Aare Afe Babalola, Senior Advocate of Nigeria, has said that Politics is destroying Ekiti state.
Afe Babalola described the discovery of oil in 1956 at Olobiri, Bayelsa State as a misfortune because it diverted his people’s attention from agriculture.
He said this on Thursday at maiden edition of Ekitipanupo Colloquium on Development, which held at Agidingbi, Ikeja, Lagos.
Babalola said, “It is on record that apart from Gombe State, Ekiti State receives the least allocation from the monthly Federal Government allocation to states. It will interest you that Ekiti land was contributing 44 per cent of the total revenue of the old Western Region through the instrumentality of agricultural produce.
“But all that would appear to have disappeared, no thanks to the advent of oil which drew people away from their otherwise lucrative pastime of farming, which used to fetch them handsome income in the days of yore.”
He added: “Unfortunately, this is a country where newly elected political office-holders don’t see the need to build on the foundation laid by their predecessors because they find it difficult to distinguish between politics and governance.
“This, in many cases, has led people taking over the reins of government from their predecessors to always abandon the projects of their predecessors and start their own particularly when such predecessors are not from the same party with the new helmsman and almost in all of such cases to the disadvantage of the generality of the people.”