How Buhari fuelled hate speeches, tension in country ―Fayose

GOVERNOR Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State has said that President Muhammadu Buhari’s statement after his inauguration that he would favour the sections of the country that voted for him more than those that didn’t laid the foundation for the hate speeches that had divided the country now.

Governor Fayose said on Monday that President Buhari got it wrong by such statement after becoming the president, saying “by implication, such President was openly giving room for sectionalism and that was exactly what President Buhari did after the election. We could all confirm that Nigeria has never been this divided in history.

Fayose, who was meeting with members of the Conference of Ekiti State Private Sectors and non-indigenes resident in the state, also stated that the 2018 governorship poll in the state will be a repeat of history for him, boasting that he will once against demonstrate his political relevance and acceptability on members of the opposition during the election.

He said the interface with the groups was meant to cement his relationship with them in preparation for the 2018 electoral battle, saying he will be counting on their supports to trounce the All Progressives Congress (APC).

The governor was reacting to the quit notice recently issued on Igbo by a coalition of Northern youth groups, ordering the people of the South East to leave the Northern Province within 90 days.

Blaming President Buhari for tactically emboldening the hate speech makers, Fayose said: “How can a President that was just sworn-in after a tension-soaked election be saying that any section that didn’t vote for him won’t benefit from his appointments?

“Every Nigerian knew that the people of the southeast didn’t vote for him, so that automatically gave that Northern groups to have the effrontery to order Igbos out of their region. When a leader speaks like that, something like this is bound to happen.

“We can’t deny the fact that the problem has gone so deep in dividing us. But it is not beyond solution. The leaders from Southeast and the North should sit down and iron out their differences in the interest of everybody,” he said.

Fayose commended Acting President Yemi Osinbajo for interfacing with opinion moulders from the two feuding regions, saying this will help in stemming the tide of war drum that is holding the country by the jugular.

On the resolve of the governors to remain in PDP, even if the pending Supreme Court’s verdict favours Senator Ali Modu Sheriff’s faction, Fayose said: “The PDP governors’ position was that we will remain in PDP head or tail and prevent it from being destroyed by external aggressors.”

Speaking on the 2018 poll, the governor stated that, “We are looking forward to an election where we will repeat history by giving APC 16-0. We want to prove our supremacy over them, because they said they lost the last election due to militarization.

“But today, the APC controls the INEC, military, police and other para-military organizations and when we defeat them, we will await what they will say again because we have the people behind us,” Fayose concluded.