By Adekunle Ogbonnaiye
Special Adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on Political
Matters, Mr Babafemi Ojudu, has said that a progressives would emerged as the candidate of the All progressives Congress, APC, in 2018 governorship election.
The SSA to the President, also condemned the state governor, Mr. Ayodele Fayose, for dehumanizing Ekiti people and portraying the state in bad light through his constant condemnation of President Buhari’s and his government.
According to him, what Ekiti need now is visionary leader who can key into the programmes of the Federal government that would benefits the people of the state and its economy.
The presidential aide made the remarks in Ado Ekiti, Ekiti State
capital while commenting on the achievements of Buhari’s government and some issues in Ekiti State while meeting with newsmen yesterday.
Ojudu said the free school feeding programme of the federal government and other laudable agricultural schemes like rice production and land clearing scheme of the Buhari-led government had benefited opposition states like Anambra and Ebonyi, which he accused Fayose of not keying into the programmes for the benefits of the state and its people.
According to him, Fayose by his conduct and utterances against Buhari, had debased the values of scholarship , erudition and character Ekiti was renowned for , which he said had been of adverse effect on the corporate image of the State.
“Let me state here that those who believes in the progressive ideals will get APC’s ticket. Like me now, I have nowhere to go. Even if I die and they put the flag of PDP on my coffin, I will wake up and slap the person. So, we won’t give our ticket to those that will win and later defect to other party”, he stated.
Ojudu said: “Let me State very clearly but with sadness that Ekiti is today in a state of distress and mess.
“Though, we don’t expect all the State governors to be friend of
President Buhari , but we expect all to be friends of the federal
government in the overall interests of their people.
“The federal government is injecting money in agriculture, school feeding programme, Rice Production and Processing , Cocoa Farm Renewal Scheme, but Governor Fayose refused to key into any of them when States like Anambra and Ebonyin, who are opposition are befitting immensely.
“The Central Bank is investing huge amount in agriculture schemes. States like Kebbi and Jigawa , Sokoto have keyed into rice production. Kebbi is producing three million tonnes of rice out of the ten tonnes needed in Nigeria. Governor Fayose has no interest in all these because of opposition politics. He was only interested in the meager amount from FAAC.
“In fact, Ekiti is fast decaying and we can no longer tolerate this
and that is why we are working to resolve all our differences in APC to reclaim Ekiti from him.
“We must reclaim Ekiti because this shame is becoming too much for us to bear. We would not have bothered by all these idiosyncrasies if our governor has taken issues of development very serious.
“Ekiti has great Icons. Afe Babalola, (SAN), Femi Falana, Wole
Olanipekun, SAN, are our Icons. After Fayose predicted that President Buhari , will die, the Yoruba people like me started praying that such should not happen because our Hausa/Fulani brothers would have thought that Fayose was speaking for the Yoruba race and our people could have been subjects of mob attacks in the North”, he said.
On the rumour that he has interest in the governorship slot, Ojudu said he has started consulting with traditional rulers, opinion moulders, politicians and that he would declare at the appropriate time if he decides to run.
“ I am a man of due process, I believe in the rule of law. INEC has not lifted ban on campaign and whoever declares now is only breaching the law and I can’t be part of this, because I swore to an oath as an appointee to always defend the constitution”.
