"This is your victory - the voice and choice of the people.." - the inaugural speech of Dr Kayode Fayemi, Governor of Ekiti State, Nigeria on October 16, 2010.

1. This is Your Victory/The Voice and Choice of the People/New Dawn
Dr. Kayode Fayemi, Governor of Ekiti State.
Speech delivered at the Swearing-in Ceremony in Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti-
State.
Protocols
My Dear Ekiti Compatriots,
It is possible.
In all things, as the Holy Books compel us, we must learn to give thanks to the
Almighty. To those who still doubt the miracle of our living God, yesterday’s
declaration of the actual winner in the April 14, 2007 Gubernatorial election
and the supplementary election on April 25/May 5 2009 in Ekiti State is more
than ample evidence that our God is good, all the time. Forty seven years ago,
our great leader, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, in his famous allocutus stated that
“after darkness, comes the glorious dawn”. With profound gratitude and great
humility, I stand here today before this distinguished gathering and declare that
this is the arrival of such a dawn. From a dismal tunnel into which electoral
robbery has drawn our beloved state, even made worse by the sheer
incompetence and incontinence of the violators of our collective right to
political choice, their Lords Justices of the Appeal Court have rescued our state
and delivered your voice and choice back to you, the good people of Ekiti
State. It is not ‘Kayode Fayemi and ‘Funmi Olayinka who have won a victory
here today. This struggle has never been about us. It’s been about you and the
corporate sovereignty of Ekiti people.
This has been a long and tortuous journey strewn with blood and tears along
the way. For forty two long months after that election, you insisted on pitching
tents with the truth and decided on a new politics for our time. In all these
tiring years and depressing months, through all the legal rigmaroles and social
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2. perversions, you held on to your faith even when the path was uncertain. In
spite of the temporary triumph of perfidy and what looked like an endless
stream of inequity, you good people of Ekiti, and our numerous friends and
supporters both within and outside Nigeria, stood firmly by us; we remained
your choice and your voice. You reflected what Ekiti history teaches us from
the period of the ancestors about resistance to oppression, about courage of
conviction and about justice as the first condition of our humanity. At a point,
the sheer impudence of the electoral thieves provoked our people to ask: Ki la
ti a se yi si o, Ekiti kete? But the response that you gave to the challenge was
outstanding. You did not respond by force of arms, nor resort to criminality and
brigandage. Instead, you pursued your conviction with dogged determination
within the ambits of the constitution and the law. You heeded my plea that I do
not want to be Governor over dead compatriots and that we must pursue justice
without shedding blood. You bore all the indignities and suffered all the
tribulations in the firm belief that, in the end, justice shall prevail. Today, your
inviolate belief in democracy and your unquenchable thirst for justice have
been echoed in the hallowed chambers of the Nigerian judiciary. Your choice
and your voice have triumphed. At last, the siege is over. History is made, like
the day our forefathers repelled the ajeles at the historic Ekiti Parapo wars.
It is possible.
Today, we, the Ekiti people, begin a new journey to meet our manifest destiny
as the vanguard of enlightenment, not only in Nigeria, but in the rest of Africa.
We went into the election believing in the sanctity of the vote, in our
determination that our people's votes should count in order to ensure that we
can be held accountable. Today, we enter into a sacred social contract with
you, our people. Let this message be heralded in every corner of our marvelous
state, let it be echoed in the four corners of this amazing country and beyond
the shores of Nigeria; let it be repeated by generations to come: that on this
day, at this place and in this historic time, a judicial verdict provided an
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3. opportunity for the light that is Ekiti State to shine again; the shining light
which had been consecrated by those who came before us, is today snatched
from the jaws of defeat and delivered to the doorsteps of victory. Never again
in the history of our state of enlightenment shall a government not duly elected
by the people be imposed on them.
It is possible.
For some time, our civility and restraint was misunderstood as a sign of
weakness and fear. We did not resist the tyranny of the military and erected
barricades against the run-away autocracy of the militariat, only to submit to
the bloody machinations of civilian marauders. We were resolute in our belief
that the state for which we have given, and will still give, our all, will never by
our retaliation or reaction, be turned into the graveyard of democratic politics.
The struggle was waged on our core principle of restoring a heritage of values
known to Ekiti and Yoruba people. Yes, it is true that we have had a bitterly
divided state in the past three and a half years. Ekiti was always in the news
for all the wrong reasons, not celebrated for any enduring and worthy
exploits. Indeed, we responded to the tricks and treacheries of the powers by
the sheer morality of our authentic mandate; we did not fight, we struggled. We
struggled to ensure that, through all the uncorrupted avenues for legal justice,
the mandate that you freely gave retained its sanctity in the face of daunting
odds. It is a fulfillment of my constant refrain that our freely given mandate
will neither be compromised nor stolen.
For the avoidance of doubt, dear compatriots, what we struggled against were
not the individuals who stole our votes, who benefitted from the robbery and
those who, through political or even judicial means, sought to consolidate the
electoral heist. Those we struggled against and those who this judgment has
given us the renewed will to defeat are tyranny, illiteracy, poverty, diseases and
the darkness that has been imposed on this land of honour and fountain of
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4. knowledge. My compatriots, now we must recover the spiritual and moral
direction that many used to celebrate us for - courage, character, competence,
compassion, candour and integrity. Ekiti was founded on these ideals and we
now have a sacred duty to take them back.
We had named this a collective rescue mission. The vision is clear; the mission
is here. It is to make poverty history in our land. While it is going to be a
daunting task, it is not an insurmountable challenge to move beyond our most
recent wounds. In fact, our only choice is to continue on the path of
reconciliation and renewal towards a model state - because this state is bigger
than us all.
It is possible.
As I am ushered into the Governor’s Office in Ado-Ekiti, make no mistake
about it, I will ensure that you, the good people of Ekiti State, own this
government. I will do this by re-designing my agenda through the village
square and town hall meetings I promised; democratizing governance,
modernizing agriculture; improving on infrastructure; promoting free and
qualitative education towards the development of functional human capital;
providing free health and social security to the disadvantaged sectors of our
state, ensuring industrial development; tourism and sustainable development
and promoting gender equality and women's empowerment.
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, the State of our State calls for an urgent,
bold and swift action. What happened in Ilorin yesterday had strengthened my
bond with you. My 8 point agenda would be pursued with vigour and life
would be more abundant for our people .Governance shall not only be
transparent and accountable but the good of our people would be the template.
There would be employment opportunities and youth development shall
receive urgent lifeline. Women would never suffer discrimination as they
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5. would become vital indices in our development calculation. Child and maternal
mortality rates shall be reduced and eventually stamped out. Agriculture, our
mainstay would come alive while tourism would add value to Ekiti, a state of
aesthetic splendor. Your health will be my wealth as we set about fulfilling our
promise of an affordable, accessible healthcare for every Ekiti citizen.
Education, our heritage and weapon against ignorance shall receive a religious
attention. For the good of our people and to the Greater Glory of humanity, I
declare Education free for all primary and secondary school pupils. Children
at birth up to five years of age, pregnant women and senior citizens are
exempted from paying medical bills in all government hospitals. In addition,
we shall introduce a social security scheme for all our senior citizens that are
65 and above within the shortest possible time.
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen - This event is occurring as the world
reviews a decade of the Millennium Development Goals [MDGs]. I do not
believe that this timing is just a mere coincidence or an occurrence by
happenstance. It is also five decades after the gargantuan accomplishments of
our sage as the premier of Western Nigeria. Even the sage must be turning in
his grave about the deteriorating developments in his zone and the entire
country as a whole. It is therefore an opportunity for those of us interested in
societal transformation to recommit and rededicate ourselves to the values
promoted by Chief Awolowo and renewed in the MDGs. Our challenge as a
successor generation is not just to restore the fundamental tenets of the Awo
credo in our actions. Yes, education, health, development of the human capital
and freedom from poverty must remain inalienable rights for our people but in
accomplishing the necessary tasks, we will not privilege ideology over facts.
Not dogma over common sense. Our primary objective will be what works best
in the ultimate interest of our people. We shall do development with our
people and not for them.
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6. I must caution that this would not be smooth sailing. The road will be rough,
the climb is bound to be steep but that also represents the history of our people
– a history of continuing struggle. We owe it a duty to repair the damage done
by the departing authority even as we re-start the clock of progress in our State.
For about three and a half years, governance became an exercise in trial by
error. Ekiti government house became a theatre for comedians where policy
somersault and executive recklessness became the script. It was forty months
of a game without rules, a journey without maps. Health care delivery became
death scare delivery and the neglected hospitals became centres where you pay
through your nose to shake hand with death. Peace became a rare commodity
in our cultural warehouse and lives became disposable with unnatural expiry
dates, through the guns of assassins and kidnappers and the bullets of armed
robbers. We recorded more political killings in these sordid forty months than
in the previous twelve years of our existence as a state. A strange catechism of
politics without integrity was handed to our youths who were living witnesses
to unpardonable electoral robberies. Infrastructure and public utilities became
public nightmare. Education system became impaired while deception became
an article of faith. Official relationship with our elders, leaders and traditional
rulers was maintained mainly with pecuniary inducements rather than through
conviction.
Compatriots, I have reiterated many times that the struggle was not a personal
war between political adversaries but a compelling call to a crusade for the
redemption of our dear State which we have all toiled to build. In the spirit of
reconciliation and renewal, we must have the courage and the determination to
build bridges across divides and unite in common effort. We must be honest
and admit that attaining greater heights in Ekiti State will require more than
just government. There is no magic wand about it. It will require a renewed
sense of responsibility from each of us. Yes, government must lead, but each
of us must do our part in rebuilding this beloved state of ours. Yes, we must
provide more opportunities and ladders to success for our young men and
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7. women, but parents must still guide and protect their children. True, we must
ensure a politics of meaning and eschew bitterness in political relations.
In this sense, I want to assure all that there will be neither recrimination nor
retaliation under this administration. Without a doubt, we will undertake a
comprehensive review of what had transpired in the last forty two months as
should be expected, but this is with a view to strengthening the fabric of
democratic governance and correcting the ills of the past, not an exercise in
witch-hunting. During this period, the civil service which is the key
implementing agent of government had its flag flown at half mast. The fire of a
vibrant workforce was extinguished and the artisans were in sackcloth,
mourning the arrested opportunities of Ekiti, our State of hope. To begin this
process of renewal, we shall require all Permanent Secretaries in our civil
service to revert back to their positions as of May 28, 2009 immediately while
suspending all irregular civil service appointments.
It is possible.
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, our celebration today is not a celebration
of our victory as politicians or as a party, our celebration is that of the triumph
of justice and equity, the victory of Ekiti people’s inalienable right to choose
their leaders, a celebration of the triumph of human spirit over the indignities
of the age; a triumph of hope over hopelessness. But it is also a celebration of a
new beginning, one for which all Ekiti people must roll up their sleeves to
begin the rebuilding of our state which was hampered by gross electoral
robbery.
We cannot but salute our leaders who put what money could not buy - their
honour and their humanity - on the line so that the government of the people,
by the people and for the people shall not perish in Ekitiland. They were not
seeking personal victories or favours; some of them were not even from these
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8. shores; theirs was, and still is, an irrevocable commitment to the ideals of
democracy, the promises of justice and the illuminations of egalitarianism.
For the avoidance of doubt, even if, fundamentally, our task begins with Ekiti
State, it goes beyond the limits of our state, because we cannot be truly free
until our compatriots are all free. Therefore, let this be only the beginning of
greater justice, within and beyond Ekiti state. This land, which had flowed with
milk and honey, both which has now been sucked and licked dry by a most
unprecedented kleptomania, must be returned to its pride of place in the comity
of nations. Ekiti people, as we celebrate the centenary of Obafemi Awolowo,
the High Priest of Enlightenment and Egalitarianism, I hereby reaffirm my
willingness to work with others to ensure that Ekiti State and our country,
Nigeria, marches again, unimpeded, towards her manifest destiny.
Yes, it is possible.
I thank you.
God bless you, God bless Ekiti State, and God Bless Nigeria.
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