The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Fayemi

  • Fayemi: transparency attracts partners

    Ekiti State Governor Kayode Fayemi has said the state would attract more support from development partners if the level of transparency and public accountability is maintained.

    He spoke at a workshop organised by the Office of the Accountant-General in collaboration with Ernest and Young Accounting Firm as well as the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accounting.

    Fayemi said his administration would institutionalise transparency and accountability.

    Speaking through the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Finance, Mr. Philip Amujo, the governor said his administration’s eight-point agenda was designed to achieve good governance and improve the life of the people.

    Fayemi said public record is available to the public on demand, adding that the state was the first to domesticate the Freedom of Information (FoI) law.

    He praised the directive of the Accountant-General and the Auditor-General of the Federation that public institutions should adopt the International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS) to ensure a uniform accounting system in the three tiers of government and the private sector.

    Ekiti State Accountant-General Ayoola Owolabi said implementing IPSAS would engender the adoption of accrual basis accounting, transparency, reliability, uniformity, accountability and integrity of financial reporting.

    He said the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) Act, 2012, was enacted to develop unified global accounting standards and domesticate international best practices.

    Owolabi urged accountants, auditors and budget and planning officers in the public service to be abreast of the new development in order to function effectively.

    The Regional Managing Partner of Ernest and Young, West Africa, Mr. Henry, said his company was encouraged to support Ekiti due to the performance of the Fayemi administration.

     

  • Fayemi’s EKSU lecture: My generation’s position

    SIR: Recently, the Governor of Ekiti State, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, delivered a lecture titled “Reflections on Values and the Building of A Successor Generation in Nigeria” at the Ekiti State University, Ado-Ekiti where he talked extensively about the need to build a successor generation and the values befitting of such a generation.

    Going through the text of the lecture, I couldn’t but present the position of my generation – the younger generation. The truth is, my generation is not aware of any successor generation in the making.

    My generation knows three (3) generations in Nigeria:. The first is the real generation. This is the first generation of educated and prominent Nigerians, the generation of the likes of Herbert Macaulay, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Nnamdi Azikwe, Anthony Enahoro, Tafawa Balewa…This is the generation that worked for and witnessed the birth of the entity called Nigeria. This generation loved Nigeria and Nigerians so much so that it gave the next generation free education, first Television station in Africa, Cocoa House Ibadan and many more. This generation carefully planned for its young by ensuring that education became a right and not a privilege. Unfortunately, the military did not allow this generation to finish its good work.

    The second is the their generation. This generation rates itself as the best in everything while shrouding its activities in secrecy and creating the impression that my generation (the younger generation) is unfit and out-of-place. Ironically, this is the generation that the likes of Baba Awolowo gave all to mentor – the generation that goes to class in the morning only to return and find its room swept and its bed laid. This is the generation that enjoyed free education, had enough freedom to indulge in campus politics and from there found their different leanings whether as marxists, capitalists, socialists… This is the generation that Nigeria gave almost all to make comfortable, but is now giving out nothing to the generation after it, save hardships, stifling poverty, mental degradation…

    Reknowned playwright Wole Soyinka tags this generation a wasted one, but I’d rather call it a wasted and a wasting generation.

    My generation feels the hard sole of the boots of the members of this generation. Rather than mentor, they are taming my generation to act and think like zombies. My generation remains a boy at 30 because he still stays with his parents and because no one asks his opinions even in matters that solely concern him. Erudite Professor Jide Osuntokun during the lecture noted that the problem with his generation is that it plans for my generation without making us (youth) stakeholders in such plans.

    The question is, how would they know what my generation knows when they never ask or involve us? Instead, they mock us for attending ill-equipped schools which in fact were made so by the several unworkable greedily conceived policies of their generation.

    My generation has been left to founder and flounder. While the thugs among us are being rewarded by their generation, we, the good and cultured ones, watch helplessly, hoping hopelessly against hope that someday someone somewhere would remember and honour our talents, potentials and loyalty.

    Let us continue to question, challenge and reject the decision of their generation to keep rewarding the thugs among us while the cerebral ones are daily scorned.

     

    • Fola Davies

    Ikere, Ekiti State

  • Tambuwal, Fayemi seek global efforts on insecurity in Africa

    Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Aminu Tambuwal and Ekiti State Governor,’ Dr Kayode Fayemi, have drawn global attention to insecurity in some parts of Africa.

    They said tackling insecurity in the continent requires urgent intervention of world leaders.

    Tambuwal and Fayemi spoke in Brussels, Belgium at the weekend during the opening session of the Crans Montana forum with the theme: “The impact of Sahelo-Saharan crisis on African security, economy and political stability.”

    Tambuwal, who chaired the session, observed that the crises in the Sahelian region of Mali, Cote d’Ivoire, Libya and Sudan as well as Boko Haram in Nigeria required global efforts to address instead of reducing them to problems for the affected countries.

    He commended the organisers of the forum for “providing a platform where people from across the world come together to discuss how to make Africa a better place to live.”

    The Speaker said: “Being the emerging economy that we all agree that it is, the security upheavals in Africa, especially the Sahelian region, have to be addressed. We have to discuss and proffer solutions to the problem.”

    Fayemi, who was one of the main speakers at the forum, spoke on the Boko Haram perspective to insecurity in parts of northern Nigeria.

    For Nigeria, Fayemi noted that the Boko Haram menace gained momentum because the government had not demonstrated the seriousness to identify and penalise suspects to serve as a deterrent.

    Fayemi identified the three strands of Boko Haram, which he described as economic Boko Haram, political Boko Haram and religious Boko Haram.

    The governor claimed that out of the three, the economic Boko Haram was more devastating because lack of economic opportunities had made it possible for those with political and religious agenda to exploit an army of idle hands to recruit for their selfish intentions.

    The governor said: “To find solutions, therefore, there has to be a holistic and international response.”

     

  • Why Ekiti opted for cargo airport, by Fayemi

    EKITI State Governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi, has said that the state is committed to its plan to build a cargo airport.

    When completed, he said the airport will aid transportation of agricultural products to Lagos and other big markets in the country.

    The governor, who spoke at the opening session of the Strategic Growth Forum Africa, 2013 in Cape Town, South Africa, said the main target of the state’s huge investment and partnership in agric business is to corner a sizeable portion of the Lagos food market.

    The Lagos food market is put conservatively at N3 billion per day.

    Fayemi revealed that asides the airport, which will aid movement of goods and persons, Ekiti State has also concluded plans to build an agric conditioning centre near the airport.

    Fayemi, who addressed investors, financiers and businessmen from across the continent, said the state is focusing more on cassava and rice cultivation.

    He pointed out that incentives have been provided for its crop of young commercial farmers as well as international companies in partnership with the state.

    Other areas of interests, according to him, include the extractive industries, wood processing and eco tourism.

    Stressing the state has put in place mechanism that will aid safety of investment, the governor said the state had put in place relevant laws that guarantee the safety of investment.

    He added that the return of many international development agencies to the state is a proof that the state is a good place to do business.

     

  • Fayemi teaches English for 35 minutes

    •Governor gives pupils 300 dictionaries

    Mud houses are found in small towns and villages. Such houses too are either round or rectangular in shape. The round ones have roofs with a window each but the rectangular ones have mostly old rusty roofing sheet. Modern houses in the south are of different shapes and sizes”, this is part of the passage read by Ekiti State Governor Kayode Fayemi to pupils of St. James’ Anglican Primary School, Ado-Ekiti, yesterday as he inaugurated the maiden edition of the Reading Parent organised by the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB).

    The programme is designed to improve the reading skills of primary school pupils.

    Reading a comprehension passage on “Types of Houses in our Country” from page 79 of the Macmillan New Primary English, Book 5, Fayemi engaged Primary 5 pupils for 35 minutes and asked them questions on the passage.

    When the English period was over, he handed out 300 copies of the New Modern English Dictionary to the pupils and urged them to look up the meaning of words in the dictionary.

    Speaking on the performance of the pupils, the governor said it shows that the education sector has improved considerably, adding that the investment of his administration in the sector has not been a waste.

    He expressed confidence that the pupils would perform well in next year’s Common Entrance examination, given their response to the comprehension passage.

    Restating his administration’s commitment to the provision of affordable and quality education, Fayemi said quality education is the right of all school-age children and should not be seen as the privilege of the rich, who can afford private education.

    He said public school education has produced more quality products and explained that education is a tool to banish poverty as it facilitates innovation for development.

    Fayemi said the reading programme would be sustained, adding that commissioners, directors and headteachers, among others, would be going to schools to encourage pupils and teach them how to read.

    One of the pupils, Adeyanju Ayobami, thanked the governor for spending time with them.

    She said his presence was an encouragement for them to study harder so that the government’s investment in education would not be wasted.

    The Commissioner for Education, Mr. Kehinde Ojo; SUBEB Chairman Prof. Modupe Adelabu and some parents were at the programme.

    Ekiti State produced the best Primary School in Nigeria in last year’s President-Teacher Award.

     

  • Fayemi, INEC urge Supreme Court to ignore Oni

    Fayemi, INEC urge Supreme Court to ignore Oni

    Judgment slated for May 31

    Ekiti State Governor Kayode Fayemi and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) yesterday urged the Supreme Court to dismiss an appeal filed by ousted “Governor” Segun Oni.

    Oni is praying the court to set aside the ruling of the Court of Appeal Ado-Ekiti, which refused to hear his application seeking to set aside the October 15, 2010 judgment of the Court of Appeal, Ilorin.

    The appellate court in which sat on the Ekiti State Governorship Election Petition Appeal, removed Oni and declared Fayemi the Governor.

    About seven months after the judgment, Oni and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) filed a motion on March 14, 2011, urging the Court of Appeal, Ado- Ekiti Division, to set aside the judgment that ousted Oni.

    On February 27, the court dismissed the application and the appellants went to the apex court.

    Oni is challenging his removal on the grounds that the suspended President of the Court of Appeal (PCA), Justice Ayo Salami, who constituted and presided over the panel that sacked him, had close affinity with the National Leader of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and former Lagos State Governor, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.

    At the hearing yesterday, the seven-man panel, led by Justice Tanko Muhammad, granted the the applications by the appellants and the respondents to regularise their processes.

    It also fixed May 31 for judgment after parties adopted their briefs of argument.

    The respondents are Fayemi, ACN, Ekiti Resident Electoral Commissioner, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), INEC Chairman Prof. Attahiru Jega, the Police Commissioner and the Inspector-General of Police.

    The appellants’ counsel, Joe-Kyari Gadzama (SAN), said the issue in contention is the “likelihood of bias” against Oni by the Ilorin Appeal Court, which he said renders the judgment a nullity.

    Gadzama argued that the court did not go into the merit of the case before throwing out the motion, averring that Oni was denied a fair hearing.

    Fayemi’s counsel John Bayeshea (SAN), who appeared with Femi Falana (SAN), urged the court to dismiss the appeal for lack of jurisdiction.

    Bayeshea argued that Justice Salami and other Justices that sat on the Election Petition Appeal have been exonerated by the National Judicial Council (NJC).

    He said two members of the panel-Justices Olukayode Ariwoola and Clara Bata-Ogunbiyi-have been elevated to the Supreme Court based on their excellent performances at the lower court, so the allegations of bias have failed.

    Citing a Supreme Court judgment, Bayeshea insisted that final courts shall have final say even in interlocutory applications.

    He said: “This court has no jurisdiction to entertain this appeal, being an appeal emanating from the decision of the court below in the governorship election petition of Ekiti State, arising from the governorship election of 2007 to which Section 246 (3) of the 1999 Constitution is applicable.

    “This application is not only frivolous and an abuse of court process, it is in fact a subterfuge for an appeal in the Ekiti governorship election petition from which no appeal lies to this court under the constitutional provision that was then applicable.

    “Furthermore, the issues formulated on the purported notice of appeal in the brief of argument of the appellants do not relate to the grounds of appeal, in that they are completely at variance with the purported grounds of appeal.

    “These are multiple errors and or blunders, which in our humble opinion, with due respect, have rendered this appeal incurably bad, grossly incompetent and liable to be dismissed.”

    INEC’s counsel Ibrahim Bawa urged the court to dismiss the appeal and uphold Fayemi’s election.

  • Nigeria’s leadership must esteem ideas, Fayemi

    Ekiti State governor, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, has said the Nigerian leadership must esteem ideas and knowledge for the country to move forward.

    According to the governor who spoke at the maiden Interdisciplinary public lecture of the Postgraduate School, Ekiti State University (EKSU), Ado Ekiti, “ideas rather than materials move the world.”

    Governor Fayemi noted that like the experiences with past leaders including Chief Obafemi Awolowo and his contemporaries, there is an urgent need to elevate the place and importance of knowledge in today’s governance.

    According to the governor, the coming “generation of elites has to be distinguished not by wealth or their possession of trinkets but by the quality of their thoughts and ideas.”

    Fayemi equally urged a need to develop the leadership skills of the Nigerian youth, noting that “the litmus test of our success as leaders is not how many people we are leading but how many people we are transforming as leaders.”

    He cautioned the youth against agitating for a Nigerian version of the ‘Arab Spring’ as solution to a multiplicity of challenges facing the country, urging them to organise and become drivers of the required change.

    He said, “We need to rescue the concept of leadership itself from the cheapening it has undergone. True leadership is something quite distinct from holding an office or position.

    “We will enhance the quality of leadership on our shores if we dissociate it from acquisition of titles and positions. True leadership is influence. It is driven by core convictions, values and ideas.”

    Urging a need to change beliefs and perceptions about the elite and what qualifies people as such, he said, “Over the course of the past decades, the monetisation of our values has yielded an association of elitism with wealth. We perceive elites to be those who are simply wealthy.

    He spoke further: “The first generation nationalists such as Awolowo, Nnamdi Azikwe, Hezekiah Davies, Aminu Kano and Adegoke Adelabu among others were men of thought as well as men of action.

    “It was no idle boast. Awolowo was the most prolific of the founding fathers. It seems almost absurd to us today for a politician to advertise his intellect as one of his qualifications for high office.”

    In attendance at the lecture were notable figures from public and private sectors as well as the academia, including the renowned professor of Public Administration, Prof. Ladipo Adamolekun, who chaired the occasion; Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Dr. Adewale Omirin; the State Chief Judge, Justice Ayo Daramola among others.

     

  • Fayemi for EKSU lecture today

    Fayemi for EKSU lecture today

    Ekiti State Governor Kayode Fayemi will today deliver the first Interdisciplinary Public Lecture of the Ekiti State University (EKSU), Ado-Ekiti.

    He will speak on “Reflections on values and the building of a successor generation in Nigeria” at the institution’s multipurpose auditorium by 2pm.

    The lecture is organised by EKSU’s School of Postgraduate Studies.

    It will be chaired by the former Dean of the Faculty of Administration, Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, Prof. Ladipo Adamolekun.

    EKSU Vice-Chancellor Prof. Patrick Aina is the Chief Host.

  • Fayemi swears in 19 commissioners, 11 SAs

    Fayemi swears in 19 commissioners, 11 SAs

    Ekiti State Governor Kayode Fayemi yesterday swore in 19 commissioners and 11 special advisers.

    The ceremony was held at Adetiloye Hall in Ado-Ekiti, the state capital. Fayemi urged them to be innovative.

    He said: “It is by bringing freshness into governance through people-driven and development-focused policies that you can justify your appointments.”

    The new commissioners are: Mr. Wale Fapohunda (Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice); Mr. Dapo Kolawole (Finance and Economic Development); Mr. Biodun Oyebanji (Budget, Economic Planning & Service Delivery); Mr. Funminiyi Afuye (Integration & Inter-Government Affairs); Mr. Remi Olorunleke (Housing, Physical Planning & Urban Development); Dr. Eniola Ajayi (Environment); Prof. Olusola Fasubaa (Health); Mr. Wole Adewumi (Special Duties) and Mr. Kehinde Ojo (Education, Science & Technology).

    The rest are Mr. Debo Ajayi (Trade, Investments and Innovations); Mr. Jide Arowosafe (Agriculture & Natural Resources); Mrs. Fola Adewusi (Women Affairs); Mr. Kayode Olaosebikan (Youth and Sports); Mr. Sola Adebayo (Works and Transport); Mr Tayo Ekundayo (Information and Civic Orientation); Mr. Paul Omotoso (Local Government); Mr. Oluwole Ariyo (Labour, Employment & Human Capital Development); Mrs. Ronke Okusanya (Arts, Culture and Tourism) and Mr. Folorunso Olabode (Rural Development & Community Empowerment).

    Fayemi urged “returning appointees” to prove that they are not “spent forces”, saying: “You must take full advantage of your past experiences to be more strategic, innovative and purposeful in accelerating your speed for spectacular performance.

    “It is time for appraisal, re-strategy and change of tactics for better performance and results. This administration, since its inauguration, has been unambiguous in its mission of removing the ubiquitous image of poverty in the land.”

    Warning the appointees not to abandon the people in their localities, the governor said: “You have to interact with them regularly and educate them on the programmes and policies of our administration.

    “Your choice is not by accident; it is the result of a meticulous process of screening to meet the challenges ahead of this administration. Despite the fact that there is still a long way to go because our job is not yet finished, I assure the people that this administration would sustain the efforts that have transformed the state and the lives of residents.

    “This year will witness the consolidation of our previous achievements with a view to expanding the frontiers of the administration’s onslaught against poverty, our arch-adversary.

    “It is in our collective commitment to consolidate our weapons of warfare that we are all gathered here to inaugurate you into the orbit of performance. Obviously, this is a strategic leap that the government considers as a new beginning.

    “You should carry the technocrats and professionals in your Ministries, Departments and Authorities (MDAs) along in the policy direction of the departments, as they are critical in the corporate success of this administration.

    “There must also be proper ministerial coordination for optimal utilisation of resources. To enhance productivity, some changes will occur in ministerial responsibilities.

    “I remind you of this administration’s zero-tolerance to corruption and fraudulent practices. You must live above board in your dealings and be cautious of the implications and consequences of breaching the laws under the guise of public function. To this administration, there are no sacred cows.”

     

  • Fayemi delivers Ekiti varsity lecture

    Fayemi delivers Ekiti varsity lecture

    Ekiti State Governor, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, will on Tuesday deliver the first Interdisciplinary Public Lecture of the Ekiti State University, Ado-Ekiti.

    The Governor, who is also the Visitor to the University, will be speaking on the topic: “Reflections on Values and the building of a successor generation in Nigeria” at the lecture which will hold at the University’s multipurpose auditorium.

    According to a statement by the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Mr. Olayinka Oyebode, the lecture will be chaired by former Dean of the Faculty of Administration, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Prof. Ladipo Adamolekun, while EKSU Vice Chancellor, Prof. Patrick Aina, is the Chief Host.

    The lecture, which is organised by the School of Postgraduate Studies of the University, will commence by 2.00pm.