Ekiti 2014: Why Fayemi is not building stomach infrastructure — Daramola Congressman Bimbo Daramola, a member of the House of Representatives, is the Director-General of the Kayode Fayemi Campaign Organisation. In this interview he gives reasons the people of Ekiti State would choose Dr. Fayemi to become the first governor of the state to win reelection in the state. By Emmanuel Aziken, Political Editor WHAT are the issues in your estimation that will shape this election? The very first thing will be substance. That will be very material to the thrust of the campaign. We are going to have a campaign that will be issue driven, agenda setting. My candidate, the campaign organization and by extension the people are not just angling for second term for the sake of second term. We are doing this out of the strong conviction driven by the tangible template that Dr. Kayode Fayemi has made in the past three and half years. That will be material and would shape the campaign and conduct of the election. Why is the governor insisting on second term in office? There is no insistence on second term. We are saying if you have a mechanic who has been fixing your car over the ages and has been doing it well, it is likely that you will trust him much more when challenges arise. My candidate has tried in the last three and half years to justify the mandate the people gave him way back in 2007. My candidate, my party are products of adversity. Thank God today my candidate has turned our adversity to prosperity. What he has done justifies the fact that people remain resolute behind and beside him, during the period of adversity and travail. I am sure today, all of those things will come into reckoning. I don’t think the people will suffer selective amnesia. It is the officials that suffer amnesia not the people. If the people suffer amnesia nobody will give credit to Chief Obafemi Awolowo today for his free education programme. Why is the governor expressing fears that the election will be rigged? I am not aware that my governor is expressing fears. In any case, there is fear of the unknown. As human beings we wake up, step out of our homes, committing our lives into the hand of God. There is always the fear of the shadowy. But the truth of the matter is that we have to confront our fears because we will soon find out that they do not exist. We have seen it before. Don’t forget that we are Ekiti people that we do not brook cheating, we do not brook injustice. Dr. Kayode Fayemi was not in office when Ekiti people stood by him head to head, toe-to toe and did not blink. We were not in government yet pursued the mandate and by the grace of God, it was eventually delivered into our hands. In concrete terms what are the fears? The fear will not be too far-fetched. We have seen the seeming incompetence and lack of capacity of some of the institutions in the conduct of elections in the country. We have seen them time and time again apologizing to Nigerians for the failures in Anambra, for the failures in Delta. It will be in the interest of President Goodluck Jonathan and his party to ensure that they play fair and ensure that the will of the people prevail in the election. What do you think caused the intense jostling of aspirants to be governor of Ekiti State? It is a sad spectacle and I am too sure this is one of the eternal legacies of Governor Fayemi’s administration. By the grace of God before the end of the second term of the governor, all Dick, Tom and Harry will find aspiration to be governor of Ekiti State. Stomach infrastructure Dr Fayemi would have sufficiently raised the standards such that anybody that aspires to lead Ekiti State will first of all benchmark himself. Some of the things they have said about Governor Fayemi is that he is not the kind of governor who goes to eat roasted plantain in the street place, market place or doing seeming things that are populist. He is not building stomach infrastructure. Can you equate in terms of character a governor who goes to the streets to buy roasted plantain and ground nuts from the woman on the streets, that may not be bad…but can you compare that to a governor who ensures that 25,000 senior citizens get a monthly stipend of N5,000 and put them on subsistence care of their health and immediate needs? People are better off with him than a governor given to emotional sentiments and goes to the street to say how much is your bole and pays N5,000 for it and that is where it ends. You don’t wish to just be a leader, you must earn it. There must be integral qualities that you possess. This is a governor that provided 30,000 Laptops for students and another 18,000 Laptops for their teachers and trained them as well. This is because he knows that there is no profession that does not have ICT components in it. The world is not waiting on Ekiti and we cannot afford to play catch up anymore. Governance all over the world cannot be rated differently because the ultimate destination is to ensure that the quality of life of the people gets better. That is the essence of governance any short of that is defeatist. The governor has imbibed that and manifested that sufficiently enough that people are saying we have entrusted our mandate into your hands for three and half years and it’s turned out this well. For instance Ikogosi Spring that is now talked about today laid prostrate for 21 years in a roll of successive governments. It never caught their attention. It took the attention of Dr. Kayode Fayemi to reverse the trend and created jobs for people. Ikogosi that laid prostrate for 21 years played host to Nigeria Media Merit Award. In December 20,000 people went to the place. If everyone of them spent N200 that will develop the economy of Ikogosi. Credit: Vanguard
Posted on: Tue, 22 Jul 2014 08:59:57 +0000
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