any contender, in all of Ekiti, beat this audaciously dramatic gubernatorial clowning?

    Ekiti Kete, how market?

  • Youths protest corruption in Ekiti

    Youths protest corruption in Ekiti

    •Urge Buhari to sustain anti-graft war

    President Muhammadu Buhari’s anti-corruption crusade has received the endorsement of youths in Ekiti State.

    They have launched a movement to free the nation from the grip of graft.

    Acting under the aegis of Youth Against Corruption, the youth urged the President to be resolute in ensuring that those who looted public treasury were prosecuted and compelled to refund the stolen money.

    The youth, who carried placards, decried corruption, which they identified as the harbinger of poverty, crime, unemployment, underdevelopment and other ills afflicting the polity.

    They said it was regrettable that corruption had robbed the country of development and impoverished the citizens.

    Addressing a news briefing in Ado Ekiti yesterday, the group’s coordinator, Femi Ogundare, said it was sad  that Nigeria retained its place among the most corrupt countries 15 years after coming last in the Corruption Perception Index of the global anti-corruption watchdog, Transparency International (TI).

    He said: “Corruption is the biggest challenge Nigerians are facing. In 2000, Transparency International carried out a survey on corruption level in 90 countries. At the end, Nigeria was ranked the most corrupt.

    “In the latest ranking by TI last year, Nigeria was ranked 136th of the 174th  surveyed countries. Mathematically, it shows that Nigeria is the 38th  most corrupt country in 2014. This result is unacceptable and must be challenged by youths.”

  • Photo: Kneeling, prostrating civil servants pleading with Fayose

    Photo: Kneeling, prostrating civil servants pleading with Fayose

    Civil servants who arrived late for work at the Ekiti State Secretariat pleading with Governor Ayo Fayose on Monday . Photo: Lere Layinka
    Civil servants who arrived late for work at the Ekiti State Secretariat pleading with Governor Ayo Fayose on Monday . Photo: Lere Layinka
  • N338b loans for Ekiti, Oyo, Kwara, Ondo, Osun, others

    N338b loans for Ekiti, Oyo, Kwara, Ondo, Osun, others

    CBN-backed cash ready for 27 states to pay workers

    Cash-strapped workers who are being owed salaries are set to smile again, with the disbursement of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) – backed bailout loans for states.

    Fourteen banks are disbursing N338 billion “to stimulate the economy”.

    Kwara and Zamfara have received their loans and have begun the payment of salary arrears to workers.

    A CBN source confirmed that the other states will get the cash this week.

    A breakdown of the loans repayable at an interest rate of nine per cent over 20 years is as follows:

    Abia- N14.152b; Adamawa- N2.378b; Bauchi- N8.60b; Bayelsa – N1.285b; Benue – N28.013b;

    Borno – N7.680b; Cross River – N7.856b; Delta – N10.036b; Ebonyi – N4.063b; Edo – N3.167b; Ekiti – N9.604b; Enugu – 4.207b; Gombe – N16.459b; Imo – N26.806b; Katsina – N3.304b; Kebbi – N0.690b; Kogi – N50.842b; Kwara – N4.320b; Nasarawa – N8.317b; Niger – N4.306b; Ogun – N20.00b; Ondo – N14.686b; Osun – N34.988b; Oyo – N26.606b; Plateau – N5.357b; Sokoto – N10.093b and Zamfara – N10.020b.

    The CBN last week announced that it had approved that Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) lend money to requesting states to pay salary arrears owed their workers.

    Some of the conditions for accessing the loan include:

    • resolutions of the State Executive Council authorising the borrowing;
    • State House of Assembly consenting to the loan package; and
    • issuance of Irrevocable Standing Payment Order (ISPO) to ensure timely repayment.

    With the signing of the  ISPO, “it is clear that the facility is not free as the states’ financial exposure to the banks becomes first line charges deducted from their monthly allocation”.

    The CBN official explained that specific figures were attached to the facilities to be disbursed to the states is because “every state is to come up with its specific needs in order to access the facility from the commercial banks. They’re (states) working out what they need from the banks according to the conditions they reached with the banks”.

    The decision to borrow money from commercial banks is sequel to the decision by the National Executive Council (NEC) at its June 29 meeting, requesting the CBN “in collaboration with other stakeholders to appraise and consider ways of liquidating the outstanding staff salaries owed by state and local governments.”

    The Buhari administration announced a bailout package for states to take care of the backlog of workers’ salaries and access funds for development through the rescheduling of their debts by banks with the CBN’s guarantee.

    Eleven states have had their commercial debts to DMBs restructured with a proviso to pay 14.83 per cent of the value of their bonds which their commercial debts were converted to. Eleven others are also to have theirs restructured.

    Debt Management Office (DMO) Director-General Abraham Nwankwo said “the restructuring was effected using a re-opening of the FGN-Bond issued on July 18, 2015 and maturing on July 18, 2034. The pricing was based on the yield to date of the bond at a 30-day average, resulting in a transaction yield of 14.83 per cent.”The impact of the restructured states’ commercial debts to domestic bonds, he said, is that “management operations will include: monthly debt service burden will drop by a minimum of 55 per cent and a maximum of 97 per cent, among the 11; and interest rate savings for the 11 states ranging from 3 per cent to 9 per cent per annum.”

  • APC faults Fayose’s ‘tax burden’ on Ekiti

    APC faults Fayose’s ‘tax burden’ on Ekiti

    Ekiti State All Progressives Congress (APC) has faulted a new regime of taxes and levies imposed on residents by Governor Ayo Fayose.

    The party, which said the new taxes and levies would make life unbearable for the residents, added that imposition of higher taxes on Ekiti people was contrary to the electoral promises made to them by Fayose before the June 21, 2014 governorship election.

    The governor, APC said, pledged to execute policies to make life easier for the electorate.

    Fayose had while featuring on his monthly media chat, “Meet Your Governor”, on Friday announced a series of new taxes payable by private schools, business owners, house developers, traders, butchers, corporate organisations and other segment of the population.

    The governor said the new taxes and levies were sacrifices people must offer to assist his administration to meet their yearnings following the shortfall in the allocations received from the Federation Account, which, he said, could only pay workers’ salaries.

    Reacting to the new regime of taxes and levies, the APC, in a statement yesterday by its spokesman, Taiwo Olatunbosun, said Fayose, by his action, had shown that he was not a friend of the common man as he claimed to be.

    Olatunbosun regretted that 10 months on, what Ekiti people saw was a reversal of fortunes under “an administration that has made deceit and lies as official policies of administration”.

    He said Fayose had allegedly turned Ekiti people to puns in a political chess game, regretting that the people with prospects for success in their calling had been turned into “babies without reason”.

    Olatunbosun said: “What we have experienced in the hands of Governor Fayose is turning Ekiti people to babies without reason. He believes Ekiti people have no capacity for reasoning or that they have short memories and incapable of knowing their rights or that they can easily be incapacitated to insist on their rights.

    “This we have seen in his reckless breaking of promises to the people in the last 10 months of his administration after running down his opponent’s life-lifting policies with the promise that Ekiti people’s lives would be better under his administration, if voted into power.

    “Fayose promised market women freedom to ply their trade anywhere they wished, saying he would not bother them with taxes or chase them with the environmental task force.”

    He added: “But today, Fayose is not only chasing them away from their trading points, he is also destroying their wares, including pepper and tomatoes, and imposing unbearable taxes that the traders cannot afford if they are to make any profit while market women are also being dislodged from their stalls and heavy fees imposed on them to acquire stalls in the new market he is planning to build.

    “How much does a poor pepper and tomatoes seller makes that the governor is asking them to pay the magnitude of taxes he is imposing on them?

    “As we speak, he is planning to force uniform to be supplied by the government on commercial motorcyclists at a fee while also planning to be collecting taxes from the okada operators, who he promised free reign during his campaigns, the same way he wants to be collecting tax on each cow slaughtered a day by butchers, who cry out over low daily sales.

    “Unfortunately, it is the children of these same poor people that Fayose has imposed education levies and examination fees in both primary and secondary schools on the excuse that it is those that don’t pay for their education that fail in their examinations and we wonder whether Yoruba people that didn’t pay for their education during Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s free education days didn’t pass their examinations or whether beneficiaries of that free education are now failures in their communities.”

    Olatunbosun, who described the governor’s action as “callous and reckless”, said breaking promises made to the electorate did not portray the governor as possessing the needed integrity to take Ekiti to greater heights.

    The APC spokesman said rather than build on the policies of the immediate past administration aimed at giving economic empowerment to the people, Fayose not only cancelled them, but is now adding to their burden.

    He regretted that the beneficiaries of the economic empowerment initiatives of the immediate past administration had been left in the lurch while those promised by Fayose during electioneering campaign had been fooled and made to wait for Manna that might not come.

    Olatunbosun added: “Fayose, while vilifying Governor Kayode Fayemi for paying what he (Fayose) called a ‘pittance’ of N5,000 to Ekiti elderly people, promised during his campaigns to increase their monthly pay to N10,000 while also promising youths thousands of jobs and asked them to submit their application letters at his campaign office at his Spotless Hotel.

    “Today, Fayose has cancelled the social security scheme for the elderly and the poor elderly people that cherished Fayemi’s gesture to ensure their sustenance now live on charity and some in hopelessness.

    “The application letters he asked youths to write and submit at his campaign office are now common wrappers with groundnut sellers on the streets of Ado-Ekiti, thus creating double tragedy for Ekiti youths.

    “For instance, the youth engaged in commercial agriculture production receiving sponsorship by Fayemi’s administration have been sent packing, same with thousands of youths in volunteer corps and hundreds of youths engaged in traffic management.

    “Youth entrepreneurial and apprenticeship scheme by Fayemi that could make youths employers of labour has also been cancelled by Fayose and in their place, he introduced stomach infrastructure that gives a measure of rice and three-month-old fowls to Ekiti people every Christmas.”

  • Ekiti disburses N144m vehicle/housing loans to teachers

    •Govt vows to demolish illegal structures

    Ekiti State Government has disbursed N144 million as vehicle and housing loans to 712 teaching and non-teaching workers in public schools.

    Commissioner for Finance and Economic Development Toyin Ojo, who said this in Ado Ekiti at the weekend, added that N63 million of the amount was disbursed as car loans to 257 teaching and non-teaching personnel according to their grade levels.

    He explained that the vehicle loans range from N250, 000 to N1million for benefitting teachers on grade Level 7 to 16. Junior non-teaching staff from Grade Level 1 to 6  received  N70, 000.

    Ojo said the balance of N81million was disbursed as first and second tranche of housing loans to 455 teaching and non-teaching workers.

    He noted that Governor Ayo Fayose had last month approved the disbursement of N119 million as car loans to 623 workers in the state public service in spite of the prevailing paucity of funds.

    The commissioner explained that the gesture would reduce the burden of obtaining bank loans with its attendant high interest rate among the beneficiaries.

    He assured that the exercise would be continuous, saying that all interested teachers would benefit from the schemes.

    The state government has served a notice to demolish all ‘illegal attachments’ to shops in all markets in Ado-Ekiti, the state capital.

    Commissioner for Lands, Housing and Urban Development, Taelolu Otitoju, gave the warning in Ado-Ekiti during the official opening of five blocks of four lock-up shops at the Oja Bisi market in Ado-Ekiti.

    He said the illegal extensions to the shops without approval and erection of kiosks under power lines were unwholesome and constitute grave danger to the people.

    Princess Adebisi Aderonke pledged on behalf of the other market women to comply with the rules and regulations in the agreement signed with the state government.

  • N20 million for Ekiti artisans

    Ekiti State Government has earmarked N20 million as soft loans for artisans, just as it declared August 6 as Artisans’ Day to appreciate their contributions to the development of the state.

    Also, the state government will soon set up a board to promote the activities of artisans in various fields and incorporate them into its developmental plan.

    Governor Ayo Fayose, who stated this during a meeting he had with artisans in Ado-Ekiti said the role of artisans could not be over-emphasised.

    Fayose said the initial seed money for the soft loans would be N10 million and that the remaining sum would be added later.

    He added that each artisan would be entitled to a maximum of N50, 000 and that they would be given two weeks grace before they begin weekly repayment of N1, 000.

    The President of Ekiti Artisans Association, Mr J.O. Adu, praised Governor Fayose for his support to his members, even as he requested further assistance. This is just as the organised labour in Ekiti State has appreciated Governor Fayose for his love for workers.