Ekiti Poll More Important Than 2015 Elections — Says Fayemi

The Peoples Democratic Party has said that it is prepared to recapture not only Ekiti State, but the entire South-West. Don’t you nurse any fear about the methods likely to be employed?

This is Ekiti. People who are familiar with the history here would know that this is not a very good place to rig election. You can afford to manipulate elections in Anambra for example, because Anambra has a lot of rich people who are even richer than the governor.

My friend, Peter Obi, used to say to me when he was still the governor that there are so many people with mobile police and security men that they throw him off the street, even when he was still governor. So, election is not what Anambra people see as a big deal; yes, they are interested but it is not for them any big deal. In Ekiti, as you will discover, everybody is interested in what happens because we have 2.5million governors in this state.

Every single indigene believes he has what it takes — that he understands government and that he knows how to govern. So, you can’t say such a person does not have an opinion. And when you try to manipulate election in a place like Ekiti, the result will

not be palatable. Whether you refer to 1964 – 65; Ekiti was even more of a resistance zone than Ikenne. And of course, when you talk of 1983, we all can remember what happened here. Even though our son, was the person seen to have perpetrated the crisis. They still did not spare him and his supporters.

And of course, the recent experience — my experience has demonstrated that our people are far too sensitive to allow external interference into their affairs.

People will make all sorts of claims — they would do this, they would do that but the truth of the matter is — even the PDP admits that the governor who is there has done well but we need an in-road into the South-West. If that is what will justify your claim then you are going to do everything that the work you acknowledged yourself that has been done was not done either by confusing the people or convincing them that they should go your way.

Unfortunately for them, the PDP had been in government for seven and a half years and Ekiti people cannot forget what they went through in those years. It was murder, mayhem and crises for the bulk of that period. And don’t forget that for that seven and a half years they had seven governors. So, it was instability galore. That is what would have to be placed side-by-side what happened in this our period. Federal might is always going to be a factor in every election, but peoples’ might is bigger than federal might.

What do you mean that the next election is going to be a referendum on your performance?

An election necessarily is a referendum on how well an incumbent has done if an incumbent is running. I cannot go out there and say ah, I will build this school, I will double your salary. Somebody running for the first time can come with a lot of promises, but I will have to go out to say I have done this in Ifon, I have built all your roads, I have provided you with water and I have built your hospitals and I have done this to your Oba’s Palace, tangible and palpable record, of what I have done are what I have to sell. In addition to that, with the record of what you know that I have, I now want to do one, two, three and four, when I come back. So, it’s a referendum on my performance. It may not be a referendum on the performance of my competitors because- even in the case of my competitors- at least, in the case of one of them, it’s a referendum of who he was when he was in office in the state because even if he chooses not to talk about that, we will talk about it, other people will talk about it because we need to place the records clear.

Can you say you’ve done enough to earn the people’s votes for a second term?

I ran on a platform. When I was running, I was very specific about what I was going to do in office as far back as 2006. If you talk of social security, if you read my inaugural speech you would find lap top per child there, there is nothing that we have done in this state that you cannot pick up from our eight-point agenda. And everybody who is objective, detached can attest to the fulfillment of what we promised Ekiti people. I think my performance has given me belief that I will be re-elected. There is another dimension to this, one of the pollsters working at the various communities came to me that one woman they spoke to basically just said ‘yes, we like Fayemi, he has done very well, he has fulfilled all the promises, he has not done what we do not like, our problem is that since he has already done everything that he promised, we think another person should take over; I find that very interesting, the thing is that I have not done everything, there are areas where I would probably would have scored 70 per cent or 60, and there are still some things to be done there.  When I heard that I said maybe when I go for the next campaign, I will have to alter my message slightly. I think we have done reasonably well. Don’t forget, Ekiti State is number 35 state of the Federation Account, people often forget that. This is a state with N3bn a month against N22bn in Bayelsa, N34bn in Rivers every month.  If you compare what is happening here on a per capita basis, it’s more than what is happening in Akwa Ibom and Rivers states.

What is your reaction to the statement credited to Vice-President Namadi Sambo to the effect that the elections in Ekiti and Ondo states are akin to going to war?

The Vice President has every right to push for his party in any election. That is his legitimate right. But to have said what the media reported him to have purportedly said was quite unfortunate because we are not at war in Ekiti. We have been here three and a half years of peace – one of the most peaceful states in this country today. For somebody who occupies one of the highest offices in the land as our Vice President, to reduce the importance of his office and promote insecurity – either directly or by subterfuge, and in this case it is pretty much directly that he was going to a war front and it wasn’t used figuratively, he used it in a matter of fact that he was going to a war front.

It is very reminiscent of former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s do-or-die statement, which is really unbecoming of the person who occupies the number two office in the land. I still would like to take the Vice President on himself. I hope he would deny that he didn’t say that and it would be some form of reassurance. I think it is the underlying text that should worry us. There has been a lot of saber-rattling about this election.

There is a lot of intelligence that is available to me about people sowing fake soldiers’ uniforms and people organising fake soldiers and policemen, in preparation for the Ekiti election. I hope INEC would be reassuring not just Ekiti people, but Nigerians because the Ekiti election is even far more important than the 2015 elections because if confidence is lost in INEC’s preparation and eventual implementation of the Ekiti election, that will rub off terribly on the 2015 elections. I mean INEC is already on the tenterhooks by what happened in Anambra, to then see Ekiti election going in the wrong direction would totally put paid to any hope on the part of Nigerians that anything good can come out of the 2015 elections. I don’t think President Goodluck Jonathan needs that. I think he has conveyed an image of himself as a decent politician who is not going to manipulate or resort to extra-legal or illegal ways in election management in Nigeria.

I think the Vice President ought to withdraw the statement and reassure Nigerians that the agenda for Ekiti election is not going to be determined in Aso Rock but by Ekiti people because it is a referendum on the performance of the current government in Ekiti.