Ekiti 2014 governorship election is PDP’s to lose -Bimbo Owolabi Written by Sunday, 22 September 2013 via Tribune  Mr Bimbo Owolabi, known more commonly as Vitamofen among his Ise-Ekiti people, is the Executive Director of Vital Medix Nigeria and New York, a multinational pharmaceutical outfit that patented the Vitamofen brand. A governorship aspirant of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Ekiti State, Owolabi speaks with SAM NWAOKO on his ambition, his party and Ekiti State. WHY are you in the race for Ekiti governorship in 2014? I thank God I have achieved relative success in business and when I looked round, I saw that in Ekiti and in Nigeria as a whole, we are still not attracting the best brains to lead us. If you use Singapore as an example, you will see a country without natural resources, but had use intellect to develop their state. Most of them use technocrats and intellectuals: The academics come up with theories while the technocrats go into governance. This has proven to be effective and has made Singapore a model in the world. Leaving our country for career or professional politicians alone won’t help us and that is what some of us are in the race. Again, God forbid that things should go bad for our country, but if things get worse than this, I’m sure my son would ask what people like us did to salvage our state and the country. Considering the number of governorship aspirants in your party, the PDP, how would you wade through the maze of aspirants? I’m very certain that the national leadership of the PDP would be very proud of us, that we believe in our party so much that 23 of us are contesting. I don’t see the number as a demerit. On how I intend to wade through the maze of aspirants, I believe that the time is right for Ekiti people to choose people that have excelled in their private life; people that have a template. I have template because it is on record that I created something from nothing. I’m not saying that people that have not been made cannot make good administrators, but my track record is here in Ekiti State. When I said I would build schools, people already see me building a private university. When I said I would empower people they already see me doing that through scholarships worth millions of naira. When I said I would do agriculture, people see me already practising agriculture. These are not just because of politics, but me living my promises, my life long before now. Are you not hinging your confidence on the ‘Ekiti South Agenda’ because we know there is agitation for Ekiti South district to be considered in the coming dispensation? How do you see the Ekiti South issue; how do you key into it as a potential beneficiary? I will not agree with the word ‘beneficiary’ because it makes it look like the South is being given undue advantage. Everybody knows me as a big supporter of the Southern agenda. I believe in fairness and equity. I believe that the people that came to the conclusion of the zoning are credible enough. When you see the like of Chief Falegan, these are old party chieftains and everybody knows about this. Akin Osuntokun was on his way to becoming the governor of Ekiti State, but because of zoning, he acted like a nice party man by stepping aside for somebody. So, I don’t understand why it is an issue. If there is an agreement and it now becomes the turn of the South and we begin to hear silly things like there are no aspirants from the South, it is annoying. Some of my older brothers in this race like Chief Abiodun Aluko and I take it as an insult. We are not asking that other people’s hands be tied; we are only saying what is fair is fair. Imagine a man who left six houses for his three sons, one has taken two; the other has also taken two (in this case the Ekiti North and Ekiti Central); you are now debating if the South should take one. I see that as an insult. We are not asking for an undue advantage because we have qualified people to carry our flag. However, I thank God that at the last national convention of our party, the leadership of the PDP said that zoning had become an integral part of PDP culture and tradition. So I really don’t know where the problem comes into this. I believe that with the consensus arrangement that had been suggested by the president, we will do the right thing and part of consensus is zoning because zoning means taking care of people’s agitation. The South supported the North and the Central and I don’t see why they would not support the South now. When you meet the numerous truthful, moral and equitable people from the North and Central zones, they tell us that they support us. But that does not rule out the existence of trouble makers from the zones, who would just want to throw spanner in the work of the Southern zone’s wheel of progress. However, I know the PDP as a listening party. Everybody’s needs would be taken care of and by God’s grace the next governor of Ekiti State would be from the South and by God’s grace I hope to be that candidate. When your party’s candidate eventually emerges, do you see the PDP defeating the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the coming election and why? I believe we will beat them hands down. I am already suggesting one thing I intend to practise as a governor: There should not be a winner-takes-all mentality to the race. I see myself as an emerging leader and as one, we should carry everybody along. All the positions that accrue after a candidate must have emerged should be fairly distributed among all the 23 aspirants. This is because the 23 have made us very powerful this time round and I am not one of those who would want to grab everything. I believe in good governance and in fairness. That will strengthen our party. The second thing is that the APC government has already done half of the work for us. APC and its government in the state are not popular right now. How? I hope you get the feelings of the local government workers, market men and women, teachers, students in Ekiti State University who were used just to win cheap popularity. Once of the strongest points a leader can have is integrity. Once a leader says something and does the opposite, you are already losing your followers. Most of the things that Fayemi promised have not been seen by Ekiti people, who have superb memory like that of an elephant. Today, we have not seen an Obama that would come and help us industrialise Ekiti State. He has not even come to Nigeria let alone Ekiti. These are some of the things Ekiti people remember. You can’t have problems with teachers, NULGE, civil servants, market women whose stalls have been destroyed without first providing alternative and still stand. These are the people that vote, power belongs to them. We thank God that whatever little hitches we have in our party have been resolved and we are going to come out formidable and I can almost predict the outcome of the election. That is assuming that we are able to curtail some of the rigging that we know the APC of capable of perpetrating. And you see PDP as a better alternative? Yes because people like us are prepared. But I must sound it that even as PDP, we must put our best foot forward. We must come out with our A-game, otherwise Ekiti people will knock us out too because nobody has the patience for slow governance anymore. So, even our own party must present a very good candidate that would work very fast, somebody that is ready and has a track record of achievement in his personal life. I fill that kind of profile and I am already doing the things I intend to do as a governor in my private life. If I say I’m going to build a school, I already know what it would take to build one because I have built one in my private capacity. So, I’m very sure that my party, the PDP, would produce a credible candidate, a candidate that will not be disgraced as the APC will be disgraced in the coming election.
Posted on: Sun, 22 Sep 2013 05:14:07 +0000
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