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Tinubu’s Quest To Overcome The Power Sector Gridlock

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By Temitope Ajayi

Angered by the appalling situation of Nigeria’s electricity supply sector over several decades of doing the wrong things by successive governments with no remedy in sight, even after hundreds of billions of public funds had been expended, President Muhammadu Buhari in 2018 chose a different path that had worked in other jurisdictions.

He reached out to the then German Chancellor Angela Merkel to help solve the protracted power gridlock in Nigeria. The discussion between the two leaders gave birth to the FG-Siemens Energy AG Presidential Power Initiative in 2019. Under the terms of the agreement of the Nigerian Electrification Roadmap, Siemens Energy would ramp up electricity generation in Nigeria to 25,000 megawatt in six years, in three phases, from an average of 4000 megawatts the country had been stuck with for decades.

President Buhari was quite bullish about the project such that he put it under the direct supervision of his office with his Chief of Staff, late Abba Kyari, as the directing officer. The former president who didn’t want the project to be derailed by bureaucratic bottlenecks and red-tape made sure all man-made obstacles and deliberate obstructions were bulldozed with Abba Kyari in charge.

The unfortunate demise of Kyari in 2020 arising from Covid-19 while in Germany to get the power project underway rolled back the speedy implementation of what would have been a game-changer in Nigeria’s elusive quest for a stable and reliable power supply. Nigeria’s economy had been blighted by years of poor electricity supply. From available records, Federal Government has spent over $30 billion dollars to revamp the sector in the last three decades without any substantial progress. The economy is run on generators with Nigerians spending a staggering $10billion dollars (N7.6 trillion) annually on petrol and diesel to run their generators including the cost of maintenance, according to a 2024 report, “Beyond Gensets: Advancing the energy transition in Lagos State” published by Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL).

True to his campaign promise to build on the achievements of his predecessor across all sectors and improve on governance performance in areas where it is required, President Tinubu, in demonstration of his unshaken believe in continuity of governance, took on the FG-Siemens Power Project as part of his priority projects in the energy sector.

It is necessary to state that this all-important power project had suffered undue delays since July, 29, 2020 when the Federal Executive Council approved the payment of €15.21m and N1.708bn as part of Nigeria’s counterpart funding for the offshore and onshore components of the project.

Managing Director, Siemens Energy Nigeria, Seun Suleiman, was quoted as saying then that, “Siemens Energy is committed to working with the Federal Government of Nigeria through the FGNPowerCo to see a successful implementation of the presidential power initiative. We have successfully carried out a similar project in Egypt.

“This project will transform the energy landscape of the country, and we are grateful the government has entrusted us with this notable initiative. We are capable, and we will deliver excellent results.”

In 2021, FGN Power Company, the Special Purpose Vehicle established by the Federal Government of Nigeria for the implementation of the PPI, announced the commencement of the grid network studies and power simulation training for technical experts in the Discos, TCN, NAPTIN and NERC, including provision of specialized power simulation softwares for TCN, NERC and all Discos. By December 2024, more than 100 experts across the sector have been trained on power systems simulation and network planning with skills to better manage the grid operations at various levels.
In the same year 2021, the Federal Executive Council approved the contract for the supply of 10 mobile substations and 10 power transformers by Siemens Energy for quick reinforcement of the grid as part of the pilot Phase of the project. Reports by FGN Power Company indicate that all the equipment have since been supplied and installed across the country.

However, the overall pace of the project delivery in terms of meeting timelines has not been impressive.

On assumption of office, President Tinubu saw the need to continue with the project and how timely delivery can transform the power sector for a country that desperately needs a reliable power supply for industrialisation and grow its economy. The status of the project came up at a bilateral meeting between President Tinubu and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz during the latter’s working visit to Nigeria in August 2024 in Abuja. At a follow-up engagement in Dubai in December 2024 during COP28, the Nigerian Government and Siemens Energy AG signed an accelerated performance agreement aimed at expediting the implementation of the Presidential Power Initiative (PPI) to improve electricity supply in Nigeria. The agreement that was signed by Kenny Anuwe, Managing Director/CEO of FGN Power Company and Ms. Nadja Haakansson, Siemens Energy’s Senior Vice President and Managing Director for Africa, was witnessed by President Tinubu and Chancellor Scholz.

Under the accelerated performance agreement, Siemens Energy will see to the end-to-end modernization and expansion of Nigeria’s electric power transmission grid with the full supply, delivery, and installation of Siemens-manufactured equipment.

Furthermore, the agreement will ensure project sustainability and maintenance with full technology transfer and training for Nigerian engineers at the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN).

In a major demonstration of President Tinubu’s commitment to the power project and a positive shift towards execution, the President led the Federal Executive Council on December 16, 2024 to approve €161.3 million Euros for the execution of the contracts in the first batch of the Phase one of the projects across the country following earlier approval of the transaction by the Bureau of Public Procurement.

Addressing journalists after the FEC approval, an enthusiastic Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, with the renewed vigour to deliver on the project said, “at the Federal Executive Council meeting, there were basically two approvals for the Federal Ministry of Power, as I presented. The first was actually an approval for the award of contract for engineering, procurement, construction and financing for the implementation of the 331 32 KV And 132 33 KV substations upgrade under Phase One of the Presidential Initiative, popularly known as the Siemens project consequent upon completion of the pilot phase of this project.

“So, the Federal Executive Council considered it necessary for us to move forward as promised by the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria at a meeting he held with the President of the Republic of Germany.”

The latest FEC approved scope of work includes upgrade of TCN substations in five locations of Abeokuta (330/132/33kV), Ayede (330/132/33kV), Offa (132/33kV), Onitsha (330/132/33kV) and Sokoto (132/33kV). These substations were carefully selected as Batch 1 of the brownfield scope of the Phase 1 projects to increase the wheeling capacity of the transmission network grid.

In the same vein, FGN Power Company will implement assets upgrade and enhancement in the distribution networks, in collaboration with the Distribution Companies (Discos) to ensure last-mile delivery of the evacuated power to industrial customers and residential consumers. These locations are load centres that are currently underserved and require swift enhancements. The execution of the project will be fast tracked and completed under the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration.

It’s important to state that the FGN Power Company has started working on other priority brownfield and Greenfield projects in target load centres across the country. Special attention is also being paid to the execution of systems and products to enhance grid resilience and stability to reduce the frequent occurrences of grid disturbances.

In December 2024, Minister of Power Adelabu commissioned the mobile substation in Saapade, a suburb of Shagamu in Ogun State. This has enhanced power evacuation and delivery to industrial customers within the Shagamu hub. Similarly, another mobile substation was commissioned at the Ajibode area of the University of Ibadan to enhance power delivery to the university community and adjoining areas. Before then, mobile substations and power transformers have been commissioned and energized in Ajah Lagos, Mando Kano, Jebba Kwara State, Okene Kogi, Amukpe Delta, Potiskum Yobe, Apo Abuja and Ihovbor Edo.

While the implementation of the Presidential Power Initiative is going on, President Tinubu has equally inaugurated the Presidential Metering Initiative, which aims to increase the rate of smart metering of all customers in a commercially sustainable manner. The roll out of the metering solutions has started. It is expected that the combined impact of assets upgrade through Presidential Power Initiative (PPI) and metering through the Presidential Metering Initiative (PMI), coupled with efforts of subnational electricity markets will bring lasting solutions to the challenges of electricity supply in Nigeria.

With President Tinubu’s committed leadership, the parlous state of the power sector will be reversed, and Nigerians and the economy will experience a new lease of life with reliable electricity supply that will geometrically increase productive activities. Indeed, the president’s strategic approach to resolving the multifaceted challenges in the power sector is yielding visible results. The restructuring of the tariff regime, intervention in the commercial imbroglio on gas supply, additional investments in infrastructure through PPI, enactment of the new Electricity Act which provides legal framework for further decentralisation of the sector and devolution of more responsibilities to the subnational governments, are all part of the renewed hope agenda for the power sector to bring sustainable solutions.

-Ajayi is Senior Special Assistant to President Tinubu on Media and Publicity

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2027: Thoughts on opposition machinations

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By Tunde Rahman

Opposition politicians have revved up their engine again ahead of the 2027 election. They are busy meeting, engaging in visitations, regrouping, and strategising under various platforms. And recently at a two-day event in Abuja themed “Strengthening Nigeria’s Democracy: Pathway to Good Governance and Political Integrity,” some of these opposition figures huffed and puffed, upbraiding the present government and disparaging President Bola Tinubu and the governing All Progressives Congress. Some of them, like the former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, have taken advantage of various public speaking opportunities to condemn the government’s policy options and decisions but offered little or no alternative course of action.

This is dismaying. During the Second Republic when the defunct Unity Party of Nigeria leader, the late sage Chief Obafemi Awolowo, was the Leader of Opposition, he would dissect the policies of the National Party of Nigeria government of President Shehu Shagari, cut it down into granular details and offer clear, convincing and actionable alternatives. Awolowo’s interventions provided useful solutions that would have bolstered Nigeria’s economy and enriched our democracy, but unfortunately, that era lasted only four years and three months as the military struck.

President Tinubu has barely spent two years in office. Yet, political opponents have upped the ante in a desperate move to grab power in 2027. The latest move in this direction was the visit last week of the defeated Peoples Democratic Party candidate in the 2023 presidential election, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, to former President Olusegun Obasanjo at his Abeokuta, Ogun State hilltop residence. Atiku was in company with former Sokoto State governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, former Cross River State governor Liyel Imoke and Senator Abdul Ningi from Bauchi State, all of the crisis-ridden PDP. The former vice president claimed the meeting had nothing to do with 2027. Anyone who believes him on that will believe anything. There was also New Nigeria People’s Party leader, Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwanso, who travelled all the way to Lagos from Kano to confer with former Osun State governor Rauf Aregbesola to discuss issues believed to be in connection with 2027. Ogbeni Aregbesola is leading the Omoluabi Group in Osun.

Three sets of opposition groups are discernible at the moment. One group comprises President Tinubu’s opponents in the 2023 election who have refused to see, and perhaps may never see, anything good in the present government, hard as the administration works to reverse the past mistakes and dwindling fortunes of the country. These men contested the last election with the President and were roundly defeated both at the ballot and in court. However, they have continued to carry on as if the 2023 election cycle has not ended. In this group are former VP Atiku and former Labour Party presidential candidate Peter Obi. Their depleting rank of supporters, called the Atikulated and Obidents, are in league with them in this cantankerous behaviour.

The second group is made up of some erstwhile APC chieftains who claim to still belong in the party but have constituted themselves into opposition elements within. Bitter and vicious, they include former Minister of Transportation Rotimi Amaechi and some others who rightly or wrongly feel entitled to political appointmens and government patronage. Amaechi had detached himself from the APC since he lost out at the APC primaries in August 2022.

The last group is composed of former APC leaders who are completely out of the party but now vigorously working against the party’s interests. Ogbeni Aregbesola belongs in this group.

These three groups of opposition figures are working to take over power in 2027. They are aiming at forming a coalition to unseat APC. None has been consummated as of this time.
It is relevant to ask: why are opposition parties in our climes unduly fixated about taking over power? It may be argued that the zero-sum nature of our politics, the winner-takes-all syndrome, is a contributory factor. But then, the role of opposition parties in a democracy is much more crucial. It is critical in determining the level of accountability and acceptability of governing parties as well as the overall quality of a country’s democracy.

In his seminal work on the “Role of Opposition Parties in Developing Democracies” published in a journal by Democracy Works Foundation, Williams Gumede posits that,
“Opposition parties provide alternative visions, policies, and leaders to the governing party. They scrutinise government decisions, policies, and actions – and play oversight over the executive and the public administration. They defend the voters’ interests – not only their constituencies, but all the country’s voters.”

Indeed, opposition parties’ capacity to show the electorate they are credible alternatives is crucial to the credibility of the democratic system. The strength of the opposition in a democracy plays a key role in the quality of that democracy and, by extension, the effectiveness of the state. Gumede adds that, “a democratic system is significantly undermined if the opposition does not offer any credible alternatives to the governing party, is invisible in the public debate or does not have a public profile beyond during elections.”

Although many will reckon that 2027 is still a long time and according to a Yoruba adage, the sun out there can still dry the clothes, nonetheless, it is doubtful if the opposition as currently constituted in Nigeria is capable of ousting the APC in 2027.

This is why I surmise this way: the major opposition parties, the PDP, Labour Party, and of course NNPP are neck deep in crisis. They parade fragile leadership with seemingly unending court litigations. Generally, the opposition seems too uncoordinated and lacks focus. Any alliance by such groups can only be fickle and fissiparous. These opposition politicians are being driven by personal ambition, and not the interest of the country.

Also, the matter of power rotation between the North and South over two terms is also an important factor that may work against the opposition. This factor and the machinations over 2027 may have prompted the Secretary to the Government of the Federation Senator George George Akume and APC National Chairman Abdullahi Ganduje to ask the North to wait till 2031 for another shot at power, arguing that President Muhammadu Buhari from the North had done eight years in office and that the South should be allowed to complete its eight years as well.

APC National Secretary Senator Ajibola Basiru spoke on this seeming emptiness of the disgruntled opposition groups. In an interview with the Nigerian Tribune published on Wednesday, February 12, 2025, he doubted if the opposition parties had what it takes to successfully cobble a merger or form a united front against the APC.
He declared: “The question is, for the economic policies of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, what are the alternatives that the opposition has brought out, beyond just planning for the 2027 election. If 2027 comes, what do they want to campaign with, and what alternatives are you giving the people. They don’t have any alternative. The so-called opposition groups are just power-mongers. The only job they have is that they want to access government power for personal aggrandizement without any program or policies for the Nigerian people. I’m not a soothsayer, but they will not be able to merge because all the leading opposition figures are driven by personal ambitions.”
Do I agree with the APC National Secretary? I think so.

-Rahman is Senior Special Assistant to President Tinubu on Media, Publicity and Special Duties.

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Valentine’s Day: Fertility In Fatality’s Shadow

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By Wole Olujobi

“Forget not in your speed, Antonius, to touch Calpurnia, for our elders say the barren touched in this holy chase, shake off their sterile curse,” decreed Roman General and tribune, Julius Caesar, who had positioned his barren wife Calpurnia to stand in Mark Anthony’s way as the annual Roman fertility ritual got underway on the Feast of the Lupercalia.

Even though a colossus that betrode the entire world, the spiritual and cultural significance of the Lupercalia in the lives of Romans was not lost on this totalitarian Roman Army General, as Caesar stayed glued to seize the temples of the gods in his majesty to preside over the affairs of Romans.

On the feast of the Lupercalia, young noblemen were arrayed naked on a race course through the streets, carrying strips of leather with which they pretended to strike all the people in their way. Barren women who wanted children would stand in their path and hold out their hands to be struck, since they believed that this would bring then what they wanted (children).

The feast of Lupercalia, the festival of fertility in Roman culture, which turned out to be the precursor to Valentine’s Day, was marked by tradition and rituals for the procreation health need of the Roman society, yet it marked the beginning of the rebellion against tradition and culture that was at the heart of the clash between Roman culture and the new religion (christianity), which was taking a firm root in the world’s first church, the Roman Catholic Church.

The most daring move by the church was the period that Emperor Claudius 11 held forte in the Roman royal court that awed the world. But then the spirit of the new religion seized a Roman Catholic priest, Valentine, who stood to the face of Emperor Claudius to challenge his authority and the place of tradition and culture in Romans’ lives.

For Valentine, it was against the Canon law to challenge the authority of the church. And also for Emperor Claudius, Rome would not abandon culture and tradition for the new religion.

Now the Feast of Lupercalia, also known as Lupercal, which is also the origin of Valentine’s Day, was a pagan holiday that used to start in the middle of February, between February 13 and February 15. It was an holiday to celebrate fertility. Men would strip naked and sacrifice a goat and dog to purify the city of Rome, promoting health and fertility.


Lupercalia was a full month festival before the Ides of March (March 15). Therefore, within the one month period, no Christian religious activity of any sort must hold in the entire Rome as a mark of respect for the traditional Feast of Lupercalia commencing from February 13. But Valentine would not allow any let up in the resolve of the church to challenge the authority of the tradition and culture of Rome.

Emperor Claudius 11 warned Valentine against this heresy and and issued arrest threat as punishment for challenging the authority of Roman tradition. During the one month period marking the Feast of Lupercalia, no other event, particularly that of the new religion, must hold. But Valentine and his disciples would not accept that.

Among the new converts into the new religion were young men and women who had recruited themselves into the Army of Jesus Christ led by Valentine and who were bent on challenging the authority of Emperor and the tradition of Rome.

To assist Emperor Claudius II in his resolve against the church, he banned marriage because he thought married men were bad soldiers. Valentine felt this was unfair, so he broke the rules and arranged marriages in secret.

As a direct affront and assault on the tradition and the palace, Valentine and his disciples chose the same period (February 13 and 15) coinciding with the Feast of Lupercal for a mass wedding among these disciples against the authority of the Palace. When Claudius found out, Valentine was imprisoned and sentenced to death, as Claudius, drawing from the authority of his office and exercising the power of his estate, seized Valentine and hurled him into jail. Inside his cell, Valentine agonised, and his disciples wailed, but that would not break their spirits, as they resolved not to bow to the authority of the Palace and tradition.

Buoyed by the audacity of the church, Valentine spoke from his jail and sent holy blessings to the couples in their connubial consummation in defiance of Emperor Claudius’ decree.

Despite remonstrations from Claudius’ daughter, Emperor Claudius sentenced Valentine to death by beheading. Valentine paid the supreme price for his faith in Christ. For his belief in the primacy of Jesus in His Holiness, Valentine in death was consecrated and canonised on February 14 into the Order of Holiness and Sainthood from which the annual celebration of St Valentine’s Day on February 14 emerged.

In the late 5th Century, Pope Gelasius I outlawed Lupercalia and designated the celebration of St. Valentine’s Day on February 14 to replace the pagan holiday of the Feast of Lupercalia.

In essence, Valentine’s Day, in its real form and content, in the past or even now, ought to be a religious event marking the belief of the adherents of the Christian faith and love in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour. It is to celebrate the sainthood of the ancient Roman Catholic priest, St Valentine. It is also the celebration of love between married couples, particularly those who suffered persecutions during courtship based on sectarian sentiments.

However, like the Lawrence Anini’s many Benin City’s hijacks, modern day Valentine’s Day is very much a product of the various industries that benefit from it – namely, stationery, chocolate, flowers, and jewelry companies.

Every year, billions of dollars are spent on these items, even in countries where Western holidays are frowned upon or outlawed have seen an upsurge in Valentine’s Day gifts in recent years. It is now a daylight hijack by multinationals and private individuals who cherish commerce and lechery over the spiritual essence of the Christian festival of faith and love of Christ.

Even in Saudi Arabia, where the holiday is illegal, there is a thriving black market for red roses and heart-shaped chocolates in February, all in the celebration of the body to spite the sanctity of the soul as the temple of Christ.

The bastardisation of the purport of Valentine’s Day (from the deep sense of the observance and reverence for the pious decencies of the holy cross to the festival of lechery and celebration of debauchery in the world) speaks loudly about the place of morals in the church and the society at large.

From the red districts of Allen Avenue, Toyin and Ayilara streets in Lagos, Maitama in Abuja to the hearts of Benin, Ibadan, Ports Harcourt and in fact across the country, where Esthers, Catherines, Deborahs (now Debby), Marys (the supposed mother of Jesus) make a living from the auctioning of their bodies to Matthews, Josephs, Andrews, Peters, James and Johns, the new reality in many parts of the world is that Valentine’s Day marks the annual preparation for the misfortunes of unborn children, who even before their birth, are already orphaned.

It is also the annual festival to breed and raise a large pool of criminals under city bridges to menace the society. Ask the devotees the meaning of Valentine’s Day and they tell you Valentine’s Day is a day licensed for a free and violent sex. For them, Jesus Christ and His Cross have no place in today’s Valentine’s Day. Even Saint Valentine himself remains an anonymity!

To stress the rot in Valentine’s Day celebration, Pastor Mike Bamiloye quipped: “Many men will sleep on the same beds with ghosts tonight” celebrating Valentine’s Day, in what is seen as a love by death sealed in hell.

In road accidents, drowning at the beaches and ritual murders, several devotees of Valentine’s Day lost their lives to what they do not even understand, as the fertility essence of the Feast of Lupercal, the precursor of Valentine’s Day, looms large in the shadow of fatality.

For the married couples and those who survived persecutions and other forms of hard times before sealing your love in holy matrimony in the true spirit of martyrdom as espoused by Saint Valentine, happy Valentine’s Day. May you live long to celebrate more of Lovers’ Day in good health, peace in your homes and progress at work.

* Olujobi, a journalist and politician, writes from Ado-Ekiti

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Fayemi: Celebrating An Icon At 60

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By Wole Olujobi

When Dr John Kayode Fayemi (JKF) and I spoke on phone sometime in May 2005 on the need to rescue Ekiti State from the unedifying trend that the state had been forced to endure under the leadership of a government in power at the time, the innocence, candour, fervour and clarity of his mission in the course of our short conversation were unmistakable and the content of his vision resoundingly compelling.

Prior to soldiering for Ekiti sanity and liberty, former Governor Kayode Fayemi’s pro-democracy activities had been loud both in national and international media, as he was one of the top activists who led a coterie of other determined pro-democracy combatants in the struggle to wean Nigeria off the equally determined military officers who appointed themselves as rulers without the consent of Nigerians but who nevertheless ruled with horsewhips and bayonets, leaving in their trail a tell-tale anguish of economic and political misfortunes in the nation in chains.

As a scholar in War Studies with bias for security, civil relations and development, Fayemi, who is a political ideologue of the left with a welfarist communal etho as both his creed and bond, had no patience with the squalor and misery into which a potentially prosperous Nigeria was sunk.

Loud in a deep, penetrating echo of a freedom fighter’s tactics on Radio Kudirat International, Fayemi, deploying the grandeur of his scholarship and borderless networks, yet looming very large in the shadows, became the nemesis of the military rulers, whose geniuses could be located within the worst rank of evils, as scary looting and runaway political mass murders debuted in Nigeria. Chief MKO Abiola, Kudirat Abiola, Dele Giwa, Alfred Rewane, Alhaja Suliat Adedeji and Ken Saro-Wiwa, among several others, today, in their graves, are my witnesses, as they suffered the deadly fate of those dark hours when Nigerian soldiers hunted pro-democracy activists like antelopes and condemned their beautiful and golden souls to dusty deaths.

The bullets regime of the hell kites hawking at and feasting on the entrails of prominent pro-democracy elements under which the courageous Fayemi operated was succeeded by the terror of the more audacious vicious wolves in partisan garbs (all from the same roots) that seized the killing field called their Nigeria. For them, life in office (though a brief candle) was an eternity for the guns to rule over the affairs of men.

As thick as hail, flew bullets upon bullets, as guns boomed in the homes of pro-democracy figures. The roll-call of skulls of human games that adorned the battlements of the marksmen in the game of death included those of Chief Bola Ige, who was killed on December 23, 2001; Chief Victor Nwakwo (August 29, 2001); Isiaka Mohammed, September 24, 2002; Theodore Egwuatu February 2003; Marshall Harry was killed on March 5, 2003; Anthony Nwudo, March 21, 2003; Chief Ajibola Olanipekun, June 20, 2003; Aminosoari Dikibo, February 6, 2004; while Chief Phillips Olorunnipa was murdered on March 7, 2004.

Other victims included Sunny Atte, whose life was snuffed out on February 5, 2005; Alhaji Alabi Olajokun was trailed after a political meeting and killed at Gbongan junction in Osun State on May 15, 2005; and Chief Layi Balogun, who was murdered on December 7, 2006, among several other victims that paid with their lives over political partisanship.

One of the few exceptions was the foremost erudite and eminent lawyer, philanthropist and renowned education investor, Aare Afe Babalola, who had a rare luck to survive after receiving a barrage of death threats on his phone. But Dr Ayo Daramola was not that lucky, as he paid the supreme price on August 14, 2006. The lucky ones that cheated the bullets trusted their heels and escaped into exile.

Indeed, it was a period that the clamour for representative governance was more dangerous among the lovers of freedom than the business of kidnapping, courtesy of the hangover from the era of military-inspired regimental democracy of “five fingers of the same leprous hand” (UNCP, GDM, CNC, DPN and NCPN) and their autistic twin brothers, SDP and NRC, that died and interred at infancy.

Fayemi nearly paid with his life while lending hands to the efforts to peacefully send the military back to the barracks to enable Nigerians enjoy unfettered democratic governance. God and fate saved his flight that would have become his store-house to the eternity, with the Radio Kudirat transmitters tucked inside his pant. Operating in the murderous anonymity of the Nigeria’s tempestuous political waters, JKF braved the storm and sailed to safety unscathed!

Out of the shadows, Fayemi threw his hat into the political ring. Combining brilliance with the powerful contents of his conviction, resilience, devotion, courage, vision, verity and determination; these sterling credentials earned Fayemi the governorship ticket of his party, the Alliance For Democracy (AD), in the 2007 governorship poll in Ekiti State, which he won but which the Nigerian State led by the same devout power merchants and their devious potentates counterparts, would not allow for three and half years.

But the Nigerian Constitution triumphed in Fayemi’s case. The nation’s laws spoke loudly in courts, climaxing in JKF’s victory on October 15, 2010 at the Ilorin Appeal Court, which marked somewhat of a doomsday blues for the usurpers, but a triumph of ideal for Ekiti people, as the tenacious Fayemi held the trophy to a new dawn of sanity and development in Ekiti State.

Adept at a life of service complemented by his humanist wife and author, Erelu Bisi Fayemi, JKF in government, for eight years, (first between 2010 and 2014 and later between 2018 and 2022), recorded many firsts in Ekiti State’s political and development history. As the Minister of Solid Minerals Development, he also put Nigeria on the minerals development map of the world.

His scorecards: It is on record that Fayemi, a legacy governor and visionary of the progressive hue, changed the narrative of abandoned projects in Ekiti State by completing the uncompleted and abandoned projects by his predecessors. Fayemi’s introduction of community-based public participation in budget planning yielded unprecedented increase in road construction, water projects, electricity projects, enhanced health management system, opening of new schools for increased enrolments, record upsurge in hospitality and other small-scale businesses, encouragement of foreign businesses and revamping moribund state’s industrial assets, such as Ikogosi Resorts. Fountain Hotel and ROMACO; Ekiti Airport project, and a premier Knowledge Zone, among other life-lifting schemes, to create jobs, including strengthening bureaucracy to enhance efficiency, effectiveness, openness and transparency in public service.

For the first time. Fayemi bought the first batch of over 70,000 computer sets for distribution among secondary school students, which gave Ekiti students an advantage in computer-based public examinations, and renovated 183 secondary schools and 835 primary schools. During his first term alone, he commissioned five mini-water treatment plants while also erecting 167 water fetching points across the state such that for the first time in the state, moved water supply capacity to 52 percent as against 25 percent on assumption of office.

He also introduced social security for the elderly; the first in the West Africa subregion, and built legacy projects, such as the new Oke Ayoba Government House, stadium-sized Ekitiparapo Pavilion, Ekiti Cargo International Airport and Obafemi Awolowo Civic and Convention Centre, among other monuments that served as flowery mementos to the memory and legacy of credible performance, while some communities that had existed for more than a century without light were connected to the national grid.

Commercial farming in the Youths in Commercial Agricultural Development (YCAD) scheme was introduced by Fayemi, which took Ekiti State to lead Nigeria in cassava cultivation, also for the first time.

Fayemi facilitated the State Accountability and Voice Initiative (SAVI) of the British Department for International Development (DFID) to organise a training programme on Executive-Legislature partnership towards a sustainable collaboration for service delivery in June 2012 at the Royal Park Hotel in Iloko-Ijesa. DFID took cabinet and House of Assembly members through the rudiments of budgeting processes and tracking while also dissecting contemporary issues in Ekiti State.

Fayemi’s administration also sponsored the Ekiti State House of Assembly to the Gauteng Provincial Parliament in South Africa where the two parliaments signed agreements on various exchange programmes that were mutually beneficial to the two parliaments and governments for collegial cooperative relationship. Shortly afterwards, the Gauteng Parliament established Public Participation Unit in Ekiti State House of Assembly and provided books and other journals that could aid development initiatives in Ekiti State while another South Africa’s firm took over the management of the decrepit Ikogosi Warm Spring Resort and developed the facility to a world-class tourists’ delight.

Also in South Africa, Ekiti Assembly members were introduced to the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), a novel and innovative instrument for advancing good governance and people-centred socio-economic development.

The lessons learnt from the programmes, particularly the Iloko-Ijesa parley, produced the first Ekiti State Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF), which led to the establishment of the Special Projects Unit, project monitoring framework, procurement process reform and realignment of the existing MDAs work plan to reflect new budget amendments, among others, which greatly helped to break administrative bottlenecks that hamper quick service delivery. That initiative created a momentum for accelerated development in Ekiti State. Most of these efforts by Fayemi later served as models for other governments in Nigeria in their governance and development strategies.

According to the Human Development Report (2012), Ekiti State under Fayemi was described as the most conducive environment to live, for long and healthy living with a life expectancy average of 55 years more than the National Life expectancy average of 50 years, including the lowest infant and maternal mortality rate and the lowest HIV/AIDS infection rate in Nigeria.

The United Nations acknowledged Fayemi’s innovative governance in September 2013 when the world body invited him to its session in New York on the basis that his state met many of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) agenda, even as Fayemi at home received the prestigious media award of “Best Governor of the Year” from some national newspapers, including Abuja-based Leadership Newspaper.

At his ministerial nomination screening session on October 13, 2015, at the Nigerian Senate in Abuja, that often features sentimental assessments, Fayemi, a debonair speaker, broke the ice, exuding the deep and vast brilliance of his scholarship.

Not for him the colourless and lifeless language of a political tramp that hangs loose for “just anything”! As usual, he had his day to draw plaudits from Nigerians.

Reeling out facts and figures in the charm, flair and eloquence of Cicero in his prodigious use of the Queen’s English in response to the questions posed to him on the floor of the Senate, the Senators hooted, as the urbane Fayemi held the Senate Gallery spellbound, while Nigerians at home stayed glued to the live broadcast of the session to see Fayemi’s first class erudition on display.

In my little hole in exile in my own country where I took cover to escape the bullets over my media activities in aid of my state and party, I suddenly found my voice, lept in rapturous delight, and lost my vocal cord to the ecstasy that greeted the sterling performance by a great boss.

The ministerial nominee, in the radiance of a Vatican cleric, shone like the Northern star to the applause of the nation. No wonder, shortly after he won his second term governorship election, he was unanimously elected Chairman by a multi-partisan Nigerian Governors Forum; the position he held dispassionately among his colleagues to advance the cause of democracy as a driver of development.

As the Nigerian Governors’ captain as well as the governor of Ekiti State, while his genius was hailed by his colleagues as exemplary, he remained a legend to Ekiti people who witnessed his magic firsthand in his development strategies.


For instance, for the first time in Ekiti State electoral contest, Fayemi broke the state’s succession bogey and opened the history doors for the first back-to-back victory for one political party to succeed itself in the Ekiti State governorship election. The magic was the continuity mantra of his party propelled by the milestones he recorded and as endorsed by Ekiti people, which ensured Governor Biodun Abayomi Oyebanji’s succeess at polls in 2022 governorship election, to post the first historic and historical same party victory in succession election in Ekiti State. As it turned out, Governor Oyebanji has proven himself as a worthy successor, judging from his pro–people stance in every action he has taken so far in government.

As former Governor Fayemi attains the Diamond Age of 60, history has placed him as an icon of his time in personal accomplishments and an epochal star in Nigeria’s political firmament.

In his class profiling thesis, the impossible Italian philosopher, scientist and astronomer, Galileo Galilei, had quipped; “Independent spirits spread like a foul disease, so men must keep their places; some up, some down.”

But the same Galileo also found relevance in the deeply ignorant people to complete his work and world. He had said: “I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn’t learn something from him”, just like Fayemi is also at home with the grassroots people and their sentiments in planning their development strategies and he achieved sterling results.

As for Fayemi, he has kept his place high among the profound in philosophical thoughts to drive development agenda for the mass of the people; the philosophy that drives and shapes his vision and world view to lead a successful life.

Three scores in the life of a living legend is a short space within which to record a book of life. By merciful powers, the dawn of Fayemi’s new chapter of life opens tomorrow, tomorrow and tomorrow, creeping in this petty pace from day to day, to record the last syllable of evergreen long years of service to humanity.
Cymbals and tambourines for the birthday boy on the Diamond threshold of the aged.

* Olujobi, a journalist and former spokesman of Kayode Fayemi Campaign Organisation, writes from Ado-Ekiti

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