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Tag: Ayo Fayose

  • Fayose, Olubolade disagree on consensus

    Fayose, Olubolade disagree on consensus

    FORMER Minister of Police Affairs and governorship aspirant on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the Ekiti State, Navy Captain Caleb Omoniyi Olubolade (rtd) and former Speaker of the House of Assembly, Femi Bamisile are backing the adoption of consensus option in picking the party’s candidate for the June 21 governorship election.

    Olubolade and Bamisile are of the view that if the PDP candidate is selected through a consensus arrangement, such would help to avoid the rancour, bickering and ill- feelings that usually characterise the process of primaries in any election.

    But former Governor Ayo Fayose and Chief Bosede Dada have kicked against the option, saying it is undemocratic.

    Both the former minister and Bamisile spoke at separate interviews in Abuja, the nation’s capital.

    Olubolade said he is ready and willing to abide by President Goodluck Jonathan’s earlier advice that the PDP in Ekiti State should look at the option of choosing its candidate through consensus rather than primaries.

    The former minister said: “I believe in consensus because any organisation that wants to make progress, any political party that wants to make progress must listen to the voice of reasoning from the leadership of such party. Once the party’s leadership brings an issue on the way forward, as a good party man, it would be nice for you to work in that line so that all things will work for the good of the party.

    “Having heard from the President on the way forward, I will strictly want to abide by that position and do exactly what will move our party forward. What is important is for us to ensure that internal democracy prevails within the party.

    “When the party (PDP) reveals its position on the way forward, we also have to key into that position. So, that will bring orderliness in the party. Followers will know what to do and we will, in togetherness, work to ensure that the party is victorious. That is why I believe in consensus”, he said.

    Bamisile, who is also the state’s Deputy Chairman agreed that the consensus arrangement would help to avoid disagreements and divisions among members.

    According to him, there is a clear mandate from the party’s national leadership that anybody who wants to run for the governorship election or be considered an aspirant, should first take the bold step of going to pay N11million to the party at Abuja. I can tell you that the party paraded 26 aspirants including myself and 14 of us came together and had a meeting with the President on January 4.

    “During our deliberations, the President informed us that he would prefer that the party should go the way of consensus in choosing its candidates. He advised that we should avoid the over-kill of spending so much money in primaries and the rancour that comes out of primaries.

    “Sincerely, most of us strongly believe in that process. I have done about four elections in the state and all of them were through primaries but in circumstances like this- you are in opposition in your state; you should look for every means to make sure that the processes of selecting your candidates are fair and not too financially engulfing. We should make sure that the processes are suitable to all those involved and that is why I concur with the President on this issue of consensus.

    Fayose and Mrs Dada reminded those canvassing consensus arrangement of the promise of the National Chairman, Alhaji Adamu Mu’azu, that internal democracy would not be compromised.

    Chief Dada objected to the plans to anoint a candidate through consensus, saying that it is undemocratic. She added: “I do not want consensus. I have paid for my form and I am ready for the primaries. The Chairman, Mr. Makanjuola Ogundipe, has assured me that there will be primaries in Ado-Ekiti. Also, when I visited the national chairman, he promised that there will be internal democracy in the PDP. Therefore, I will not support consensus”.

    Fayose said the idea of a consensus candidate is laughable, stressing that it underscores the limitations of those behind the option.

    The former governor said that he will face the primaries with courage and boldness, based on Mu’azu’s assurance that internal democracy would be restored in the party.

    Fayose wondered why certain elements were agitating for consensus option, instead of going to the field to mobilise support for their ambition to rule the state. He said while some people have the right to canvass for consensus candidacy, other people also have the right to oppose the option based on reason. Stressing that consensus option is not feasible, he urged the aspirants to exhibit the capacity for popularity test at the shadow poll.

    The former governor stressed: “What we need to do is to go for tender. When you pay the tender fee, you have indicated interest to participate in the deal. The nomination fee is the tender fee. The consensus means that all the aspirants have the collective agreement. But, once some people say they are not for consensus, it is not consensus again.

    “Would they do consensus again at the general election? A man who is not sure of winning the primaries cannot win the general election. I am confident that any body who can win the primary election will win the general election”.

     

  • Fayose’s baleful rapprochement with Ekiti electorate

    Fayose’s baleful rapprochement with Ekiti electorate

    IT took him a while before he supplanted the leaders of his political party, but after last year’s coup de main, the former governor of Ekiti State, Ayo Fayose, has seemed all dressed up and nowhere to go. It was not hard for him to make his moves, for he is rough-hewn, and his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Ekiti, equally guileful, but it has been harder for him to device a message for the future and imbue it with life. In his first coming, begun in 2003 but aborted before he completed one term, he caught popular imagination, provided the so-called dividends of democracy for his people with nothing more than the giddy excitement of a local government chairman, and because he was impulsive and populist, he did many other irrational things. In short, he so vulgarised governance that his embarrassed people and party leaders performed political euthanasia on him in 2006.

    Eight years later, and with no evidence whatsoever that he had learnt or done anything but fine-tune his quirky political tactics of arm-twisting opponents, Mr Fayose has reappeared on the state’s political scene selling himself as a rejuvenated politician prepared for the arduous task of shepherding a wholesome state, as a mature statesman eager to forgive his enemies, and as a pragmatist capable of winning elections should his party, which he has virtually hijacked, give him a second chance. No one knows what residue of wisdom still lies in his party or how much character still inheres in his party leaders and supporters. But should they con themselves into making their now mature arm-twister candidate of the PDP in the June 2014 governorship poll, the state’s political combat will witness lively twists and feints.

    Mr Fayose doesn’t know how to play softball. Street smart, boisterous, and with a rage as incandescent as molten magma, he will find himself taking on two equally lively opponents the ambitious and feisty Opeyemi Bamidele, and the mercurial but soft-spoken Kayode Fayemi. The restless Mr Bamidele, it is known, runs on a cocktail of messianic formulae designed, as he put it bravely, to salvage the state form the hands of the uncooperative Dr Fayemi. And the latter, who is the current governor, runs on a cocktail of public works projects he is convinced will remain unparalleled for some time to come. Beside these two gentlemen of the Labour Party (LP) and All Progressives Congress (APC) respectively, the feistiness of Mr Fayose threatens to be ordinary.

    What is crucial to Mr Fayose, notwithstanding, is that he is coming into the combat with considerable self-belief and chutzpah. After making peace, as it were, with those who undid him in the clumsy impeachment of 2006 that terminated his governorship, he believes he would be able to sustain the right momentum into the June race. In addition, he has promised to spend just one term if elected. As Olusegun Obasanjo, a former president, and President Goodluck Jonathan have shown so numbingly, the seductive talk of one term is pure baloney. The ordinary Nigerian politician is nearer in habit to President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe than to former President Nelson Mandela of South Africa. Not only can the Nigerian politician not be trusted, they also nurture an incestuous romance with power.

    It may never be known whether Ekiti people have forgiven Mr Fayose in accordance with his pleas, but he seems more in need of forgiveness than to forgive anyone. Yet, even if they manage to smile at his charades, his chances of picking the PDP ticket are as remote as the scarifying peaks of the Himalayas. But let him go ahead and make peace, since the state obviously needs it for the June poll. At least it will salve his corroded conscience and prepare him for life after politics.

  • Fayose designed poultry project to fail, says Fayemi

    Fayose designed poultry project to fail, says Fayemi

    •Plant to process 2,000 chickens daily

    Ekiti State Governor Kayode Fayemi has said the poultry project initiated and abandoned by former Governor Ayo Fayose cannot be revived because it was designed to fail.

    Fayemi spoke with reporters yesterday after inspecting a poultry farm and a processing plant established by his administration in Ikere and Ado-Ekiti.

    He said his administration cannot revive Fayose’s poultry project like it did other moribund projects established by previous administrations because it was not designed as “a viable project”.

    The governor, who was conducted round the poultry farm and processing plant by the Commissioner for Agriculture, Jide Arowosafe, said Fayose’s poultry project, which gulped over N1 billion, did not have a sustainable plan.

    He said there was no equipment in the processing plant purportedly put in place by the erstwhile governor in his Afao-Ekiti country home.

    Fayemi said his administration put in place a processing plant in Ado- Ekiti for farmers under the Youth in Commercial Agriculture Development (YCAD) with less than N20 million, while the Fayose-led administration spent a whopping sum on a similar project that never took off.

    Fayose is on trial for alleged misappropriation of funds meant for the project.

    Fayemi said: “This government is serious about agriculture and we are not playing lip service to it. The Fayose farms are not revivable. You can see the quality of the building at the Benin-Owena poultry farm that we have revived. We spent less than N50 million to revive those huge poultry units on the Ikere-Ise road.

    “You cannot compare them to those wooden sheds that were called poultry farms by the previous administration, which have already collapsed. They have all crashed because they were not meant to last in the first instance. We are confident that placed side by side the antecedent of our predecessor, the difference is like 7up.

    “The processing plant was put in place for YCAD with less than N20 million. What we have done for our YCAD farmers with less than N20 million is what was done in this state a few years ago with over N1 billion, which is still the subject of investigation. The project never saw the light of the day. There was no processing plant. A building was put up in Afao, which was supposed to lead to the processing plant, but there was no equipment there. If you go to all the units in the 16 local government areas, you will know what I am talking about.”

    The governor reiterated his determination to make Ekiti the food basket of the Southwest.

    He said the processing plant has the capacity to process over 2,000 birds daily, adding that Ekiti can now supply fresh frozen chicken to neighbouring states.

    Fayemi said he was confident that this would turn around the fortune of poultry farmers in the state.

    He said: “What you see here is a processing plant that can daily treat 2,000 birds right from scalding to feathering and sending them to the market. The poultry will feed the processing plant. You have seen the various processing units and the cold room where the chickens would be stored before they get to the market through the Fountain Markets.”

    Arowosafe said the processing plant is being test-run and would begin full production next week.

    He said the state has 27,000 birds and is in talks with business organisations across the country to market the product. He said Ekiti residents would no longer have to travel to other states to get frozen chicken.

  • PDP suspends Fayose, three others

    PDP suspends Fayose, three others

    The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Tuesday sunk deeper into crisis by suspending former governor Ayo Fayose of Ekiti State and three other executive members of the party for their alleged roles in a recent bloody clash at the party secretariat in Ado-Ekiti.

    The other three are – the current Secretary of the Party, Dr. Tope Aluko, its Publicity Secretary, Mr. Kola Oluwawole and the Women Leader, Mrs. Busola Oyebode,

    Announcing the suspension, the party’s chairman, Chief  Makanjuola Ogundipe, said the State Working Committee took the decision “having found them culpable of anti-party activities and acts of insubordination.”

    Ogundipe explained that “the PDP is a disciplined party and would not tolerate any act of indiscipline from any of its members, no matter how highly placed.”

    According to him, last week’s attack on the PDP Secretariat was “unwarranted, irresponsible and most uncalled for looking at the efforts we have made to ensure everyone within the party is given a sense of belonging.”