Ekiti 2022: My Popularity Won Me APC Guber Ticket – Oyebanji

By Rasaq Ibrahim, The Nation

In this interview with our correspondent Rasaq Ibrahim, the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for the June 18 governorship poll in Ekiti State, Biodun Oyebanji, speaks on the January 27 primaries, his chances in the general election and other sundry issues.
The January 27 governorship primaries of the APC, which produced you as the candidate of the party, has become a subject of controversy. What do you make of this?

Let me start by saying that I’m surprised that senior party members, who I have respect for, can be pushing some narratives because the outcome didn’t favour them. I believe the poll was credible, free and fair and a level playing field was provided for all the contestants. It would interest Nigerians to know that a day to the poll, we had a stakeholders’ meeting, where we agreed on the mode of engagement. At the meeting, all aspirants agreed on the arrangements that had been put in place and I left the venue of the meeting for my home town to vote. The result I got from all the 177 wards after the process was that people came out, they were accredited in accordance with the guidelines of the party and they were counted and the results were declared. So, with respect to the protest staged by the seven other aspirants, I recognize their rights to protest and I know that the party is imbued with internal mechanisms to resolve this issue as a party.

Looking at the result announced by the Election Committee Chairman, Governor Abubakar Badaru, one is tempted to ask whether it was a fair game because you pulled 101,703 votes and the first runner up garnered 760 votes. Could that be an affirmation of your acceptability?

Although, there are other factors that worked in my favour but my emergence was largely due to my acceptability and popularity within the ranks and files of APC in Ekiti State. One, my supporters came out en masse to vote for me and for record purposes, APC in Ekiti State has over 180,000 registered members. Second, I may be wrong but perhaps part of what made others perform abysmally in the election was because of the panic news spread by my co-aspirants a few hours to the primaries that the election had been postponed. Naturally, this confused their followers because seven of them signed the purported press statement and their supporters saw it and became confused. Unfortunately, it was not only their followers that stayed away, some of my followers also stayed indoors. I believe that might have been responsible for why their supporters did not come out to vote but the committee organizing the primaries insisted that the election must go on so we mobilized and we brought out supporters to vote. It is on record that we ran the most rigorous campaign prior to the shadow poll. We visited all the 16 local government areas and 177 wards at four different times selling our manifestos of prosperity to our people. I am not sure any of the aspirants did that. Be that as it may, we are duty-bound to ensure that we embark on reconciliation to bring everybody together so that we can approach the election on June 18th as a united family. My attitude is that this is a family issue and it will be resolved amicably.

Knowing that unity of purpose and togetherness are needed for your party to win the main election. How do you intend to resolve the post-primary crisis?

Well, I have reached out to some of them and we are already in conversation and in the next few days I hope to deepen the already agreed conversations with them. I believe that the APC is strong and has the capacity to resolve amicably issues arising from the primary. One thing that is certain that in every contest there will always be different views and opinions and it behoves on each and every one of us to be flexible and resolve the issues in the interest of our people, in the interest of the state and for the sake of the party and I’m confident that all those things will be done.

What gives you the confidence that the raging issue will be resolved because it looks like they are going to go on appeal?

I’m very comfortable for two reasons. Those are allegations that are currently being investigated so we wait for the result of the investigation. That’s number one. Secondly, I have a solid personal relationship with all of these aspirants and I know that they are great men in their own right. They want the best for the State, they want the best for the party and in the spirit of ensuring that Ekiti State develops and we don’t rupture the APC, reason will prevail we talk to them and at the end of the day I am confident that it’s going to be resolved.

Is it true that you are the candidate of the Governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi?

Dr. Kayode Fayemi is the leader of the party in the state and there’s no party member that doesn’t have a relationship with him, including all my colleagues, the aspirants. Personally, I have known Governor Fayemi for 20 years and I’ve worked with him for seven years. In those seven years, he has given me assignments in various ministries and in different capacities and I humbly believe I have given a good account of myself. That does not give me an exclusive preserve of relationship with him because all of us in this race have one relationship or the other with Governor Fayemi and we are all close to him. On the conclusion in some quarters that those who supervised the process were handpicked by the Governor, I disagree.

First, much as I would not like to speak for the committee that organized the election, I’m privy to the fact that each of the aspirants submitted 20 names of party members each and they were all incorporated. The fact is this is a party affair which should be manned by party members, not people outside our party. It will also interest members of the public that these so-called appointees or elected officials who they claimed were drafted in were also party members who were promoted by each of the aspirants a few years or months ago to be part of the government. To now turn around and call them ‘Oyebanji boys’ is absurd. We all have relationships with them.

Beyond the election and the politics that came with it, what exactly do you have to offer the people of Ekiti state?

We have a developmental agenda in the state and we will continue to ramp up on areas where we have not finished what we are doing as a government. We will also engage in conversations with the people to ask them for what else they want us to do to better the lot of Ekiti people. In my campaign for the primaries, I went round Ekiti State four times and the feedback I have taken from party members and other members of the public will also guide my approach to governance. In the build up to the campaign too, we will lay before the people the agenda as enshrined in our party manifesto and again take feedback from them. One unique selling point of the Kayode Fayemi administration is the fact that we always ask the people what they want us to do for them. We will be going to them on a quarterly basis to ask them that “okay we have done this what would you want us to do next? We will continue in that trajectory and principally there are three things we will focus on based on the current situation in the country: security, employment for our teeming youths and growth of the state economy to make the people prosperous. These are very fundamental and we’re going to put them on the front burner.

Why do you think you are the best man for the job?

Saying I have call it takes to take over the mantle of leadership in Ekiti State, is like stating the obvious. I posses all the composite qualities required of a leader. Ekiti as a state is 25 years old. We have had 22 years of democracy in Ekiti State, during this time I have served the state in various capacities for 11 years. I started as a Special Assistant to Governor Niyi Adebayo. Then as a Special Adviser and I capped it up as his Chief of Staff. When we left the government in 2003, I went back to my private business and I had the opportunity of being Chairman of the Governing Council, Citizenship and Leadership Training Centre. It is a parastatal under the Federal Ministry of Youth. Later, when Governor Kayode Fayemi came on his first journey to pilot the affairs of the state, I was Commissioner for Regional Integration and Inter-Government Affairs. After that, I was Head, Office of Transformation, Strategy and Service Delivery and I ended as Commissioner for Budget and Economic Planning. So, I had three appointments in four years and in the second term in office, I was the SSG till I resigned on December 7th last year to vie for governorship. All these public offices have exposed me to an understanding of the nuances of governance in Ekiti State. I had worked closely with two Governors that have done so well to the admiration of Ekiti people. I have seen them taking very hard decisions, making mistakes and correcting themselves and I’ve seen them arriving at policies that will better the lot of our people. Therefore, these 11 years that I’ve spent being mentored by these great men would come in handy in my attempts to develop and take Ekiti to the next level. Another thing I would like people to know is that I was part and parcel of all the development agendas of the State. For instance, when the State was to be created, I was the Secretary for the Committee for creation of Ekiti State. I was a member of the team that drafted the master plan for the state. So, I have a good and solid understanding of the visions of Ekiti founding fathers. All these will assist me in administering our people and I have been very close to them all the while. I have not left them ever since and I understand their pains. I share their concerns, I understand their language and that’s partly responsible for the votes that I scored during the just concluded election because they know me very well because I’ve been with them all through.

In the June 18 governorship election, you will be slugging it out with the anointed candidate of former Governor Ayodele Fayose. What would you do differently in this contest and what should be the expectation?

We will sell our manifesto to the people. We will remind them of the promises made by Governor Kayode Fayemi and which he has fulfilled and thank God these are projects that resonate with the people and they are all over communities in Ekiti State. There is no community that this government has not implemented a minimum of two or three projects. We would refresh their memory with respect to that and we will let them know that we can do more and the need for them to continue with the government that has served their interest for the past three years.

Are you going to campaign on the record of Governor Fayemi or your own personality because you keep making allusion to the governor’s achievements? Is this not contradictory, especially when you have denied being his anointed candidate?

Dr. Fayemi is the leader of the party and whoever emerges the party’s flag bearer naturally becomes his candidate too. If any of my co-contestants had clinched the ticket, the person automatically becomes Fayemi’s and the party’s candidate for the June 18 gubernatorial election. Now back to my person. I was his Secretary to the State Government, so, there’s no way I can remove myself from his government and I’m going to benefit from his achievements. In that regard, the decision that will be taken on June 18 by the electorate will be a combination of the performance of Governor Kayode Fayemi and the expectation of the people about my person. The two will work together. If a government has done well and a candidate wants to run on the platform that produced the Governor, it is natural he will benefit from the performance of that government. I also think my people understand me very well and they know me and this is not the first time we have done things together to build Ekiti. They can attest to my competence, my character and my compassion for them. We will also be campaigning on the manifesto that has been developed. In the next few weeks, we are going to unfold the manifesto and make it very clear to the people but there’s no way I’m going to run this campaign without reference to the sterling performance of Governor Kayode Fayemi. He is the APC leader in our dear state and I’m going to run on the APC platform, so the two will go hand in hand and because he has done well, his performance is going to assist my campaign.