Victor Ogunje
Ekiti State Government has employed 59 fire service men to strengthen firefighting operations in the state as part of its proactive measures to curtail outbreak of fire incidences in the state.
The Commissioner for Public Utilities and Infrastructures, Mr. Bamidele Faparusi, explained at the end of the training for the personnel that the employment was done to empower all the six service stations in Ekiti.
Faparusi urged the new personnel to be dedicated to duty, saying that the Governor of Ekiti State, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, has once again demonstrated his love for safety of lives and property as well as development of human capital, by the employment of the fire fighters.
“When Governor Kayode Fayemi came in 2010 for his first term, he procured multimillion naira fire-fighting machines and recruited hundreds of personnel. But when we came back in 2018, some of those machines were grounded and personnel had depleted due to retirement.
“We must have a viable firefighting mechanism that can make investors to have confidence in Ekiti and invest here.
“The fire service men had passed through six months training. They will be deployed to the six service stations at Ikere, Omuo, Aramoko, Ijero, Ikole, and Ido Ekiti to carry out prompt operations.
“The damaged equipment are being rehabilitated and refurbished while contracts for the supply of consumables had been awarded to help the fire operations.
“Fire can surge any time, the government believed that the department must be good emergency department that can respond to situations as expected by the public,” he said.
On the issue of Independent Power Project (IPP), Bamidele said Governor Fayemi would only engage firm that can deliver the best for Ekiti and not the one that would mess up the process.
Bamidele added that the government has a law backing the IPP project, expressing confidence that the next government should continue with the programme targeted at boosting power supply to the state for industrial development.
“Government can’t do power project alone and that is why we are attracting investors, but investment by government in the sector must be profitable, because we are spending people’s money.
“The proposed agric processing zone will be powered by biogas. We are also looking at powering all government institutions with IPP project, so the light being channeled to these offices can be diverted for other use.
“The future of Ekiti is what we are building and we can’t build it in a rush. Whatever we do now, we will be called to account for it in future. So, government will be cautious about the guarantee it will make for any firm that wants to sign MoU with us for power supply,” he said.
“If you don’t allow the south now, it means they will wait for another eight years before taking a shot at it and the state would have existed democratically for 32 years without a southern governor.”
The former deputy minority whip, however, said that the ruling All Progressives congress (APC), could be defeated by the PDP if the party would put a wrong foot forward by electing wrong candidate as the flag bearer.
