Ekiti can’t continue to be Indian hemp hub, says Falana
By Ayo Akano
The growing trade in Indian hemp which poses threat to human health must stop in Ekiti State, radical lawyer, Mr Femi Falana has said. He spoke on Thursday at the first colloquium organized by Ekitipanupo, an indigenous intellectual platform.
He said many people are worried about the fact that the state is associated with the large scale planting of Indian hemp in commercial quantity in spite of the cherished reputation of Ekiti as the hub of knowledge and the finest human resources.
“It is unfortunate that the most lucrative business in Ekiti is the business of Igbo (Indian hemp)”, Falana said adding that he suspects a link between the sordid trade and the upsurge in violence among the state’s youth population. He said most youths in Ekiti are developing a culture of violence, the resurgence which he links to the character of the current ruling political class in the state. He commended former Governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi for scrapping the “miracle centres”, an organized crime centre where students come out in flying colours through institutionally backed fraud and examination malpractices. He said the miracle centres have returned again into the state.
“I didn’t visit Ekiti for the past two years until last two weeks. In my home town, thugs mobbed my car and almost broke the windscreen. It was embarrassing” he said. The Senior Advocate of Nigeria, (SAN) said apart from the planting of Indian hemp, youths have taken politics as a career instead of building their own capacity to be able to compete in the global human resource pool.
He lamented the attitude of the Ekiti civil servants to issues of sustainable development in the state. “What do you do with the civil servants? I want to see engineers in the civil service getting involved in production instead of being idle.” Though the state is said to have about 65,000 civil servants, Falana said the figure may have increased to about 75,000 due to the secret recruitment by the state and local authorities.
He said the civil service and the teachers must support the campaign to bring Ekiti back on the path of honour. He said that when the former Governor of Ekiti State Kayode Fayemi introduced the need to assess the teachers, they rose against the policy wondering why teachers should run away from being examined.
He said Ekitipanupo and other stakeholders cannot continue to be partisan in the face of the social and economic calamities that have been the lot of the state.
“You cannot be partisan if you want to restore the values of Ekiti state. We need to work out the minimum framework for governance that will make it difficult for buccaneers to take over governance in Ekiti State.” He said no matter how beautiful ideas of reviving Ekiti are, it comes to nothing when the political machinery lay in the hands of rogues and spineless leaders.