A tale of two states by FEMI OREBE

fayose

By FEMI OREBE

Perspicacious Ekitis, if any remains at all, should ask themselves where El Rufai got  the tens of  billions he is going to spend providing free education in Kaduna State but Fayose must inflict this punishment on poor Ekiti parents.

On these pages last Sunday, I showed how President Goodluck Jonathan, eager to ensure his own victory at the 2015 Presidential election, suborned the entire Nigerian army to rig the 2014 Ekiti gubernatorial election for candidate Ayo Fayose of the PDP. As should be expected with an order from the Commander-in-Chief, Major-General Kenneth Tobiah Minimah, the Army Chief of Staff, a Cross Riverian, unerringly delivered Ekiti to Ayo Fayose. Since his ‘victory’ and inauguration on October 15, 2014, Governor Fayose has shown abundantly, that he is a product of the gun, and not of the ballot box, no matter how many times he repeats 16:0, 20: 0. He can, of course, take consolation in the fact that he is ruling over an awe-struck, fawning and adoring Ekiti people. Concerning this emerging Ekiti sociology which tramples

all the qualities everybody once knew Ekiti for, some young researchers must show interest in what is certain to be a rewarding academic exertion.

Two momentous events happened this past week. The first: concerned with education and how it has plummeted in Ekiti under governors who did not deliberately encourage cheating at public examinations as we  learnt in the course of the sittings of the Fayemi Education Task force, governor Fayose took the decisive decision of conveying a 3-hour education Summit under the lead of a highly respected monarch, a former Chief Justice of the state who cannot  be described  as a novice in matters of Education. Fayose evidently needed such a highly regarded Oba to lean on even if his intentions were not pure.  Then the second, in faraway Kaduna State,  in those far flung places where those of us in these parts humour  ourselves into foolishly believing they know nothing, the new governor of example, the stormy petrel, no nonsense and,  take no prisoners Nasir  El Rufai,  literally re-invented the wheel. It is not that fees had ever been a major part of the school architecture in the North, but here, indeed, was a John the Baptist, in the depth of his free education programme.

Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai is an educated governor.  He could have read any of Medicine, Engineering, or Chemical Engineering and he, indeed, had a scholarship from the Kaduna Polytechnic to read Mining Engineering at the Camborne School of mines in the U.K which he declined and opted, instead, to read Quantity Surveying at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.  Nobody will therefore be surprised that he appreciates the value of education and its place in the development of a people, state or nation. There was no way he could have introduced school fees in Kaduna State.  I quote below, how newspapers reported what El-Rufai did in Kaduna State in this regard: “The Kaduna State government yesterday instituted free education across all government owned primary and junior secondary schools in the state. According to the state Governor, Malam Nasir el-Rufai who announced this, his administration would spend N9 billion annually on free feeding of over one million primary school pupils. He further stated that the free education in junior secondary school will gulp N600 million yearly noting that the programme will save parents N3.7 billion for them to channel to other family demands. He added that, 5,000 tailors would be engaged to sew free uniforms which will be distributed to pupils across the state. He mentioned that,  (not  surprisingly) the free education introduced by the former Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) administration in the state was a fraud to milk parents dry as the programme did not work.”

And what did governor Fayose do in Ekiti, leveraging on his 3-hour Education Summit? Here, I must say that we have variations. While his spokesperson gave some ludicrous figures of   N2, 400 and N3000 per term for primary and secondary schools respectively, figures for which Fayose would never even as much as consider a minute’s summit, parents of new secondary school students claim they had been asked to pay N35, 000, besides the cost of   chairs, desks, bags, school uniforms and books that the parents will have to bear. Even if N2400 per term is correct for primary schools, you are still talking of a lot of money for some parents. Add to that, the cost of chairs, desks, books etc.

These patently illegal charges will not stand in Ekiti as long as the Lord liveth. Some concerned individuals are already working at calling governor Fayose’s attention to the provisions of the Universal Child’s Rights Act, already domesticated in the state and they may, if he refuses to withdraw the charges, head to court. The Act sets out to “Empower our children with Children’s Rights Education so that they can build a global culture of respect for human rights as outlined in the United Nations Convention on the rights of the child. Then each child can fully develop into critically literate, rights- respecting citizen who will collaborate with others to uphold human rights and question the root causes of social injustice in the pursuit of global peace.”

Besides that act is the UBEC Law, flagged off 29, September 1999, by President Olusegun Obasanjo and being executed by the government and people of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to eradicate illiteracy, ignorance and poverty as well as stimulate and accelerate national development, political consciousness and national integration. By the law, years 1-9 of schooling in Nigeria is free of all charges as the federal government intends to make it a world class education intervention and regulatory agency for qualitative and functional basic education in Nigeria, and one which will operate as a monitoring agency to progressively improve the capacity of states, local government agencies and communities in the provision of unfettered access to high qualitative basic education in Nigeria. It also has the objective of providing unfettered access to nine (9) years of formal basic education which will be FREE to every Nigerian child.

I have gone all this length just in case the governor or even the summit acted out of ignorance of these extant provisions. I shall not be surprised, however, if Governor Fayose knows all these but still decides to use all manner of nomenclature to rake in some free money he could spend without question. Perspicacious Ekitis, if any remains at all, should ask themselves where El Rufai got  the tens of  billions he is going to spend providing free education in Kaduna State but Fayose must inflict this punishment on poor  Ekiti parents.

Fayose revokes Ayo Orebe’s house

In a classical case of the son being punished for the sins of the father, governor Ayo Fayose this past week revoked my son – Ayo Orebe’s sale agreement with the Ekiti Housing Corporation all because, as chairman of the tenants’ association he, with the executive, went to court when the governor barricaded their homes, he with a 3 day old baby. Fayose wants the case withdrawn to give him a free hand to send them packing. This, in spite of Ayo, a banker, paying monthly to his primary mortgage institution and the governor rejecting the tenants’ payment terms of N30, 000.00k per month.  My family is happy that  the ‘Daramola Option’ hasn’t been contemplated. But even then, he who the gods will destroy, they first make mad. Some three weeks ago, I contacted  Wole Olanipekun, SAN, about this probability, asking him to  talk to  the governor and  informed Femi Falana, SAN, as soon as it happened. Let Ayo Fayose continue to add to his long list of cases none of which has a statute of limitation. He is neither God, nor is four years eternity.  Post Buhari, a thousand SANS will not be able to help the likes of Fayose and the consequences of his disregard for Nigerian courts will be fully visited on him. Even while the case is in court, the world now knows  he will still send his thugs to evacuate the family even with a month old child. He will have his comeuppance as palaces in South Africa or Dubai will have no more effect than they did in the Ibori case.  And what is more, government being a continuum, since none in Ekiti – not  Obas,  not  nobility whose hero he is,  nor  his beloved Okada riders – can  advise or restrain  him,  Ekiti people should  know  that be it 20 years,  they  will  end  up paying  for all of Ayo  Fayose’s impunity and  infractions in office.

ref: http://thenationonlineng.net/a-tale-of-two-states/