When we eventually arrived at the storey building, the first such government building in Ado Ekiti, the Ekiti State capital, Colonel Mohammed Inua Bawa was elated and proud of the achievement and he took the microphone of the public address system from the Information Officer in charge and began to interview the reporters on his entourage about the edifice.
Naturally, my colleagues described the new Secretariat building in superlatives and when it was my turn to comment, I adopted my colleagues submission about the new building but went further by putting a question to the MILAD,
"Sir, where is the road?" I asked.
Col. Bawa turned the microphone to the Commissioner for Works, Engr. Babatunde Fakoyede for a reply to my question and the Commissioner said that a road would be constructed from Fajuyi Junction to link the Secretariat as soon as the MILAD gave the go ahead and provided the wherewithal.
That was the genesis of the first dual carriageway in Ekiti State and my first assignment as a government house reporter.
I was actually posted to Ekiti State Government House by the Broadcasting Service of Ekiti State (BSES) on the 11th of August, 1998 to replace my Senior colleague, Mr. Fola Afolalu who has been covering the beat since the creation of the State on the 1st of October, 1996. Mr. Tunji Afolabi was the cameraman attached to me. Our duty is to cover the daily activities of Col. Bawa now of blessed memory, who was the pioneer Military Administrator (MILAD) of Ekiti State. My very first assignment about a week of our reporting for duty was the MILAD's inspection tour of the first Secretariat building and the first House of Assembly of the State, built by the Federal Government as part of preparation ahead of the return to civilian administration in 1999.
The two buildings were the only structures in the area then. In fact, from Fajuyi junction to the present Secretariat complex it was largely a thick forest with a narrow bush path for a road in 1998 except the Prison at the Government House gate and a few buildings at Onigari Area. The road was so bad that one of the vehicles in the convoy of the MILAD got stuck in the mud while on the inspection tour of the two projects.
Following the interview mentioned earlier which was conducted by the Chief Executive of the state himself at the new secretariat, his administration began the preliminary activities to construct the road but it was his Successor, Navy Captain Atanda Yussuf who executed the project and even took it beyond the Secretariat.
The death of the Head of State, General Sani Abacha earlier in the year on June 8, 1998 was the reason Col. Bawa did not embark on the project because he was posted out of Ekiti State to Gombe State his home state.
It was a popular secret in the rumour mill that Col. Bawa was one of the Abacha boys in the military. Bawa's loyalty to Abacha is such that one of the first projects he executed as Ekiti State MILAD - a conference hall at the Governor's Office now old Governor's Office at Oke Bareke was named Ibrahim Abacha Hall after the first son of General Sani Abacha who was killed in a plane crash on January 17, 1996 before the creation of Ekiti State,
An unknown group simply referring to themselves as United Front for Nigeria's Liberation, claimed it sabotaged the plane and was responsible for the crash.
The general animosity against the maximum ruler was not particularly pronounced in Ekiti probably because General Abacha created the alongside five other states namely, Ebonyi, Bayelsa, Nasarawa, Zamfara and Gombe. Abacha died in June 1998 and was succeeded by General Abdulsalami Abubakar, who transferred or replaced most of Abacha's appointees.