Politics

2023: Fayemi claims to have solution to terrorism, banditry in Nigeria

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The Ekiti State Governor, Kayode Fayemi, claimed on Friday that he has a template to end the country’s insecurity.

Insecurity has been a major challenge in Nigeria since President Muhammadu Buhari assumed office in 2015 with the Boko Haram insurgents, bandits and other criminals pillaging communities across the country.

Fayemi is one of All Progressives Congress (APC) aspirants eyeing the party’s presidential ticket at this month’s primary slated for Abuja.

The governor, according to a statement issued by the Head of Campaign Organisation, Femi Ige, stated this during his visit to Borno, Yobe and Gombe States as part of consultations ahead of the party’s presidential primary.

He said: “Security will top my agenda as a security expert. I have a Ph.D. in War Studies and I consulted for Nigeria under President Olusegun Obasanjo, I was deeply involved in the resolution of the wars in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Rwanda, and Sri Lanka.

We have a template that we’ll use in bringing peace to our people so that we can farm in peace, school in peace, and live in peace. If I can do it outside, why not for the country that has given me everything?

“My focus would be on bringing peace to my fatherland and ensuring that the Ibadan man finds home in Sokoto and the Sokoto man finds home in Akure, Abakaliki, Onisha or Owerri. The Oweri man must find a home in Damaturu. This is the Nigeria I want to fight for and I’m confident it’s achievable.

“Any government who can successfully tackle this would have succeeded in bringing happiness to our country, discourage the urge to secede, and address our perennial problem of youth restiveness.

“I believe I have the education, the energy, the capacity, and the knowledge to tackle this problem.

“Nigeria is a diverse country and there is diverse competency. There are competent people across the country but in a multi-cultural, multi-dimensional, and multi-religious society, you also need zoning to build trust and confidence.”

Politics

Fayemi signs bills on legislative, judiciary autonomy

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The Ekiti State Governor, Kayode Fayemi, on Friday signed the recently passed Legislative (Fund Management) Bill and the Judiciary (Fund Management) Bill into law.

At a ceremony held at the Government House in Ado Ekiti, the governor also signed governor the Creation of Local Government Areas (Amendment) Bill; Office of the Attorney General Bill; Consumer Protection Bill; and the Economic Development Council Bill.

He said bills would not only improve governance, but solidify existing arrangements between the three arms of government on revenue allocation.

Fayemi said the signing of the bills reaffirmed the commitment of his administration to good governance, transparency, and fair and equal opportunity for development by all communities in the state.

The governor said: “These bills are proposed in furtherance of the Memorandum of Action and the implementation of the financial autonomy for the State legislature and judiciary.

“It was jointly signed by the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, the Conference of Speakers and the National Judicial Council, among others on May 20.

“It will enhance the vision of my administration for a self-sustaining three arms of government that work as equals even if separately for the delivery of good governance to the people of Ekiti State.

I should add that for us, these bills are not simply about allocating or sharing revenue.

“They provide an opportunity for the three arms of government to constantly interface on how our limited resources can be best managed.

Also how to grow the resources to meet the many and evolving needs of our people across the state.”

He said the creation of Local Government (Amendment) Bill would pave the way for the creation of additional 19 local government areas in Ekiti State.

Fayemi added: “I am of the firm opinion that the creation of LCDAs is necessary and important to the socio-economic and political development of Ekiti State.

“What is important at this moment is that the beneficiary communities of the 19 newly created LCDAs will work with the government to make a success of this initiative.

“For the emphasis, achieving the efficient functioning of the LCDAs cannot be the exclusive responsibility of government.

Beneficiary communities must see themselves as active partners in the development of the LCDAS.

“After signing this into law, the next stage is to formalise the institutional delivery of the 19 LCDAs.”

Politics

No one in APC is happy with Nigeria’s current situation —Fayemi

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The Governor of Ekiti State and Chairman of the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) Kayode Fayemi, has decried the belief that members of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) are not worried over the growing spate of insecurity in the country.

Fayemi who spoke on Saturday at the 2021 Pre-Synod Summit organised by the Diocese of Lagos, Anglican Communion, described the insecurity in the country as frightening which has made Nigerians to live in constant fear.

Fayemi added that the various challenges facing the country speaks to the fundamental issue of restructuring and devolution.

“Nigeria has to be restructured in such a manner that more responsibility, more revenue and more accountability must issue from the national to lower levels.

Debunking the strongly held assertion that APC members are not worried about insecurity in the country, Fayemi said:

I want to tell Nigerians that contrary to the widely held belief, I don’t know anyone in APC who is committed to public good that is not worried about the situation we have found ourselves in. Nigeria is too big to fail, but Nigeria cannot be managed unitarily.”

Fayemi also used the occasion to advocate for a change of the strategy used in the fight against terrorism.

“This moment calls for sober reflection and system overhaul and restructuring. Organisations like Boko Haram are concerned with establishing state among states.

“The way our security structure is presently organised, it can neither deliver security or safety, it only breeds local resentment to the federal government, which in spite of its relentless efforts to end insecurity, remains unappreciated.

The response to Boko Haram by the Nigerian state has been largely characterised by kinetic military operations, since it’s clear that the crisis itself is multidimensional, it is obvious that the solution cannot be unidimensional.

Politics

Federal salary structure can’t be imposed on states —Fayemi

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The Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) and Governor of Ekiti, Dr Kayode Fayemi has said the federal salary structure should not be imposed on states.

He submitted this when he hosted the pro-chancellors of the state-owned universities on Thursday in Abuja, noting that the federal and state governments do not have similar economic or financial situations.

Fayemi in a statement issued by the Head of Media and Public Affairs of NGF Secretariat, Abdulrazaque Bello-Barkindo, said, ”I, for example, do not have the resources of Lagos State, so you won’t expect me to earn the same salary as the governor of Lagos.

He said it was true that no state had fulfilled the payment of salaries to states universities, but said states were not always solely responsible for this.

The people you appoint as vice-chancellors need to speak truth to power, they need to be able to bite the bullet, and not just be a YES person. We need to work together to confront these issues, we are running glorified secondary schools as universities by this system and you have to help us in insisting that the institutions too, do the right thing, ” he added.

Earlier, the pro-chancellors led by Mallam Yusuf Ali, the Pro-Chancellor of Osun State University, said that the seamless educational progression that the country should be experiencing was being hampered by lack of funds.

Ali called on the owners of state-owned universities to relegate politics to the backgrounds when considering their appointees.

The team, which represents all the 48 universities owned by states pleaded with governors to take over the burden of payment of salaries of state universities.

They also called for the reintroduction of scholarships for indigent students and assist the committee of pro-chancellors of states universities to erect a secretariat of their own to facilitate their activities.

Politics

‘Consider children of ordinary Nigerians,’ Fayemi begs ASUU to end strike

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Ekiti State Governor, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, on Tuesday appealed to members of the Academic Staff of Universities (ASUU) to suspend their nine-month-old industrial action.

The governor, according to a statement issued by his Chief Press Secretary, Olayinka Oyebode, made the call when he received members of the Board of Trustees of the Sir Ahmadu Bello Memorial Foundation led by the former Governor of Niger State, Dr. Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu, in his office at Ado Ekiti.

He urged the university lecturers to consider the “children of ordinary Nigerians” attending the public universities in the country.

Fayemi also implored the Federal Government and relevant stakeholders in the education sector to have an urgent engagement with the leadership of ASUU in order to end the current impasse.

He charged the lecturers to look at the hardship the students and their parents are going through because of the strike that has kept the students at home for nine months.

The governor said: “We need to get to a point of convergence with ASUU, but I also think ASUU should begin to look at this from the position of their importance. It is the students of the ordinary Nigerians who attend the local universities. So, even if it is for the sake of ordinary Nigerians who have children in these universities and cannot afford to send their children to private universities or abroad.

“Whatever the areas are, we would like to engage them, not as Federal Government but as concerned parties at the level of government who feel that we can still work out an arrangement in which you don’t completely dictate to your employer how he pays your salaries.

“If an agreement has been entered into and if it is not going to be honoured, you owe a duty to urge the other party to review it consensually and then come up with something that is mutually acceptable to both sides.”

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