Ekiti Still an Ailing State at 25, Afe Babalola Laments

By Victor Ogunje

As Ekiti State celebrates its 25th year of creation on October 1, a legal icon, Chief Afe Babalola (SAN), has lamented that the state is still experiencing lack of development in all spheres in the last two decades.

Babalola regretted that the past and present governments have allegedly failed to achieve the lofty dreams envisaged by the state founding fathers at its inception on October 1, 1996, under the military regime of the late General Sanni Abacha.

Expressing reservations over the seeming parlous state of Ekiti State over the last two decades in a statement issued by the Director, Corporate Services of the Afe Babalola University, Tunde Olofintila, yesterday, Babalola said a lot needed to be done before the state can be regarded as really toeing the path of greatness.

He said: “Today, October 1, 2021, Ekiti State is 25 years old. We thank God for those of us who are still alive to witness the 25th year after the creation of our dear state called The Fountain of Knowledge and The Land of Honour.

“However, for me, there is nothing to celebrate by engaging in any social gathering. As one of the active founders of our state, I confirm that our hope was that the state would be nurtured to become the showpiece among the comity of states in Nigeria.

“Regretfully today, Ekiti State has not achieved the anticipated lofty objectives of the founding fathers. Twenty-five years after its creation, the state remains land-locked, motorway-locked, airport-locked, railway-locked, industry-locked and power-locked, a development, which is adversely affecting the economic development of the state.

“Today, Ekiti State has the worst road network in the country while the only industry in the state, even before Ekiti State was created, the O’odua Textile Industry established during the Chief Obafemi Awolowo regime, has folded up. To compound matters, the state lacks the necessary infrastructure to attract investors to the state.

“Today, Ekiti remains an ailing state in the hand of a dying mother nation.”

The legal luminary decried that local government areas in the state still lack the necessary funds to assist farmers with farm equipment like tractors, bulldozers, pay loaders, low loaders and riggers, which they used to rent out to farmers at subsidised rates as it was before the creation of the state.

“Looking at the position of things in Ekiti State today, I am beginning to doubt if those of us (dead and alive) who fought for the creation of the state were right in opting out of the bigger Ondo State,” he queried.