By Editor
Contrary to claims by All Farmers Association of Nigerian AFAN, Ekiti State Chapter denying any rift within the association, the Ekiti State government has reacted strongly debunking the claim.
AFAN has in a trending newspaper reports, denied any rift within the leadership structure of the body thereby rejecting the newly elected executive of the Association.
The association also accused Dr. Sikiru Olowoyo, the SSA to the Governor on Agric Extension as an interloper on the AFAN’s internal election matter by organizing what it described as ‘Kangaroo election’
However in a sharp reaction, Dr. Olowoyo has absolved the government of Ekiti State from the alleged meddlesomeness in the affairs of the body stating that Ekiti AFAN was deeply factionalised between two warring camps whose tenure had expired.
He spoke exclusively with our correspondent on Thursday while stating the government role in the whole saga as peace maker and observer.
“Let me say categorically that I only observed as the SSA in charge of farmers in Ekiti State. Everything done in respect of AFAN’s election in Ekiti was done by the leadership of AFAN headed by Barrister Okeya who happened to be the BOT member of AFAN and also Ekiti State leader in conjunction with other two leaders including Mr. Tunde Adeyemi, National Youth Leader and South West Co-ordinator. I stood to observe and ensure that the two factions in Ekiti State have a fair deal and equity in the whole process”
He stated further; “If they are saying they have no factions, I want to say to you that they are not saying the truth because they knew that for the past six years, Ekiti State AFAN has two factions even up to national level, one is headed by Alagbada Adeniran and the other one headed by Oni Rufus. If there’s no faction, why are they now meeting together to say they are united as one association following several moves I made to reconcile them?” He asked.
Olowoyo, who expressed concerns at the unfortunate development explained that the reconciliation move started from last year when he received a disturbing report from Abuja about the Ekiti farmers’ leadership crisis.
According to him; “I received a correspondence from Abuja referring to one Oni Rufus as Ekiti State AFAN Chairman and I picked my phone to correct the caller that no, Alagbada is our Chairman but they made me to understand that Oni was the recognized state Chairman and that made me to start investigating what actually happened and I discovered that six years ago, something happened that led to Alagbada leading one faction while Oni was returned as Chairman of the main faction in the election conducted by the national body then, but Alagbada’s faction distanced itself from that AFAN executive and when I got wind of this information I started mediating between them”.
Continuing, the SSA spoke about several efforts he made to broker peace between the two warring factions;
“During the first peace meeting I had with the two factional leaders, Alagbada confessed that for the past five years, this is the first time he was seeing Oni since the crisis started and I appealed to both of them that they should allow peace to reign because factional crisis would not benefit Ekiti in any way and I remembered that Oni said, “Since our tenure had expired, this is the best time for us to come together and have one united AFAN under a new set of leadership” That was the agreement”.
However things took a new twist when Alagbada reneged on the gentleman agreement and resulted to self-help.
Said Dr. Olowoyo; “In fact Alagbada confided in me that his own AFAN President in Abuja told him not to leave saying that the five years he spent was crisis upon crisis and not enjoyable for him and I told him, let us put the house together first, after which you can now tell the farmers that you wanted to continue. If they want you I’m okay with it. I learnt that both of them were together initially when Okeya was in charge but during the election that returned Oni, some people who didn’t want him to lead them disrupted the election and organized another purported election that produced Alagbada in another faction meaning Oni was the recognized Chairman at the national while Alagbada operates as the state AFAN Chairman and both of them have been operating separately in the sense that whatever that is coming from the Abuja goes directly to Oni and whatever that is coming from the state, Alagbada and his people grab it so, there was no synergy between the factional leaders.
“When I got to Abuja and they told me that Ekiti is well placed in Nigeria now in agricultural sector and that we should try to harmonize our house so as to get all the expected benefits for the state but we can’t achieve this as a divided house.
“So I commenced the reconciliation process with a meeting between the two factions and they all spoke very well giving hope for a final resolution of the dispute. The meeting was widely covered by the media. Two days after, Alagbada called me and said, ‘that agreement would not work because his own AFAN President from national said that he should remain as the state’s Chairman thereby killing that reconciliation process. So I was frustrated and kept my peace not until recently when leaders of Local governments AFAN, about 15 of them came to my office and started begging me that I should intervene once again since I’ve started the peace process. I reported to my commissioner who gave me the go-ahead to reconcile them and let them have a new set of leadership since the tenure of both of them has ended”.
However the fresh peace making efforts of Dr. Olowoyo were allegedly scuttled by Alagbada as he failed to attend two reconciliation meetings where the Oni’s faction was represented.
“During the first meeting, he came late after Oni’s faction came 10am in the morning. Alagbada arrived three hours later around 1pm. When I was leaving my office Alagbada came with his own team and apologized saying that they were having another meeting. He postponed the meeting again to Tuesday in the presence of everyone. On the said date Alagbada failed again to attend the meeting claiming that he thought the meeting was fixed for Thursday. The officials of the Ministry were in attendance and we begged the Oni faction that honored the invitation to let us agree with Alagbada’s faction to hold the meeting on Thursday. I quickly passed the information across to Alagbada which he acknowledged and promised to attend
“It was that same Thursday morning that Alagbada sent a message to me that his own President said he should not attend any reconciliation meeting nor be part of any AFAN election in Ekiti noting that his own AFAN is an NGO and that “government has nothing to do with AFAN” even as government was only trying to meditate as an arbiter to ensure that there’s mutual co-existence and peace between them, but Alagbada boycotted that meeting.
“But on that Tuesday, the national leaders in Ekiti State made a statement that on the following Thursday ahead of the fertilizer distribution coming next week on 14, that elections of other states had been done except Ekiti State and so the Ekiti election must be done and he knew this but because he knew he would lose the election, that was why he boycotted that meeting.
“Interestingly Oni faction came because he hoped to be the Chairman in charge of the fertilizer distribution in his capacity “.
Giving an update on the present state of things with Ekiti AFAN, the SSA who was key figure in the reconciliation process hinted that the association has democratically elected a new set of leadership to steer the ship of Ekiti farmers.
His words; As at now the leadership of AFAN national has agreed with what the leaders in Ekiti have done. My commissioner had spoken with the leadership of AFAN in person of Alhaji Mogaji, I have spoken with him and they are sending their own delegates to come and affirm what the national body has done in my presence as an observer”. He concludes.
