‘Ex-governor is living in fool’s paradise’

A political pressure group, the Ekiti Good Governance Group (EGGG) has described as “one huge joke” the belief by former Governor Ayodele Fayose that he can win the June 21 governorship election in Ekiti State.
EGGG, in a statement at the weekend, said Fayose, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), “should continue to amuse himself and the national leadership of his party with all sorts of claims derived from his disconnect with reality”.
The group was reacting to a statement credited to Fayose that he “brought Governor Kayode Fayemi to office and would remove him from office”.
According to EGGG, Fayose, who could not make himself a senator in 2011 would not have claimed he made anyone a governor, if he was in touch with the reality of defeat that stares him in the face in the June 21 election.
In a statement by its Publicity Secretary, Taiwo Ojo, the group said Fayemi had already won the 2007 governorship election, “a mandate which was stolen by
the PDP”, before Fayose begged to be accommodated in the campaign train for the 2009 rerun.
The statement reads: “During the 2009 rerun poll, Fayose saw himself being hunted and haunted by the PDP. He was to be arrested and slammed in prison after denigrating the PDP while in exile. On arriving Ekiti, he read the mood of the Ekiti people, who were rooting for Fayemi, and joined the throng.
“The money he collected from his purported supporters ended up in his personal pocket, without spending a kobo to do any mobilisation, thus profiting all alone.”
The group said in spite of Fayose’s support for the candidate of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), Yinka Akerele, in the 2007 governorship election, the latter came third.
It said as an ANPP chieftain, Fayose also lost in his Afao-Ekiti hometown at the 2008 council poll and the 2010 House of Assembly by-election in Moba Local Government as a Labour Party (LP) chieftain, despite distributing several tanks of kerosene to the people.
The group said: “Fayose is not a threat in the forthcoming governorship election. Senator Babafemi Ojudu, who represents Ekiti Central, left the newsroom to join politics and defeated Fayose, who touted himself as the father of Ekiti politics.
“In the run-up to the 2011 senatorial election, there was nothing Fayose did not say. He even went on radio to say he would quit politics to rear cane rats (grass cutters), if he did not beat Ojudu in the election, but Ojudu walloped him by 37,974 votes and he did not quit politics.
“So, if he is telling leaders of his party that he should not be considered for federal appointment if he loses in June, they should know that he is just amusing them because he cannot win the election.”
EGGG said Fayose failed the people as governor from 2003 to 2006 when he had the chance to turn around their fortunes, hence his rejection by Ekiti people.
It said: “Is Fayose going to be governor over the people of Ijan-Ekiti, who the cruel assassination of their illustrious son, Ayo Daramola, is yet to be avenged? Will he be governor over Ifaki-Ekiti people, where the blood of Tunde Omojola still cries for justice or over Ikogosi-Ekiti people where Omojola hailed from?
“How can he, in good conscience, solicit the votes of Ado-Ekiti people, whose monarch, Oba Rufus Adejugbe, he harassed and ridiculed? Can Fayose solicit the votes of the poeple of Ikere-Ekiti, where five students of the College of Education were shot and killed on March, 16, 2004?