A member of the 5th Senate, Senator Bode Olowoporoku, has identified what he called “generational curse” as the reason why Ekiti State has not developed 21 years after its creation.
Olowoporoku, who represented represented Ekiti South senatorial district between 2003 and 2007, also condemned attempts in some quarters not to acknowledge the roles he played in the creation of the state.
Addressing a news conference in Ado-Ekiti, the state capital, on Monday, Olowoporoku declared his interest to contest the 2018 governorship election on the platform of the Mega Party of Nigeria (MPN)
The former Minister of Science and Technology in the Second Republic said he chose the MPN platform because “the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has been strangulated by Governor Ayo Fayose while the All Progressives Congress (APC) is sailing on wide sea without any sense of direction.”
Olowoporoku claimed that the Ekiti Parapo war hero, Fabunmi Okemesi placed a curse on Ekiti land because the people he fought to liberate from the Ibadan/Oyo oppression rewarded him with ingratitude when their Obas and leaders allegedly instigated the colonialists to incarcerate him in Ibadan.
He said: “Ekiti has since been cursed into paying all their benefactors with ingratitude hence the state is in agony today and this generational curse has been responsible for the backwardness of Ekiti land.
“Myself and those who led the struggle for the creation of Ekiti State have been plotted against since immediately the state was created paving way for total invasion of the state by ‘strangers’ to become governors of Ekiti State.”
Olowoporoku who also served as Commissioner in old Ondo State under Chief Adekunle Ajasin explained that his interest in running for the governorship in 2018 was not about him “but because of the suffering civil servants, teachers, farmers, market women, artisans and small scale commercial enterprise owners.”
He added: “Senator Bode Olowoporoku had made his bit, but how to erase the generational curse on Ekiti children yet unborn is the issue. This is why I have decided to make attempt once more to redeem Ekiti by becoming the next Governor of Ekiti State come 2018.
“So, I use this form to declare to Ekiti people that I want to contest as the redeemer Governor to liberate Ekiti land from generational curses of ingratitude.
“Ekiti people who have read the authentic history of the struggle for the creation of Ekiti State have been urging me to come out to declare interest, that it is Ekiti people home and abroad who will join hands to vote me to become the next Governor to erase the generational curse.”
Recalling his roles in the struggle for the creation of Ekiti State, Olowoporoku said he was invited to a meeting by Ekiti Obas and was asked to use his connection with former Ministers, Mallam Adamu Ciroma and Dr. Dalhatu Tafida to reach out to those who mattered in the Gen. Sani Abacha.
Olowoporoku explained further that he took the Ekiti State creation matter to the then Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Alhaji Aminu Saleh and former Senate Leader, Dr. Olusola Saraki who helped to convince Abacha on their cause.
The former university don disclosed that he (Olowoporoku) financed the trip and accommodation of the Ekiti delegation to Abuja after Saraki had helped book an appointment with Abacha to convince him to give them a new state.
Olowoporoku said: “We presented our address outlining the oppression and marginalization of Ekiti land within (old) Ondo State. We pleaded he (Abacha) should salvage Ekiti land from this pitiable quagmire.
“General Abacha sympathized with us and said that, that was the first time Ekiti people came to the seat of power to express their situation.
“Then he concluded that even if he did not want to create State, if it meant creating Ekiti State alone in Nigeria, he would do so, that we should regard Ekiti State as a reality that would come soonest.
“It was jubilation galore after the meeting and the jubilation enveloped Ekiti land after 9pm news was cast on the radio and television throughout Nigeria indeed the following October 1st, 1996, Ekiti State was created.”
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