NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER

It is a new dawn in Ekiti as we usher in a historical event in the publication of the first of its kind in community journalism. Effective today, we mark the birth of Ekiti Standard Community Newspaper designed among other things, to perform the traditional roles of information dissemination, entertainment, education and opinion formation among the great people of Ekiti.
No doubt, Ekiti people were well noted for their hard work, education, honesty, firmness, fairness, discipline and their rich cultural heritage.
In times past, it was a firm stereotype to identify an Ekiti person with those great attributes.
A noble example of who a typical Ekiti person was could be seen in the altruism and gallantry displayed by our great son, Colonel Francis Adekunle Fajuyi, (MC, BEM), a distinguished and foremost Nigerian soldier and the first Military Governor of the then Western Region who sacrificed his life even when he knew that the price of doing so was the ultimate price, death.
Others in his circumstance would have cleverly released his guest to die in the wicked hands of the enemies and thereby safe his own life. He did not do that, but allowed both himself and his guest to die in the hands of the rampaging and murderous enemy.
That was the principled and typical Ekiti man.
Also, in times past, the Ekiti man was highly committed, law abiding, educated, caring, principled and largely abhorred insults and dirty identity.
Ekiti people were not killers in the name of anything including politics, riches and material things.
Not much of those attributes can be said to prevail in today’s Ekiti especially with the influence of misnomers like the now popular lexicon, stomach infrastructure, which was invented in Ekiti and exported to other parts of the Nigeria’s political life.
Most Ekiti people today are less principled and indeed, slaves to money and cosmetic materials of life. Please don’t ask me for empirical evidence for this assertion because the examples of abnormal things and behaviors among Ekiti people abound everywhere today.
Politicians are killed and maimed with reckless abandon, our children belong to dreadful cults, our students in tertiary institutions cheat at examinations, buy certificates and exhibit the highest levels of ignorance and academic retrogression to the extent that upon graduation, they become unemployable in the labour market.
As Ekiti people we cannot continue to remain complacent in the face of these abnormalities which seem to have become the norm in our land.

We need a quick reorientation in our land. We need a cultural, physical and mental reawakening that will enable us take a proper, distinguished and respectable place in today’s highly competitive Nigeria.
It is the objective of Ekiti Standard newspaper to contribute its quota in this all-important assignment of reorientation and reawakening through objective and unbiased reporting, information dissemination, education, entertainment and opinion formation which are traditional roles of the media.
What will distinguish Ekiti Standard Newspaper from the traditional media is its penchant for community and grass-roots reporting.
We will give proper attention to all the nooks and crannies of Ekiti State as a way of bringing into proper focus, the life of the people in all the local council areas. By so doing, the communication gap between the government and the governed will be reduced if not completely eliminated.
To achieve this goal, we will need the maximum cooperation of our readers in every part of the state.
Again, for proper reportage of news from these areas, the people must cooperate in rendering factual information as they affect their lives.
Ekiti Standard Newspaper will be published initially every fortnight and it is hopeful that this frequency will become weekly and the readership will cut across all communities in Ekiti including the adjourning neighbours of the State.
The language will be such that everyone will understand and comprehend its contents.
Ekiti peoples’ rich cultural heritage will be given sufficient prominence to foster the ideals of honesty, integrity and fairness among others.
We at Ekiti Standard Newspaper wish our readers well. We will be glad to have your honest comments, contributions and participation in our regular publications.
We have tried hard to hire the best team of professionals in journalism to give you excellent reading. This shall be an ongoing exercise in which our team will always be ready to exhibit the highest standards of professional journalism.
Welcome into a new dawn of community journalism in Ekiti.

OUR MISSION STATEMENT

Ekiti Standard newspaper is a child of necessity born as a result of the big vacuum created by apparent lack of a truly community newspaper in the entire Ekiti land since the state was carved out of the old Ondo State over 20 years ago.
We take cognizance of the fact that though development has become a key factor in the lives of an average Ekiti person, but appropriate communication tools that will enhance the general well being and promote the socio-cultural and political needs of our people is grossly absent. This we feel, is unacceptable in a state ably dubbed as ‘Fountain of Knowledge’
To this end, Ekiti Standard came on board to fill the gap in the areas of fair and accurate dissemination of news and reports from all the 16 local governments of the state thereby laying a solid foundation in community and rural journalism.

Why Ekiti Standard?
The name speaks for itself as it is a known fact that there are core Ekiti values which are our homogeneity, hard work, industry, the culture of Omoluabi and of course, education. All these combined, shall be our guiding principles in the discharge of our duty as professionals while promising to hold true to the basic tenets of fair and unbiased reports and analyses.
Our political views shall be fair to all parties while government activities would be given prominent attention at all times but in doing this, we are mindful of our duty as the Fourth Estate of the Realm to always put any government in power on their toes and to remind them of their covenant to the people.
Our team of seasoned and experienced professionals are already at work dishing out juicy stories of events and happenings across the state in a free-flow prose and reader- friendly language every forth night in the next couple of months in anticipation of our acceptance by the general public after which we go full circle.
In conclusion, we want to remind the good people of Ekiti that we are also in business to sustain our media organization and secure our jobs since there is no free meal even in Freetown.
The harsh economic reality of the country is enough to kick any would-be investors out of business, but since we are irrevocably committed to give back to the society through the establishment of this media outfit, the huge investment notwithstanding and mounting overhead costs, we have vowed not to look back until we get to the promise land.
Our appeal then goes to our numerous readers including government, politicians of all shades, career men and women, people in hospitality business, business owners, schools, eateries and thousand others to buy into this laudable project by patronizing us through adverts and supplements, events coverage, public notice, change of name, obituaries and so on.
It is no longer news that to whom much is given, much is expected. We have done our own part we equally desired to be patronized so that the relationship may fester,