By Kayemo news
Kayemo news reports that Ekiti South senatorial district’s level of political marginalisation among the three equal blocs making the state, has made it ‘the weeping boy of triplets’
The Ekiti South can be likened to one of three offspring produced in the same pregnancy, being one of the tripod that came into being in 1996 when the state was created out of old Ondo State.
However, the Central and North continued to rotate political and economic power at the expense of the south that continually play second fiddle and rush at any pittance dangles to it by its other brothers.
Like an annual ritual, every four years when election approaches, the political leadership from the zone will converge and cry of marginalisation, sulking like a baby denied of breast milk by his mother.
What are they really crying for? The legal luminary from the zone, Chief Wole Olanipekun SAN, provided answer when he captured succinctly the mindset of the politicians from the South.
According to the legal icon, the alleged political marginalisation of the zone was because politicians from Ekiti South Senatorial District are ready to trade their right in exchange for “political tokenism”.
The senior lawyer who was visibly angered by the development, added that some Ekiti South politicians have made themselves willing tools in doing the dictates and bidding of those from the North and Central zones solely for their parochial and selfish interests.
Olanipekun who stated this in the annual Wole Olanipekun’s Christmas Carol and lesson recently, added, “I pity those who say they are politicians from the Ekiti South. They want to play second fiddle because they think they are inferior. That is the way I see it. But if you say I want to be deputy governor and I want to play a second fiddle, then, they will treat you as such
“To me, I don’t blame the people from the North, if you so called politicians from the South feel inferior and they give them political tokenism and they will accept it.
They see themselves as midgets and see those from the North and Central as the giants. And they behave like zombies”, he added.
Apart from Olanipekun, many still wonder that the zone had been relegated to the background in the state’s political equations despite its humongous electoral weight in terms of population, calibre of political actors and number of local government areas.
Many of the leaders from the zone that shouted to rooftop about the perceived marginalisation in 2022 before the governorship election, have since settled for crumbs from their masters table. They have been pacified with less fancied positions to keep their mouths shut till the next four years.
Little wonder, the current political configuration has further put salt in the already festering sore of the zone. How can one rationalise the current state of affairs that the Governor is from the central and the newly minted minister is also from the central senatorial district.
Many have thought that the minister would come from the south to assuage the feeling of total loss of self belonging of the zone. But as it were, the central also boasts of Senate Leader, the Ambassador, and majority of the appointees of the current government are from there.
In the era of political nepotism where the incumbent corner juicy infrastructure and tertiary institutions to his community as seen in the immediate past government, one can only imagine that the south has been left prostrate in both political and economic power.
The only ranking political figure in the south is the Deputy Governor, a position that has been likened to a “spare tyre” in political equation. What is more, a deputy governor is as relevant as his governor wants him or her to be.
Thankfully, the current holder of the office supervises the Council of Traditional Rulers, settles boundary disputes among communities and also share relief materials to victims of disasters in conjunction with the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA).
In the era of looking onto God for redress against injustice, inequality, rather than fight for ones right, people of the south ‘shall we pray!
