The Governor of Ekiti State, Mr Ayodele Fayose appears to be living with one week, one trouble syndrome. In recent times, the most intriguing however how the governor escaped the impeachment trap set by the All Progressives Congress, (APC) even when all odds were against him. In this interview with the head of his media brain box, Mr Lere Olayinka, he revealed the hidden facts about Fayose’s dramatic escape from what many people thought would have been his final waterloo, having survived several attempts since the controversial June 21 election that produced him.Irohinoodua correspondents, Peter Ogunsona and Babatunde Segun

Question: How do you access the success of the Ekiti State Government so far?

Answer: Accessing the government of Ekiti state will be subjective, how can I be accessing a government that I’m part of?  If am to access the government what do you expect me to say? I would probably rate the government even high.  So, if there is the need for the government to be accessed I think it should be accessed by the people on the street and not me.

What do you consider as your major achievements even in terms of strategic thinking and planning?

Achievement in government can be subjective because in most cases when you regard something as achievement it might not really be achievement, but one thing I will say is that majorly that we have achieved in Ekiti state is what we call political stability because one of the major problems of Ekiti state is political stability in the sense that Ekiti State was created in 1996 and by 2010 Ekiti state had like seven or eight governors: Niyi Adebayo, Ayodele Fayose, Fred Aderemi, Olurin, Tope Adelumiyi, Segun Oni, Tunji Odeyemi and Segun Oni again, Kayode Fayemi nine governors in 11 years so, if you are running a state like that, it is not likely to attract investors, because investors also look at the state andf how stable It is. I remember when I was with Segun On, then it got to a point where banks stopped giving political appointees loans and other facilities because they were not sure when the Segun Oni’s Government was going.
 If it happens like that to political appointees you should also know that business men and women will not be able to come to the state because if you are Oni’s friend, bringing your investment to Ekiti state because your friend is now the Governor of Ekiti State you don’t know what will happen next, so for the first time we’ve had government that spent its own four years and another that wants to have its four years despite the fact that some people want to destabilize the government, that did not work and at least people now have  rest of mind to be able to continue, again the government have been able to sort out some roads in Ado-Ekiti .
 
Question: Concretely, what have you achieved?
You can see that some roads have been constructed even though Ekiti has been constrained with funds.  We inherited over 80 billion debts, 25 billion naira loan, over 30 billion Naira commercial loan over 15billion naira from all banks even at that the government has been able to sustain the payment of workers’  salary because the economy of this state is tied to the apron of public servants, the moment they don’t get their salaries in two months, the economy of the state will collapse . It is from the salary they get that the money gets into circulation. We have been able to sustain that. Today is July 22 at least we have been able to pay up to June we are owing one month salary that was September last year that the previous government refused to pay and we have also paid pension I think up to April.
 
Question: The victory of Gov Ayo Fayose is controversial. What do you think is the most important factor that led to your victory?

Answer: The electoral victory of PDP and Governor Ayo Fayose is based on the categories of voters. Those who voted Governor Ayodele Fayose as a Person.
Those who are lovers of the PDP. Those whose votes were against Kayode Fayemi
The people voted against the government that did not serve them at all for example, take example of this place, the  Broadcasting Service of Ekiti State (BSES) owned by the government for four years, even not an Okada was bought for this place to operate. He donated vehicle to Federal Government owned radio station he also donated a brown new bus to NTA and some other organizations in the state. This place for four years, there was no single major investment even the government of Segun Oni awarded contract for the television equipment including (OBVAN), almost their 70% contract sum was paid. When Fayemi came here, he abandoned the project OBVAN. As we speak, the van is with the contractor in Abuja lying useless and valueless and two brown new Toyota Hilux vehicles and Fayemi refused to do anything to actualize the project. So , if you are running government like that, you run government in a way that people will look at you and begin to ask, are these people actually from Ekiti State where Government choose to borrow money to build civic centers, borrow money to plant flowers, borrow money to build pavilion, governors house, the same government that said Ekiti could not fund more than one University, the same Government that scrapped the functional and existing University, that Government have money to build Governor’s house, so all those things.
 As far back as 2012, people have made up their mind to vote against the Government. Unfortunately, Fayemi and those people that are with him did not get the message. The PDP now picked Ayodele Fayose as their candidate.
Question: But the government appear to be filled with contradictions, even within its own party?
 Whether you  like it or not, Fayose’s name is a brand star. He was governor before and people saw what he did when he was governor. There is a gang up against him, it was that gang up that took him out of that power and people said since this man has left what has changed in terms of the transformation of the state? Nothing has changed. They felt more comfortable with him, they chose him. That’s all. The people voted for him unfortunately after that, we started hearing stories like people voted because of stomach infrastructure, because Fayose distributed rice as if Fayemi did not personally share jollof  rice at least I have photograph of Fayemi putting on apron and his wife sharing jollof rice as if Fayemi then did not share Somovita including Rega dry gin popularly known as “Tesojue.” One thing they don’t realize is that the people of Ekiti state if you study their mind very well, the moment they change their mind that they are not going to vote for you if you like use all the whole compound to buy cars and be distributing to them individually they will not vote for you, you shared a lot of money but people stood their ground and they also came back with photo-chromic paper but court turned down their petition, they tried impeachment they couldn’t impeach because people rose in defence of their government. So it wasn’t a kind of magic, it was a result of people’s decision to elect their own governor.

Question: Inspite of all these, you have a lot of challenges. What has been your major challenge?

Answer: On the challenge, personally we have to contend with persistent falsehood from my friends on the other side. There was a time they said I was in one hotel lamenting that governor Fayose has short-changed me that he promised to make me a commissioner and he did not make me a commissioner and whatever, that I have made up my mind to resign in the following week. They said that on a Sunday and you ask yourself why are these people shallow minded? Because there is a level at which even if you want to do what is called political propaganda, you must do it in such a way that people would want to believe. If I want to cook up lies now, that lie should be able to get me convinced to some extent.  If you don’t have feelings of conviction when putting something like this, then there is no point going ahead, like when someone called me that the house of assembly members then were coming to Ekiti state that they would be coming in the early morning and that arrangements have been made that they would be coming with helicopter and I asked the person how many people can one helicopter airlift, the kind of helicopter that could land at Ado-Ekiti? The highest is four. At least the house of assembly would need up to four or five helicopters to fly into Ekiti state at once, is that possible? This is not possible so, you wake up you have to contend with falsehood stories and all that. Now, we are used to it and the good thing is that people are also used to it because people have now realized that this people are liars.
Then you also have to agree that one is in a government headed by somebody who is so passionate at the pace at which he wants to move but is being hampered  by financial difficulties. Some of us who are close to him to some extent we’ve seen him saying how do I do this? How do I achieve this? Even when he wants to move so fast, the financial difficulties are there and the time is going, one, two months getting to a year by the time you know,  two years will be gone and people will begin to ask questions what has he been able to do? I get scared most of the time that the finances of the state should improve so that this governor that is so passionate about good things will be able to do things. Well, on the challenges and frustrations, we are hopeful to overcome them.

Question: How did the Governor survive the impeachment? Did he give money to the APC leaders

Answer: He survived the impeachment mainly for two reasons. One is that God is on his side, the second is that the people stood by him like a rock. I will tell you because I was deeply involved in it, I played very active roles in it up till today a lot of people who are not deeply involved in the whole scenario will still want to believe that it was just a rumor they couldn’t have done anything. Some of us who knew what was planned, what was on ground  what was to be done, here is somebody who has the feeling that he is going to be the acting Governor before Fayose was sworn in even before Fayemi left office when Fayemi was still the governor. Adewale Omirin then already had the believe that he was going to be the acting Governor. When Fayemi was in office, Omirin thought about Segun Oni’s case in the court, the thought then that Segun Oni’s was  going to win the case and the court would order for fresh election. That was what his spiritualist told him that he would be acting Governor, that the Supreme Court would remove Fayemi and order for fresh election.  But that did not work then the issue of whether he would be sworn in when they rose against Fayose, that also reinforced the prophecy that he was going to be acting Governor up to the morning of October 16, 2014. Omirin still believes that Fayose would not be sworn in. 
That was the reason he did not attend the swearing in as at that time he was the speaker and he was the speaker of the State House of Assembly before Fayose was sworn in.  Fayemi was no longer in the state so the only one person and the House arm of the Government is Dr Adewale Omirin.  As at that morning, they were still expecting order from a court in Lagos that would stop Fayose’s swearing in so by so doing the Chief Judge would just swear in Omirin as the Acting Governor.  That did not happen and the next thing was to try and see how to make  the government impossible. What did he do? The first sitting of the house he adjourn the house indefinitely.  The government that was just coming in to settle down. The next thing, the House of Assembly did was to adjourn when you know that Governor was going to appoint Special Advisers, Commissioners and so on and all this things would need the approval of the House of Assembly. We found a way round that. When they came with the issue of impeachment and we said, is okay, let’s see how they were going to be able to achieve it by themselves.
They moved out from the state and camped themselves in Osogbo and the people resolved that  they would not  allow them to return back to the state. There were some calls from people that I got so emotional because people were so passionate that they called me in the middle of the night. People would call from Ilejemeje, Moba, from everywhere when they saw strange vehicles coming into the state they called: “we’ve seen one bus, it’s tainted we don’t know the people inside may be they are the one that are coming.”
Question: Thugs blocked the roads preventing the lawmakers from entering Ekiti State.
So, Ekiti people were the one who asked people to block roads?. People blocked roads on their own. People volunteered on their own. Ever when they were in Osogbo, Ekiti people who were also in Osogbo were monitoring them on our behalf. People were taking pictures of where they were and sending to us.  What we saw was a revolution of the people against elite conspiracy, elite arrogance, elite vain ego. So that impeachment saga also reinforces my belief that power truly belongs to the people and that the power of the people is greater than the people in power.

Question: How do you deal with the economy of the state? The state has not defined any economic renaissance under your regime.
Answer: The first thing that we are doing is to prioritise our programme. What you need to spend money on  and the governor has simply made it clear that the first thing that must be done is to pay the salaries of the workers not for anything because payment of salary is germane to the circulation and in the flow of money and the governor has made it mandatory. There are some kind projects that the governor will not embark on. For instance, I was with him one day when someone called him that he wanted to come and interview him.  The person is publishing a magazine, he said he would publish a special edition for him. How would the people get to read it, the governor asked? He said they would print it and be giving out to people so if I meant to pay you to interview me and then publish something like booklet what is that for? Nothing. Why can’t the Governor  call his media together and do the interview and ask them to go and print the booklet? But this was what the previous government spent millions of naira on. Fayose is not doing that. No N.G.O (non-governmental organizations) is coming here to submit proposals. Nobody is going to listen to them, all these proposals, women empowerment, you want to do workshops and seminars, just to steal money, the governor is not doing that. Most importantly when the governor wants to approve one naira, the first thing is to call the Accountant General and ask how much do we have, okay, we still have like ten naira, okay I’m signing approval of one naira for this person, he will bring the approval to you unlike the governor who will be approving and approving so, he has prioritise what he wants to do and that has been able to cub wastage of government money In  Ekiti state.
As at today no money is going into private pockets easily I wouldn’t say  is still not going but is not going easily. For instance  when I got here they said they were using 1000 litres of diesel per day because we are running on generator because those people who were before us abandoned the spoiled transformer, making up to 30,000 liters per month but today we are using less than 20,000 liters in a month so about 1.7million naira has been removed from what we spend here alone so if you are able to look at what you need to do to privatize and cub wastage so there is no how there would not  be some level of improvement and the government is also trying to look into what is called I.G.R in this state. We have maintained that there is always a deceit on what we call I.G.R generated in Ekiti state. We’ve not been able to generate anything.  We don’t generate I.G.R.  All the claims by the former government that they increased I.G.R to 600million Naira, to 900million Naira per month is a lie and how is it a lie? When the state is getting like 2billion Naira, you pay salary from the salary you deduct tax “pay as you earn” may be after paying salary you still have about 300 to 400 million Naira left from that you pay money to the contractor.  From the money you pay to the contractors you take tax if you are paying 400million naira the tax will be like 12% or 13% tax which is about 52million naira. When you remove 52million naira from the 400million naira collected from the Federal government and you categorize it as your I.G.R you can’t add 52million naira to your I.G.R because it is still federal government money. So this is no I.G.R. but, some of the institutions in the state have been made to pay now even the Federal University Oye, Federal polytechnic Ado-Ekiti.

Question:What is your relationship with Ondo state Governor Dr Olusegun Mimiko because the governor opposed him as Chairman of PDP Governors’ forum?

Answer: The issue of governors forum is only the responsibility of the party as at today, governor Fayose and governor Mimiko relate cordially. There is no problem between them. Some of these things you talk about are always crisis here and there,  always on the front pages of the newspapers. I have heard from the other side that they have engineered newspaper publications indicating that even the governor and myself are quarreling.  They have engineered stories that the governor and the SSG are not in good terms.  All those things don’t bother us, so there is no quarrel between the both.

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D story long like "prison break" season one
Fayose is d greatest of all yoruba leaders, he's even greater dan awolowo of old

dis guy can write hollywood movie.. #funnynation comedian

The man that understands grassroot politics

Na sharp guyman....