Debo Ranti Ajayi is a gubernatorial candidate of the Youth Progressives Party (YPP) for the June 18, 2022, Ekiti governorship election. He was former Commissioner for Trade, Investment and Innovation and later a pioneer Commissioner for Budget and Economic Planning in the first term of incumbent Kayode Fayemi administration. In this exclusive interview with INIOBONG IWOK, he assesses his chances in the poll and why he defected to the YPP to contest the election, among other issues. Excerpt:
May we know what motivated you to join the contest for the governorship race in Ekiti State?
I decided to offer myself for public service because after I have served as commissioner for budget and economic planning and also for trade investment and innovations in Ekiti State, and working with the civil service, relating with the people of Ekiti, I realised the despondency of our people.
I realised the kind of culture and behavioural pattern that bad leadership has actually created in our people. I realised that our people deserved better than they were getting. And also I have a large Diaspora community that is watching to see whether my return to Nigeria was going to be a successful one or not.
I needed to remain here because after being a commissioner I realised that my mission is not complete yet and I realised the only way I can make an impact is when I have the authority to make changes in Nigeria.
This is why I came out to be given the chance to run for the governorship of Ekiti State, plus I also saw that Ekiti is actually, a perfect place to make a big statement in Nigeria.
Why? Ekiti is small and Ekiti is also looked down on in Nigeria. Ekiti is a rural place. So, people do not expect anything substantial to come from Ekiti.
My thought is; give me Ekiti and give me good men and women. Let us showcase what is possible in Nigeria when you have good and Godly leadership that cares about the people.
I am inspired by the potential of what I would do for the rest of Nigeria when they start seeing development happening in the most unlikely place they would start asking the question: how did this happen to Ekiti? Why did it not happen to us? The questions would cause people to demand more from their leaders.
Note, I have been out of Nigeria for decades before becoming commissioner here, so, I have been in an environment where things are working. Coming back to my own land to observe where things are not working.
For me, the only way I can be part of the solution is to be in charge of affairs where I can show a difference.
Why the YPP, because the voters in Nigeria appear to vote for a party and not a candidate?
Yes; Nigeria, particularly Ekiti has been ruled between the PDP and APC, it was PDP for a while until APC came into existence.
But seriously the people are tired of these two parties. It had been like that because there had not been a viable option and the situation.
The people are desperately looking for an option, and in Ekiti, they want a fresh option, not recycled people that have been part of the whole mess that they have to clean up. Why YPP? YPP is a young party with philosophy and manifesto that resonate with the people.
The slogan is service to the people, which means the people are the focus and then young in orientation, young in the sense not only chronological age but by the vibrancy, thinking and visionary thought.
So, how can YPP confront two giants? You know David only confronted one giant. Thank God for organisations like TNN that provided support to underdogs like me who want to make needed change.
But I am also relying on the people myself because eventually the power that anybody has is derived from the people, even though they manipulate people to rob them of that power.
But they are more enlightened now; they are more motivated to make sure there is a change. So, my goal is to inspire trust in the people that I am the leader they are looking for, that YPP is the party that connects with the people.
So that there is trust in the capacity for me to lead because one of the things that have been causing issues is that the people have not found the party they can trust.
If we leave PDP or APC and go to another party what if they are the same? That is my job and the job of my sponsors to connect me to the people that are the answer to the problems we are trying to solve.
Yes, it is a tough challenge but with God and the people bringing down the giants would not be difficult.
YPP is maintaining to keep out the old order politicians; it is not a case of just looking for politicians to win an election because you would pay for it later when you cannot distinguish the politicians that have been the reason for the problems in Nigeria.
For me that is our task, it makes our job harder but with the people on our side it is achievable.
The improvement in the Electoral Act also gives us some hope that INEC would be more on top of things that rigging would be difficult.
We would mobilise people to stay and protect their votes up till the collation centre to minimise manipulation and give the result to the highest bidder.
The president has not signed the Electoral bill. What is your take?
We just have to keep praying for the President so that God would give him the wisdom to do the right thing to ensure that democracy is enshrined. Because it is common to see people practising democracy but they don’t believe in it.
You see them acting contrary to it, it is very disheartening. But we have to look to the people to put pressure on Buhari to do the right thing because for democracy to be established in Nigeria the institution of INEC and the judiciary must do the right thing.
The judiciary system stands by a good democratic system, we have good people in Nigeria but the system nerve allows them to come to open.
That is why organisations like TNN are supporting the underdog which is fantastic because good people can have a chance.
You were a member of the APC until January when you defected to the YPP; why did you not contest under the APC?
Recently, the President rejected the direct primary clause that is part of the problem where the governors manipulate the delegates to enforce their successor.
That is part of the reason I left. We were waiting for the President to sign the Electoral bill and he did not sign so we left. The Ekiti APC situation was such that the governor was insisting on a particular person succeeding him, not for his capacity but loyalty to him and for the development of Ekiti.
I tell people the agenda that this government in Ekiti is pursuing today was done by me when I was Commissioner for Trade, Investment and innovation.
So, if you are talking about the development agenda today in Ekiti, I am the most qualified person because I am the designer based on the economic model I saw in Dubai.
So, when it became obvious that this government was becoming desperate to install this fellow, I realised that Ekiti would never get a leader like me if I don’t step out.
Plus there were pressure groups ready to support me, several first-time voters, but not under APC or PDP.
So, it is good for me to step out and contest because for so many years I have been under the shadow of this governor, I need to come out to be known to the Ekiti people.
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How rooted is the YPP in Ekiti State?
YPP is relatively young; I told you earlier that Ekiti people are looking for a fresh platform and that fresh platforms of necessity must be relatively small.
So, we are not relying on the YPP structure we are relying on Ekiti people, on pressure groups. That said, I must come out of APC to support what YPP has on the ground.
So, it is not about what YPP has on ground. They exist in all the local governments in Ekiti State except two, but the support and pressure groups that vowed to work for us have structures across Ekiti and a voting population that is more than those who have been voting in the past elections in Ekiti. We are going to be mobilising new voters in this election to make a statement.
And of course one of the most expensive day during the electioneering is usually that day of election; where there is a lot of buying of votes and other manipulations, but we are going to save ourselves that huge expense by mobilising voters to go to their polling booth with a sense of mission to elect a good leader.
To elect a leader that they can trust, a leader that gives them confidence in democracy and that day money is going to be useful. They can come with their load of money but they would not find anybody to share it with. Of course, they can always share it with their voters.
Are you saying your popularity would win you votes?
I am not saying I am there yet in terms of popularity, but I am one of those you may call an emerging story. But our plan is that by the time we get to June 18, we would have done our homework, so that the people would have known me and my antecedent.
The fortunate thing about me is that I have decades of international experience, I lived in Dubai between 2001-2007 when Dubai was taken off so I saw the development of that place first hand. And on top of that, I have lived in Ekiti for the past ten years.
So, internationally, I am rooted in the development model, locally I am familiar with what the issues are.
The message we are taking to Ekiti people is that you are not having a foreign governor. All the governors that have ruled Ekiti came from outside. That just came to use Ekiti to advance their personal ambition.
Rural people, urban people that package themselves told them lies and stories and they bought into it only for them to discover that these people don’t have what it takes.
We were having a development agenda in the first administration to the best of our ability but did not carry the people along.
One of the things I have discovered is that you cannot effectively lead the people you don’t know and that don’t know you. That is why it is imperative that I live among our people. I could have left in 2014, I went back to the international corporate world but I remained in Ekiti, few people thought I could not wait for that association to end before I took off, but I have not.
What would you do if elected governor of Ekiti State?
I would ensure first that I carry my people along. One of the things I learned when I was commissioner is that Nigerians would gravitate toward a leader when they know such a leader cares about them and when the leader knows their plight.
I have come to realise that Nigerians are so resilient when they see a leader that makes personal sacrifices they themselves would volunteer to solve their own problems that would save the government a lot of money and ensure joint ownership of solutions.
So you probably expect me to talk about big programmes, no, I have found out that Nigerians problems would start to be solved when they have a compassionate visionary leader.
Secondly, knowledge rules the world; we need to be smart, one of the things I have come to discover is that result based development is not the way to go in Ekiti.
Therefore, I would focus on knowledge-based industry in Ekiti, making power a catalyst for development.
The result base model of development requires you to have large acres of land that in small Ekiti we don’t have.
My plan is to utilise the knowledge-power that is associated with Ekiti for Ekiti development.
So, I am going to focus on areas like health care, ICT, areas where knowledge hands a lot of value. I am also going to focus on the youths, we have them in abundance in Ekiti, under 40’s represent about 60 per cent of voters in Ekiti State, that is a lot of power in our young people that is ignored.
So, I would develop a program to train our young people for jobs in markets like Dubai. Work with employment agencies in Dubai to get some of the youths there, and look for ways to get a proportion of what they earn to develop Ekiti.
I am offering leadership that can create wealth for the development of my people.
