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Ahead of the the forthcoming Ekiti State Governorship Election, the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC has commenced the sale of expression of interest and nomination forms shortly after the Party’s National Executive Council meeting.
So far, Ayo Arise who represented Ekiti North in the Senate between 2007 and 2011 as well as Richard Bamisile, a former Speaker of Ekiti State House of Assembly have picked this forms to cling APC ticket for guber polls.
Briefing journalists shortly after obtaining the forms, Arise said he was confident that APC would conduct a free and fair primaries which would produce a credible and experienced candidate like him that would wrestle the Governorship seat from PDP.
He said as a politician with tentacles spreading beyond APC, having being a member of the defunct Alliance for Democracy, AD, Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN and Peoples Democratic Party, PDP he has a unique advantage over other contenders for APC ticket.
The elsewhile Ekiti North Senator warned that if the APC made mistake of manipulating the primaries in favour of any anointed candidate, the PDP which has already lay in ambush would take advantage of such to retain power in Ekiti.
“We have a seating Governor in Ekiti who is in PDP and he knows that if I win this ticket, he is a gonner and he is waiting for us to make a mistake and that mistake can only come if the party imposed a candidate. And the party cannot allow that to happen because we know what we want”. The Ekiti Governorship hopeful stated.
Arise promised that unlike the incumbent Governor Ayodele Fayose who enunciated the despicable ‘stomach infrastructure’, if given the mandate to govern Ekiti he would prioritize physical infrastructural development and turn around the economic fortunes of the state through public/ private partnership initiative.
He said as someone with the background in the legislature, if voted as governor of Ekiti he would champion the cause of separation of powers by ensuring independence of the Ekiti State House of Assembly unlike other Governors who usually turn States legislatures as rubber stamps.
On his part, Bamisele who told journalists that Ekiti has been grossly underdeveloped in the last three years of PDP administration, promised to revamp the state in areas of security, education, employment and agriculture if given the mandate.
He was optimistic that with the integrity and fair disposition of the APC Leaders, particularly President Muhammadu Buhari, credible primary elections would be conducted while delegates would freely nominate candidates of their choice such as him to send PDP parking.
“Unfortunately the present serving governor has lost in every sphere of government. He has mixed politics with governance. In politics when we are looking for offices, we play politics but when you get to office, it is all about governance. It is all about the people. This time Ekiti people will decide who choose that could bring development to them”, Bamisile noted.
Apart from Arise and Bamisile, it is no longer a secret that, Kayode Fayemi, Minister of Solid Minerals and Segun Oni are also in the race to grab the APC ticket to govern Ekiti State.
Fayemi apart from being a serving Minister under the present administration, was one time Governor of Ekiti State but was defeated in 2014 by Fayose, while Segun Oni is a Special Adviser to President Buhari.
James Kwen, Abuja
