Interview

Ekiti 2022: We will use Fayemi’s achievements to win —Oyebanji, APC candidate

In this interview by ‘YOMI AYELESO, the immediate past Secretary to Ekiti State Government and candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the June 18 governorship election in the state, Biodun Oyebanji, speaks on his victory, the controversies trailing his emergence and his plans for the people of Ekiti.

Seven other aspirants are asking the party to cancel the outcome of the January 27 primary, arguing that there was an attempt Governor Kayode Fayemi to impose you on the party. They also said that the process fell short of the standards of internal democracy. What do you make of this?

Let me start by saying that I am surprised that senior party members, who I have respect for, can be pushing this narrative because the outcome didn’t favour them. I believe the election process was credible, free and fair and a level playing field was provided for all the contestants. It will interest Nigerians to know that a day to the election, we had a stakeholders’ meeting, where we agreed on the mode of engagement. At the meeting, all aspirants agreed on the arrangements that had been put in place and I left the venue of the meeting for my home town to vote. The result I got from all the 177 wards after the process was that people came out, they were accredited in accordance with the guidelines of the party and they were counted and the results were declared.

With respect to the protest by the seven other aspirants, I recognize their rights to protest and I know that the party is imbued with internal mechanisms to resolve this issue as a party. As their colleague, I have started reaching out to a few of them and we are talking and I am confident that all those issues will be resolved within the APC family.

What do you think the party could do at this point and will you also be amenable to some kind of meeting or resolutions to avoid a repetition of what had happened in the past where disgruntled APC members who felt cheated ended up working with the opposition?

Well, like I already stated, I have reached out to some of them. We are in conversation and in the next few days I hope to deepen the already agreed conversations with them. I believe that the APC is strong and has the capacity to resolve issues arising from the contest. One thing is clear, in every contest, there will be different views and opinions and it behoves on each and every one of us to be flexible and resolve the issues in the interest of our people, in the interest of the state and for the sake of the party and I’m confident that all those things will be done.

You insisted that the crisis will be resolved but this is the crisis that involves about seven contenders some of whom have been in the system for a while. What gives you the confidence that the matter will be resolved eventually in your favour because it looks like they are going to go on appeal?

I’m very comfortable for two reasons: those are allegations that are being investigated so we wait for the result of the investigation. That’s number one. Secondly, I have a personal relationship with all of these aspirants and I know that they are great men in their own right. They want the best for the state, they want the best for the party and in the spirit of ensuring that Ekiti State develops and we don’t rupture the APC, reason will prevail and at the end of the day, I am confident that it’s going to be resolved.

Looking at the result that came out from the election, one is tempted to ask questions on whether it was a fair game because you pulled 101,703 votes and the person that came second to you pulled 760 votes. Could that be an affirmation of your popularity?

Well, it’s a combination of both. One, my supporters came out to vote for me and for record purposes, APC in Ekiti State has well over 180,000 registered members. Second, I may be wrong but perhaps part of what made others perform abysmally in the election was because of the panic news spread by my co-aspirants a few hours to the election that the election had been postponed. Naturally, this confused their followers because seven of them signed the purported press statement and their supporters saw it and became confused.

Unfortunately, it was not only their followers that stayed away, some of my followers also stayed indoors. I believe that might have been responsible for why their supporters did not come out to vote but the committee organizing the primaries insisted that the election must go on so we mobilized and we brought out supporters to vote. It is on record that we ran the most rigorous campaign prior to the primary election. We visited the 16 local government areas and 177 wards at four different times selling our manifestos of prosperity to our people. I am not sure any of the aspirants did that. Be that as it may, we are duty-bound to ensure that we embark on reconciliation to bring everybody together so that we can approach the election on June 18th as a united family. My attitude is that this is a family issue and it will be resolved amicably.

Is it true that you are the candidate of the Governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi? We need to clarify that because the other aspirants alleged that the entire process was skewed in your favour and that most of the officials in charge of the process were handpicked by the Governor in a bid to achieve a predetermined outcome.

Dr Kayode Fayemi is the leader of the party in the state and there’s no party member that doesn’t have a relationship with him, including all my colleagues, the aspirants. Personally, I have known Governor Fayemi for 20 years and I’ve worked with him for seven years. In those seven years, he has given me assignments in various ministries and in different capacities and I humbly believe I have given a good account of myself. That does not give me an exclusive preserve of relationship with him because all of us in this race have one relationship or the other with Governor Fayemi and we are all close to him. On the conclusion in some quarters that those who supervised the process were handpicked by the Governor, I disagree. First, much as I would not like to speak for the committee that organized the election, I’m privy to the fact that each of the aspirants submitted 20 names of party members each and they were all incorporated. The fact is this is a party affair which should be manned by party members, not people outside our party. It will also interest members of the public that these so-called appointees or elected officials who they claimed were drafted in were also party members who were promoted by each of the aspirants a few years or months ago to be part of the government. To now turn around and call them Oyebanji boys is absurd. We all have relationships with them.

Beyond the election and the politics that came with it, in specific terms , if you are elected governor come June 18, what are your plans for the people of Ekiti?

We have a developmental agenda in the state and we will continue to ramp up on areas where we have not finished what we are doing as a government. We will also engage in conversations with the people to ask them for what else they want us to do to better the lot of Ekiti people. In my campaign for the primaries, I went round Ekiti State four times and the feedback I have taken from party members and other members of the public will also guide my approach to governance. In the build up to the campaign too, we will lay before the people the agenda as enshrined in our party manifesto and again take feedback from them. One unique selling point of the Kayode Fayemi administration is the fact that we always ask the people what they want us to do for them. We will be going to them on a quarterly basis to ask them that okay we have done this what would you want us to do next? We will continue in that trajectory and principally there are three things we will focus on based on the current situation in the country: security, employment for our teeming youths and growth of the state economy to make the people prosperous. These are very fundamental and we’re going to put them on the front burner.

In the June governorship election, you will be going up against another candidate, Bisi Kolawole, supported by former Governor Ayodele Fayose. What would you do differently in this contest and what should be the expectation?

We will sell our manifesto to the people. We will remind them of the promises made by Governor Kayode Fayemi and which he has fulfilled and thank God these are projects that resonate with the people and they are all over communities in Ekiti State. There is no community that this government has not implemented a minimum of two or three projects. We would refresh their memory with respect to that and we will let them know that we can do more and the need for them to continue with the government that has served their interest for the past three years.

Are you going to be campaigning on Governor Kayode Fayemi’s record or your personality because you keep referring to what Governor Kayode Fayemi is doing? Is this not contradictory, especially when you have denied being his anointed candidate?

Dr Fayemi is the leader of the party and whoever emerges the party’s flag bearer naturally becomes his candidate too. If any of my co-contestants had clinched the ticket, the person automatically becomes Fayemi’s and the party’s candidate for the June 18 gubernatorial election. Now back to my person. I was his Secretary to the State Government, so, there’s no way I can remove myself from his government and I’m going to benefit from his achievements. In that regard, the decision that will be taken on June 18 by the electorate will be a combination of the performance of Governor Kayode Fayemi and the expectation of the people about my person. The two will work together. If a government has done well and a candidate wants to run on the platform that produced the Governor, it is natural he will benefit from the performance of that government.

I also think my people understand me very well and they know me and this is not the first time we have done things together to build Ekiti. They can attest to my competence, my character and my compassion for them. We will also be campaigning on the manifesto that has been developed. In the next few weeks, we are going to unfold the manifesto and make it very clear to the people but there’s no way Im going to run this campaign without reference to the sterling performance of Governor Kayode Fayemi. He is the APC leader in our dear state and I’m going to run on the APC platform, so the two will go hand in hand and because he has done well, his performance is going to assist my campaign.

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