The Special Adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on Political Matters, Senator Babafemi Ojudu has said the government of Ekiti state under Dr Kayode Fayemi has performed below expectations since it assumed duties in 2018.
Ojudu who represented Ekiti Central senatorial district in the seventh Senate noted that the performances of the governor was giving the party bad light in the eyes of the citizens.
Speaking with journalists in Ado-Ekiti, the state capital, the presidential aide revealed that the majority of leaders of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) who worked for his victory in 2018 have been abandoned and sidelined on the affairs of the party.
According to Ojudu, ” Where is the focus on the people now? Is it roads the government is constructing? Is it providing employment? Is it providing food? Where is the governance? I want you to do a search on google and tell me where the projects are.
Take Borno state and also Ekiti State. Look at what Borno state Governor, Professor Zulum has done since he was sworn in till today and then take a look at what Ekiti state Governor has done since he was sworn in. Let us compare the two, when they tell you there is no money, is Zulum in charge of the Central Bank or he is receiving more than what Ekiti is being given?
“What is the population of Borno and what is the population of Ekiti State? You could take three Ekiti state out of Borno. Compare the ratio of the population of Borno to what is going there and the ratio of our population and what is coming here,” he said.
On the reason for some leaders of the party challenging the ward, local government and state executives of the party in court and the allegation of Fayemi running the party like a one-man show, Ojudu said, ” Some of us outraged have taken a step different from ours and left the party but someone like me and a few other patriots can’t do that because we can’t abandon the house we built. We shall stay in the party and fight to salvage it.
Nobody can chase us away from the APC or from the progressives community. Rather it is we who will chase those among us whose temperament are not progressive to where they belong. I will remain a member of the progressives party till I die.
So whatever it is I did not like, I will fight within and that is what we are trying to do now. Those with us today, governing over us and riding roughshod over our party members and our people will soon find their way out of our party. Mark my words they will soon be on their way out. They are already working at it.
“They have not call any meeting of leaders of the party. No meeting, no caucus, I don’t know how one man can run a show of the party . He is a puppeteer. He beats the drum and others just dance to it.”
But in a swift reaction, Fayemi described Ojudu’s vituperation against his government as an indication of someone who have lost touch of developmental strides of his administration in the state.
Speaking through his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Segun Dipe, the governor said, “Ojudu is sounding like what people are claiming he is. We believe his appointment can’t be divorced from being an Ekiti man. Yes, Senator Ojudu doesn’t come home and doesn’t recognize Ekiti at the moment.
What you don’t understand you will always see fault in it. For now, he is excused from seeing the negative side because he is already a stranger and alien to the people and the party. He is practising deliberate amnesia. He chooses to forget what he wants to forget and remember what he wants to remember. In the long run, there is governance and there is APC in Ekiti State.”
Tribune