How Cows made it into Stomach Infrastructure hall of shame

Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State has added Cows to his stomach infrastructure hall of shame.

For the un-initiated, stomach infrastructure is Fayose’s major policy thrust.

Simply put, stomach infrastructure means handing the people food to eat when you should be building for them durable infrastructure like roads and schools.

According to Fayose and his stomach infrastructure advocates, you hand the people food to eat because only living humans will drive on roads, work in factories or inhabit classrooms.

To hear Fayose say it, stomach infrastructure is to thank for the votes he garnered on the way to becoming Governor. So, he’s carried on with that very ‘ground-breaking’ policy--daft as it sounds to the educated.

Bags of Beans and Rice have been distributed in the past, live Chickens have been handed out to the people of Ekiti as the cameras rolled, the Governor has made stops at Amala joints to drive home the stomach infrastructure policy and he’s been photographed in markets holding aloft ‘Ponmo’, Palm Oil and Fish in the spirit of stomach infrastructure.

ALSO READ: Ekiti Governor supervises arrest of cows

Cows are now the latest addition to the stomach infrastructure family in Ekiti.

Peripatetic Pastoralists have been a pain in the neck for Fayose, given that their cattle have destroyed farmlands and crops.

The herdsmen have carved a negative reputation for themselves across Nigeria for their murderous inclinations as well.

Fayose has made it clear that in Ekiti, they’ll have to play by the rules or take their herd of cattle out of his State.

There’s a curfew for the herdsmen these days in Ekiti. It finds expression in an Anti-grazing law which was hurriedly passed by a rubber-stamp legislature

A week ago, Fayose made a show of his new law by arresting a Cow.

His spokesperson, Lere Olayinka, gleefully sent out the following:

”Governor Ayodele Fayose demonstrated the seriousness of the State Anti Grazing Law by personally seeing to it that one of the cows was arrested by youths who chased the cows after the herdsmen ran into the bush upon seeing the Governor’s security men. The remaining cows ran into the bush too.”

This week, Grazing Enforcement Marshals, have been commissioned to arrest more cows and have them slaughtered for stomach infrastructure purposes.

Cattle are no longer allowed to graze after 6pm in Ekiti.

Said Fayose: “On August 29, this year, the Anti-Grazing Bill was passed by the House of Assembly. I signed it into law on August 30.‎ Some people go as far as grazing in the night, when farmers are no longer on their lands.‎ Any cattle found grazing after the time stipulated by the law would be confiscated. Such cattle would be sold or killed on the spot ‎and shared out to people, as part of our Stomach Infrastructure programme.”

It may just be time to relocate to Ekiti.

For the beef.