The Governor of Ekiti State, Kayode Fayemi on Saturday assessed his performance in office which he scored at 80 percent, adding that he has delivered on every category of promise he made in his inaugural speech and on the “Road Map To Ekiti Recovery: The 8 Point Agenda.”
Speaking on Channels Television’s breakfast programme, Sunrise, Governor Fayemi who had secured his mandate as governor after several court cases said the struggle was worth it as “any opportunity to serve the people is a worthy opportunity.”
According to him, “public service is the highest form of duty that any citizen can render to society.”
He said that “In spite of the difficulties on the journey to power, I have found it immensely worthy of the struggle we waged in order to get here.”
Governor Fayemi who recalled his days of activism said the “the opportunity that being in the seat of power offers to fundamentally affect lives is something you can’t really get outside of being in public service” and that his involvement in politics has afforded him the power to affect lives.
“I’ve been an activist all my life. I still consider myself an activist. My politics is an extension of my activism,” he said, adding that things he was not able to do as an activist became easy as governor. He highlighted some of his achievements in office including free education up till secondary level, free health care for the vulnerable segment of our population, the first social security benefit scheme for the elderly.
He challenged critics to examine his inaugural speech to critique the promises he had made against his 3 years and 3 months stay in office.
“I am delivering on all the promises I made. I have not delivered completely on all of them but on each and every one of those promises, known as Road Map To Ekiti Recovery: The 8 Point Agenda, you will find that they are at least 80 percent completed.”
“I’ve been able to affect lives. I’ve been able to deliver on our socio-democratic agenda as a political party that believes in pulling up the weak and vulnerable in society. That, without a doubt, is what I’ve done in office.”
Despite the fact that Ekiti is renowned for breeding many top scholars in the nation, critics have said its current state of education has reduced it to the bottom five. However, Governor Fayemi said the claim is not fact but opinion. He stressed that “Ekiti today has had one of the most meteoric rise in terms of performance in public examination.”
He further noted that: “When I became governor in 2010, Ekiti had a 20 percent pass rate in public examination. 20 percent of those who sat for WASCE had 5 credits including English and Maths” but the latest results in the 2013 edition of the same examination revealed that the percentage had moved to 70 percent.”
“Christ School in Ado Ekiti moved from nine percent to 99 percent.”
Asked the strategies implemented to achieve the increase, he said a task force chaired by late Professor Sam Aluko had been commissioned to help improve the quality of education.
Also, the infrastructure had been rehabilitated to create conducive learning environment. 183 secondary schools and 856 primary schools were renovated and refurbished. The system of administration was also changed which ensured that one principal was in charge of a school as opposed to the former system which had “one principal for junior secondary school (boys), junior secondary school (girls), senior secondary school (boys) and senior secondary school (girls).”
