We will rescue Ekiti State from pillagers - Adeyeye. Prince Adedayo Adeyeye, a former secretary of the pan-Yoruba socio- political group, Afenifere and also former National Publicity Secretary of the Alliance for Democracy (AD), has shown interest in contesting the governorship seat of Ekiti State on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 2014. In this interview with BOLA BADMUS, he speaks on his dream and vision for the state, among others. Excerpts: YOU have indicated your intention to contest the governorship seat of Ekiti State in 2014; how did you come about that decision? The decision was not mine alone; it came by the inspiration of God Almighty. As you know, I have been trying to contest the governorship of Ekiti State for quite some time. When I was in the Action Congress, I was a governorship aspirant from 2005 to 2006 before we had the primary that led to the mass exodus from AC to PDP as a result of the dissatisfaction with the conduct of that primary. When I got to PDP, of course, initially, in my usual attitude, I was concerned basically with passing my message, working with the government of the day, rendering selfless service. When I decide to do something, I go all out to do it. I believe I have put in a lot of energy for the PDP government in Ekiti State and for the party also. So after Kayode Fayemi took over as governor by way of court judgment, people started looking towards another election. A lot of people started coming to ask me to throw my hat into the ring and join the race for the governorship post. Apart from putting things in God’s hand, I can say that he kind of support I have received from the people have been overwhelming. This is also coupled with my personal urge and desire to serve my people selflessly, and given the God-giving talents that I have, I believe I can do a better job. I have actually thrown my hat into the ring to rescue Ekiti from the hand of those who are pillaging it at the present time. You said people influenced your taking that decision; what points did they make to convince you that you are the right person for the job? I think people looked at my antecedents, my political antecedents ditto my service to Chief Olu Falae as his media director for about two years when he was running for presidency. They looked at my antecedents as the media person to the late Chief M.K.O. Abiola, when he was contesting the presidency of Nigeria. They also looked at my role in the NADECO; my role in the Afenifere as the national publicity secretary and I was also the National Publicity Secretary of AD and they decided that I had played a very great role in Yoruba affairs for more than 20 years. I was one of the people who constituted the idea of Oodua Development Council which was to plan for the overall economic development of Yoruba race. You will remember when ODC was launched at the Airport Hotel in Lagos by the late Pa Abraham Adesanya, eminent personalities such as the late Chief FRA Williams, Chief Rasheed Gbadamosi, the late Chief Adisa Akinloye, the late Professor Olikoye Ransome-Kuti, the late Professor Babs Fafunwa, volunteered to be part and parcel of it. Our intellectuals at home and abroad volunteered to have a strategic plan, covering all sectors of the economy, energy, education, health, infrastructure, industrialisation and agriculture. They all signed up to contribute their expertise in fashioning out a roadmap in all these sectors for the overall development of Yoruba race. Unfortunately, these plans were scuttled by the non-cooperation of our former governors. They did not allow this laudable idea to materialise in their states and many of the papers that were written and presented are now rotting away on the shelf. But I believe that one day, by the grace of God, these things will see the light of the day. So people looked at my antecedents, they also looked at the fact that since I joined the PDP, I have served selflessly. I campaigned vigorously for the victory of Chief Segun Oni in 2007 and I reiterated it again, without any fear of contradiction, that Segun Oni won the election free and fair in 2007. He was robbed in the court. I will say it anywhere anytime that Segun Oni won the election and we know that Bola Tinubu and his party used tactics to snatch victory in the court after they had lost badly at the polls. It is the strategy of the party and they had been practising it for a long time and Nigerian should be aware of it. You see, it is a strategy and they have succeeded in taking over about two or three states from those who actually won elections in those states. One or two aspirants have earlier said it was the turn of a particular zone in the state to produce the next governor, will that not be one of the factors that will influence the choice of the next Governor of Ekiti State? People are clamouring that it is the turn of the Ekiti South to produce the next governor. The agitation is not unfounded. The agitation is right; the agitation is rooted on the principles of equity, fairness and justice. Ekiti State was created in 1996; we have been in democracy since 1999. From 1999 that democracy took a firm root in Ekiti, the Central Senatorial District has produced two governors in the person of Niyi Adebayo and Ayo Fayose. The North has also produced two governors namely Segun Oni and the incumbent, Kayode Fayemi. By the time Kayode Fayemi’s tenure expires in 2014, the North would have had eight years tenure in charge of the affairs of the state, just as the Central had eight years. People now say it will be most unfair for either the North or the Central to produce a third governor when the South has not produced any. And sincerely, this is fairness; this is honesty; this is equity, to do that. When you look at Ekiti State, it has been ruled by the AD, PDP and now APC. Some people would say PDP never did well, and now under APC, the state is realising the dream it ought to have achieved under AD administration, do you agree? I don’t agree. If I want to be ruthlessly objective in this matter not as an aspirant under PDP, I want you to cross-check my fact whether I am bias or not. I want to be educated on the achievements of the AD government between 1999 and 2003. I was part of it, not that I served in that government, but it was the government of my party. I was in AD; I was a national officer. So it was a government of my party. I want to be educated; I want people to mention to me. It was a time of extremely bad roads in Ekiti State when people could not even move round; schools were dilapidated; water was not flowing, pensioners were not being paid; civil servants were being owed arrears of salaries. A lot of things were in disarrayed and the government of the day was not making any effort to ameliorate these conditions, ultimately leading to our woeful performance in the election of 2003. How did you come to your conclusion because the key programme of the then administration was free education, among others? Free education at what level? Which government in the state has not practised free education? Free education has been with us since Obafemi Awolowo days as far as primary education is concerned. And as far as secondary education is concerned, it has been with us since the days of Adekunle Ajasin under the defunct Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN). So it is not a creation of the AD government in 1999. I have said it was era of extremely bad road, of great environmental degradation. Water was not running anywhere; schools were dilapidated, and there was no infrastructural development. The office of the governor himself was an eyesore. It was as bad as that and no effort was made to do anything about it and the civil servants were being owed arrears of salaries, and pensioners were not being paid. It was too bad and the most painful thing was that the in the perception of the people, they could not see the government making any effort to ameliorate those conditions. They could not see the government making any effort, and they lost the hope that the government was going to do anything about the situation. It was a time of complete failure of government. I have mentioned that I was part of the party and if I am saying this, you can count me as somebody who knew much even though I was not in government; it was my party and I shared part of the blame. Then the PDP government came under Ayo Fayose. I don’t like it; that is not my cup of tea, of course, particularly the person who was at the helm of affairs at that time. But the government had better achievements than the previous government. They were able to erect new Governor’s Office, they started making efforts to dualise Ado-Ekiti road, do a few road constructions here and there, and able to put in some buildings. Yes, the government was at the peak in pursuing the policies of free education and free health services. So if you put it on a scale, that government had better achievements than the previous government, but for the fact that the governor, for some other reasons, knocked his head somehow and messed up. Otherwise, he could have had a second term in office. With the government of Dr Segun Oni, PDP reached its apogee; I mean a high level of performance. It was able to create two additional universities and was funding them. It did not owe civil servants salaries despite all these enormous activities going on. A lot of buildings sprang up in the secretariat; the new House of Assembly complex was among them. Also a lot of activities were going on. Even within the Government House itself, new chalets were springing up. A lot of roads were being constructed even where roads never existed. In the area of basic education, which I oversaw, we introduced storey building in the state, which you now find virtually in every primary school in Ekiti State. We got quality furniture for them and pensioners were being paid as when due. It was purely very great achievements as far as I am concerned. It is not a question of sentiments because some people will not look at the parameters. What are the objective parameters that we have used to evaluate these governments? I have mentioned a lot of these parameters to you and I believe that is how they are. Now let us come to the current government under Fayemi. In the area of basic education, the government has only been renovating building and has not been building new ones. I heard the other time that one person made an allegation that the South- West governors under APC were building roads at the rate of N1billion per kilometre. They have not refuted it; they have not. And I read some of the social network when somebody was saying yes, it was a very wild allegation, and that construction is expensive. I said I have not seen any new construction in Ekiti I have only seen road rehabilitation under Fayemi. In what other areas do you want to impact on the state if elected into office? Let me say I want to impact seriously in the area of education. I believe Ekiti should prepare itself as a centre of learning not only in Nigeria but Africa. Our forefathers, the pioneers in the field of education in Ekiti performed a great feat and had some miraculous achievements. Look, Ekiti produced its first indigenous graduate in 1946 and at that point in time, the Egba and Ijebu had already producing graduates in the 1830. In other words, we were lagging behind. In other words, the Egba, the Lagosians, the Ijebu had started over a hundred years ahead of us because the Ransome-Kutis, and so many other families had started producing graduates since 1830s. Ekiti produced its own graduate in 1946, not even a full graduate, but an associate graduate as they called it that time. And yet within a period of about 16 years, by 1962 when then University of Ife was established, Ekiti had the majority of lecturers in the faculties of the institution; only a period of 16 years. How did they achieve it? It was a tremendous feat. Why? Because Ekiti people had embraced education with passion. People were sending their children to school. The free education programme by Awolowo helped, but Ekiti people were ready to read at all costs at home. People like Afe Babalola got all his degrees from home; people like the late Professor Sam Aluko got their degrees from home. That shows you the passion of the people, their ability to struggle and to endure hardship in order to achieve their objectives. So many other people got their PhDs from home without seeing the four walls of university and they became professors. These included people like Prof Ade Ajayi, who became the VC of UNILAG in the 70s. They had already got their PhDs and they were dominating the faculties of universities in Nigeria by 1962 and people were now saying ah, these Ekiti people, they read. I am very proud of the achievements of our pioneers and we need to build on that to make Ekiti a centre of education in Africa. We already have a pool of manpower that can handle these universities and our higher institutions. We need to attract people from all over the world and that will have multiplier effect on our economy, that is, a new set of people will be coming with their money and they will generate revenue for the state. They will have multiplier effect on the economy of the state in terms of investment in housing and all other aspects. There will even be new industries springing up. Afe Babalola University is a grand vision for which I commend the founder, Chief Afe Babalola. Our people are going to have a grander vision. We are going to attract more private institutions and we are going to build more government institutions. Before you know it, I will ensure that Ekiti becomes the hub of education in Nigeria. People will say that is the centre and they are sending their children there because of quality. It is the vision I have for the state. Also on agriculture, there will be an agricultural revolution in Ekiti under my regime and people will see and say okay, these are the people who are liberating Nigeria. You will see it by the grace of God, when we win the forthcoming election and you ask me in about three or four years’ time, there will be an agricultural revolution which will also lead to industrial revolution in Ekiti State. Agro-based industries will spring up like wild fire and they will be all over Ekiti State and concomitant to that, there will be continuous development of our infrastructure to accommodate the new influx of industries, of people who are coming for education and all that. Of course in the area of health, we want to be second to none. If Ekiti could have produced people like the late Professor Oshuntokun, a neuro- surgeon, as far back as 60s, [we also have so many professors of medicine, who are doing extremely well all over the world], we could as well attract these people by creating a centre of excellence in the area of health facilities for Nigeria and Africa. I believe that we can isolate Ekiti and make it an example for the rest of the country and this is to be the objective of any governor not to do things as usual. He must do extra-ordinary things that Chief Awolowo did. The APC says it is pursuing the integration of South-West. But believes that every state in the zone must be ruled by APC. What is your position on integration? They are paying lip service to the so- called integration. They have been in power now for about three years so what amount of integration have they done? They have even created the Ministry of Integration, but in what way have they done any integration? This is one of things they used to deceive the masses. But what idea have they brought forward other than creating these issues just to deceive the masses to present themselves as if they are the progressives because nobody has hindered them in any way. But what I see about them is their creating all sorts of paramilitary organisations which they are planning to use to suppress the masses- LASTMA in Lagos, that one is creating EKSTMA in Ekiti, among others.
Posted on: Sun, 17 Nov 2013 14:04:59 +0000
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