We reported for duty at the Government House one morning and what did we find? Behold, the number one person in the state, Navy Captain Yusuf, the Military Administrator washing his official vehicle himself while the government drivers looked on. All of us, the Press Crew, rushed to the MILAD to relieve him of the menial job but he refused. Then we knew the government drivers attached to the Government House must have been equally refused by the action Chief Executive.
I have not seen anybody wash a car the way the MILAD did that day and on other times I saw him washing his vehicle. Captain Yusuf would wash vehicle tyres inside, out. After washing the side of the tyre towards the outside, he would turn the steering for access to the inside side of the front tyres and scrubbed them thoroughly with brush.
Still talking about Captain Yusuf and vehicles, before he assumed office in Ekiti State, a bomb blast had occurred near the Government House in Ado Ekiti which damaged a car in the convoy of his predecessor in office - Lt.Col Bawa.
Bawa survived the bomb blast and preserved the damaged Peugeot 504 official vehicle in a garage at the Government House as a remembrance of the scary incident.
But Captain Yusuf brought the car out of its supposed museum, repaired it and put it back on the road.
Paucity of funds and acute shortage of utility vehicles to run the fledging new state were the reasons the new MILAD went all out to repair not only the bombed executive car but also many unserviceable government cars and trucks allocated to Ekiti State from the Assets Sharing Exercise with Ondo State.
He brought two groups of mechanics to the Government House grounds, one group experts on cars and the other on trucks, and they fixed vehicles under his personal strict supervision.
Talking of paucity of funds reminds me that General Sani Abacha did not make any fiscal allocation to Ekiti State and the five other states he created on October 1, 1996.
The short time the naval officer spent as the Military Administrator of Ekiti State was so impactful that even the ordinary man on the street became familiar with Captain Yusuf so much that he was nicknamed, Omowale, meaning, the child has returned home.
On Environmental Sanitation Saturdays that the MILAD was in town, Captain Yusuf would discard his immaculate white uniform for the naval blue fatigue dress and participated actively cutting grass, sweeping the street and clearing gutters.
Another unique feature of Navy Captain Yusuf's administration is that of speed. The speed at which projects were started and completed seemed incredible.
As I reported earlier in this memoirs, MILAD Yusuf built the first dual carriageway in Ado Ekiti from Fajuyi/Government House Junction to the state Secretariat complete with Street Light in less than three months. He constructed two units of one-storey Secretariat buildings in a couple of months at a time many ministries, departments and agencies were located outside the state capital for lack of accommodation in Ado Ekiti. Captain Yusuf built a befitting edifice as office for the Deputy Governor who would emerge from the election to return power to civilians and the massive building was completed in only one month.
When prices of goods rise sharply during the administration of Captain Yusuf, he responded swiftly by relocating a Rice Mill from where we have Mutual House today at Okesa and built a Supermarket there to sell all sorts of goods ranging from food stuffs, agro-allied products to electronics. A government department was put in charge of the Supermarket named, Ekiti State Consumer Shop where citizens were getting things at the Lagos prices in Ado Ekiti. I am talking of a time when Ekitikete Transport Company was in existence with their branded buses plying Ado - Ibadan - Lagos route, Ado - Benin - Onitsha route and Ado - Abuja - Kaduna route.
Captain Yusuf commandeered one trailer from the fleet of Ekitikete Transport Company to convey goods from Lagos and elsewhere to the Consumer Shop.
The state-owned transport company began its operation from Okeyinmi where we have an health centre presently and later moved to near Ayewa garage on Iworoko road before it became moribund.
Ekitikete Transport Company is now history but it must be put on record that most of its staff laid off at its closure are still owed arrears of salary and other allowances.