February 27, (THEWILL) – Two communities Ifaki and Ilawe are both claiming the newly approved Law School slot for the South west. The first already has a signboard on the ground, complete with the logo of Council of Legal Education. The second insists their town was endorsed by the Senate after two of the three senators from the state rooted for Ilawe. THEWILL heard from some of the principal characters on both sides. Michael Jimoh reports…
Losing what should come to you to someone else can be painful. It is even worse if the person is just a jogging distance away. Though Ifaki and Ilawe are in different senatorial districts in Ekiti state, approximately 37 kilometres separate both communities and both can be reached by car in just one hour, making them more like brothers. They also seem to have a common descent as anyone can tell from their names Ifaki Ekiti and Ilawe Ekiti.
Now, there seems to be no love lost between the two communities separated by the state capital Ado Ekiti smack in the middle with ifaki to the north and Ilawe to the south. What is the source of this problem?
Incredibly, the source came straight from the Senate, the Upper Chamber in the National Assembly, Abuja last October. Without any hint of what is now playing out in the two communities and with good intentions, Senator Smart Adeyemi of Kogi west senatorial district proposed/ introduced a bill to site the newly-approved law school for the South west in Ifaki. Six new law schools had been approved by the Federal Government to be sited in the six geopolitical zones in addition to the already existing half dozen bringing the total number to 12.
Following that, Adeyemi proposed Ifaki as the host community for the legal institution. The standing order in the Upper House is that once two senators from the same state support a bill against a third, the die is cast automatically in their favour.
Any Ifaki indigene who watched Adeyemi on the day he angled for their town as host community for the institution would have been delighted to no end. But that happiness was short lived. Months later, their joy turned to dismay when Ilawe got the endorsement instead after Senate President Ahmed Lawan brought down his gavel for approval.
What suddenly went wrong? How did it happen that a town first mentioned as the beneficiary in Adeyemi’s bill was replaced by another?
From what THEWILL could piece together, after Adeyemi’s initial proposal, two senators from Ekiti state went to work immediately. They are Opeyemi Bamidele and Abiodun Olujimi of Ekiti Central and South respectively. The core of their presentation was that Ekiti North where Ifaki is located has an abundance of federal institutions at the expense of the south. So, it may also not augur well to have the proposed law school in the north.
A source told THEWILL that most worrisome to Opeyemi and Olujimi was “the appropriateness of the location he (Adeyemi) recommended as it affected their respective zones…it was at that point the duo of Senators bamidele and Olujimi jointly made a strong case for the South senatorial district of Ekiti in view of the obvious marginalization in terms of the distribution of federal institutions in Ekiti state.”
Bamidele and Olujimi were not the only lobbyists rooting for Ilawe. The number one citizen of Ilawe himself, Oba Adebanji Ajibade Alabi, was also in Abuja during the public hearing on the matter. In a report by Lekan Adejuwon, Ilawe community led by Alabi “presented and defended a memo before the Senate Committee on Judiciary, Legal Education and Human Rights on November 15 2021.”
Not stopping there, the monarch also “spoke on behalf of the traditional rulers of the communities from the six geopolitical zones where the six law schools would be sited.”
As for the claim the institution had been relocated elsewhere, Alabi said it “was embarrassing and unacceptable for any other community in Ekiti state to be laying claim to what was approved for Ilawe Ekiti,” a point he stressed in an accompanying video recording.
In the video, Alabi expressed shock that “people are angling for this kind of opportunity that is not meant for them,” insisting that the South senatorial district of Ekiti state “has been so deprived and most disheartening. All federal government establishments are in the Central and North Senatorial district. The North senatorial district has Federal University of Oye Ekiti and some other federal institutions. The Central senatorial district has the Federal Polytechnic and a lot of other institutions. But the South senatorial district has no single federal institution and on account of that the Senate agreed that the law school was going to the South senatorial district and Ilawe was chosen.”
In a telephone conversation with the newspaper recently, Oba Alabi said as much, insisting the decision of the Senate to site the law school in Ilawe remains. Asked what he makes of the signboard now erected at Ifaki depicting it as the designated site for the institution, Alabi, a former diplomat, said it is a “reckless act.”
THEWILL had no chance to speak with Alabi’s counterpart in Ifaki, Oba Adegbenro John Falore when we called twice last week. Twice my calls were not received nor replied. Even so, we got through to a prominent citizen of Ifaki, Alhaji Lanre Sule Bakare, vice chairman of Ifaki Progressive Union.
The sum of Bakare’s response is injustice and unfairness, something close to robbing Peter to pay Paul. “We followed the proceedings in the Senate and we saw Ifaki was the town in Adeyemi’s original proposal,” Bakare said. How did it suddenly change to Ilawe? The well-spoken senior citizen wondered.
Continuing, Bakare admitted the two communities have no problems with one another. “We are not at war,” he said emphatically but deplored how politicians could play brotherly neighbours against one another because of decisions they take and make. He singled out Bamidele and Olujimi as the catalyst for the current tussle over who owns the law school proposed for the state.
By the way, Bakare let on that there is a precedent to what is currently happening to Ilawe. After Ekiti state was created, Ilawe was recommended as state capital. Ado Ekiti, less than 30km to the south of Ifaki, got it instead. What was the reason for sharp turn around? Lack of infrastructure in Ifaki, so it was said at the time.
Did the Olufaki attend the public hearing in the Upper House in Abuja as his counterpart from Ilawe? No, Bakare told THEWILL. Even so, the controversy over who owns the school is yet to be resolved, as anyone can see from the erection of signboards showing the location of the law school in both communities.
One such conversation monitored by the newspaper revealed arguments for and against both communities. One Odundun Kayode Adaramodu has been most outspoken, calling out both communities for amicable resolution of the matter. Adaramodu’s view is that senators from every region or district do, in fact influence siting of schools in their natal places or close to it.
From his comments, Adaramodu is clearly from Ekiti state and has not taken sides with any of the contending parties. “I think what makes Ekiti different is the issue of age-old marginalization of the South Senatorial District. It is clearly not anything personal between and among our senators, neither is it a battle of supremacy between our two innocent communites…Bringing the law school to Ekiti is a collective victory for our three distinguished senators and of course for all of us.”
But a response from another source put Adaramodu’s post as “an afterthought and amounts to standing logic on its head,” a former unnamed legislative aide wrote. “From the little I know about the legislative process, having served as a senior Legislative Aide in the red chamber for four years, elementary common sense should have prevailed in this matter rather than making recourse to perceived marginalization of a Senatorial district of a state.”
With the back and forth of senior citizens of both communities over the proposed law school, and others, it is clear tension is on a low boil between Ifaki and Ilawe. Whether it will escalate into something else – certainly not the Russia/ Ukrainian crisis – is hard to say. Sources told THEWILL that before the current crisis, friends from both Ifaki and Ilawe used to invite one another for mid-morning rounds of pounded yam with fried egusi soup over beer, of course.
Such invitations from both ends may have to wait for now – until the crisis of who owns the school is resolved.
Michael Jimoh is a Nigerian journalist with many years experience in print media. He is currently a Special Correspondent with THEWILL.
