Ojudu: time to reclaim Ekiti from Fayose is now

The Special Adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on Political Matters, Mr Babafemi Ojudu , on Sunday lamented the shame allegedly brought to Ekiti by the Governor of Ekiti, Ayo Fayose, saying “it is time to reclaim Ekiti from him”.

Ojudu who lamented that rather than using his position to attract developmental projects and other opportunities to Ekiti, he has been going about bringing .shame upon Ekiti people on daily basis.

He noted that, 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.

According to 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. 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 presidential aide who said this on Sunday in Ado Ekiti while interacting with journalists on the achievements of Buhari’s government, added that “The federal government is injecting money in agriculture, schoolfeeding programme, Rice Production and Processing , Cocoa Farm Renewal Scheme, but Governor Fayose unfortunately 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 meagre 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.” He added.

On the statement made by Governor Fayose that President Buhari was on the verge of death in London hospital and had been place on Life support since June 7, Ojudu said such an incendiary and scurrilous comment capable of causing ethnic disaffection was not expected from a state governor.

“I still don’t know how and where Ekiti State has become a part of Biafra State. I don’t know the link but Fayose claimed that Ekiti is part of Biafra, this is a Governor that swore to an oath as a Governor and yet going against the oath he swore to to protect on daily basis.”

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 Ebonyin, which he accused Fayose of not keying into “but chose to keep lying against the President, predicting his death and ridiculing Ekiti people everyday.