Ahead of the July 14 governorship election in Ekiti State, the Chancellor of Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD), Aare Afe Babalola has advised politicians to stop engaging in verbal abuses and violence but to showcase their developmental plans for the 21-year-old state.
Babalola, who spoke yesterday as the chairman of the summit on the blueprint for Ekiti State development, noted that insecurity, poverty, underdevelopment have enveloped the state 21 years after its creation.
According to the legal icon, as a stakeholder in the Ekiti project who developed and defended the memo that sought the state’s creation, the current situation in the state has defeated the hopes and aspirations of the state’s forefathers. He added that politicians by their acts of deceit and incompetence have relegated the state among the comity of states, saying not even the airport approved by the Federal Government has seen the light of the day many years after the approval.
He said; “Relying on its compactness, homogeneity, common language (okun o, o ra o), industry, quality education, large number of highly educated people, tropical climate, fertile land and Ikogosi Warm Spring, the objectives of the Elders was to make Ekiti State a showpiece to all other states in Nigeria.
“But despite our collective efforts to see Ekiti State created and nurtured to become the showpiece among the comity of states in Nigeria, regretfully and up till now, Ekiti has not achieved the noble and patriotic aims and aspirations of the Founding Fathers.
Twenty one years after its creation, Ekiti state remains a landlocked, motorway-locked, airport-locked, railway locked, industry-locked and power-locked, a development which adversely affects economic development in the State.
“As you all know, there are no motor-able roads, no industries and no infrastructures while the Airport approved by the Federal Government on March 13, 2009, for the state was politically frustrated as a result of which the sum of N680 million which had been budgeted for the take-off of the Airport by the Federal Government was never utilised.
The Airports in Bayelsa, Delta and Gombe approved by the Federal Government at the same time have been completed or almost completed.” Babalola, who queried the federal allocations to the state within the last four years, said the Federal Government presence in the state cannot be felt in any sector. He said there is no single industry, no infrastructure and that many federal roads linking the state have been in bad shape for long.
