FORMER Labour Party governorship candidate in Ekiti State, Honourable Opeyemi Bamidele on Wednesday picked the All Progressives Congress, (APC) nomination form ahead of the party primary fixed for May 5.
Speaking with newsmen, Honourable Bamidele who promised that he would be willing to abide with the outcome of the party primary once it was free and fair said he was not threatened by the aspiration of the former governor of the State and incumbent Minister of Solid Minerals for the same coveted office.
He said: ” Dr Kayode Fayemi is eligible. The world is meant for those who can dare, I don’t see him as an obstacle. I am ready to accept the outcome of the primary, once it is free and fair. I am sure, he will be willing to work with me if I win and I will be willing to work with him, if he wins the ticket.
“I hope there will be a free exercise. If the leadership is seen to be free and fair and we have the assurance of Chief Odigie Oyegun the last time he came to Ekiti State. All of us must work together. That’s the lesson we took home after the last governorship election. It is no longer about any individual, it is about Ekiti state.”
Appraising the development in the state under the administration of Ayodele Fayose, the former federal lawmaker who described Ekiti as an agrarian state said what was lacking in the state was the right leadership to harness its resources
“I want to be an unusual governor, in the sense that I don’t want to be coming cap in hand every month to Abuja for monthly allocation.We are an agrarian state and I want to tap into our potential for agricultural produce.
“Lagos took billions to Kebbi for rice farming, Ekiti can tap into that and attain the feat of the food basket. We can conserve the farm produce and take it to the next step as an agro allied industry. Ekiti has enormous mineral resources and it can be in our soil in the next 1000 years except we have the right leadership. What Ekiti is lacking is resource managers.
“I believe God has prepared me and I have the state of mind to give the right leadership.”
Also addressing newsmen, another aspirant, Barrister Olumuyiwa Kolade, decried what he called the poor state of the Ekiti state economy and miaplaced priorities of the Governor Fayose administration.
“Ekiti state was created in October 1996, but one thing that is certain is that there is no tangible development. You cannot see an improvement. Anybody who visited the state when it was created and now, would agree with me that there is no substantial development.
“The infrastructure that the governor is talking about is a farce. What he is talking about stomach infrastructure is nothing but a fraud.
One thing I have always told my audience is that the human capital in Ekiti is not developed. The sitting governor has done a bridge and has not completed it. As of today, he has spent N20 billion and has not completed it. He keeps on reviewing the cost. If you want to go the Ghadaffi way and you divide this money by the 2.5 million people in Ekiti, each of us would be entitled to about N4 million.
Now, if you take N1.6 billion for instance and give N100 million to each of the 16 local governments and then form co-operatives, you then ask people to access the loans, you would have created more millionaires in the state. The bridge is so long that no one will even use it except few people travelling very far because underneath it, there are so many easy outlets that motorists can use.
“Government is the only employer of labour. There are no factories. If you do not work with the government, you work in the hotel, filling station, the saw mill or you are an ‘Okada’ rider. It is mostly a civil service state. If we had successive governments and they were not able to discern that this burden should be taken off the shoulders of government, then what are we talking about? Successive governments in Ekiti state have failed.”