The governorship ambition of former Minister of Police Affairs Navy Capt. Caleb Olubolade (rtd) has been described as “a drunken dream taken too far.”
Ekiti State Governor Kayode Fayemi’s campaign organisation told the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) aspirant to wake up from his reverie and face the reality as regards the June 21 governorship election.
The organisation was reacting to Olubolade’s boast that he would defeat Fayemi at the poll.
In a statement by its spokesman, Mr. Dimeji Daniels, the organisation said: “It is unthinkable for someone who failed woefully as minister of Police Affairs to aspire to govern a progressive state as Ekiti. We all saw the rot at the Police College in Lagos and many more sad relics across the country that existed as police colleges under Olubolade’s charge as Police Affairs minister.
“It was right under Olubolade’s nose as Police Affairs minister that the most scandalous police pension scam was planned and executed. Is it not a funny and unrealistic dream for a man who cannot manage a ministry to want to govern a sophisticated state as Ekiti?
“When Olubolade says he is better equipped to be the governor of Ekiti, we must ask him, better equipped as what? Better equipped to replicate the rot that existed in police colleges under him in Ekiti or better equipped to replicate a fraud of the magnitude of the police pension scam in Ekiti?
“Ekiti people are happy with the achievements of the Fayemi administration and how the governor has taken the state from the cauldron of stagnancy, to which the PDP consigned it for the seven-and-a-half years that it ruled the state, to an enviable height of visible progress and development.”
After submitting his nomination form at the PDP Secretariat in Abuja on Wednesday, Olubolade said: “I will give the people of Ekiti joy and a new lease of life. Leadership is not by giving lectures; you have to identify with your people, do their wishes, carry them along and be transparent with their money.”
The Kayode Fayemi Campaign Organisation said: “Ekiti people have seen the kind of joy that Olubolade gives – the kind of joy that we saw in police colleges. That is the sorrowful joy that Olubolade wants to import here. Ekiti poeple will have nothing to do with that kind of joy since the Fayemi administration has given and continues to give them real joy through its people-centred projects.
“Olubolade cannot even win in Ipoti-Ekiti where he hails from because he has failed them. The Fayemi administration built the 5.3 kilometre Ipoti/Oke-Oro road and another 17 kilometre Ipoti/Ayetoro road. Ipoti High School and Ipoti Community Secondary School were renovated, while an upstairs was built at S.D.A Primary School. Boreholes were sunk to provide potable water for the people. One hundred and sixty-four elderly persons in Ipoti are benefiting from Social Security Scheme and 18 youths in Ipoti-Ekiti collect N10,000 monthly under the Ekiti State Volunteer Corps. The Fayemi administration is the first in the state to produce a compendium of its achievements in communities because the administration is confident that it has done well.”
Wondering why anyone would criticise a governor for delivering lectures, the organisation argued that people all over the world still draw inspiration from the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s speeches and lectures years after his death.
It said this did not stop the governor from touching the lives of his people positively as seen in his “achievements.”
The organisation said: “In fact, someone who is not in touch with the people cannot effectively espouse solutions to their problems as Fayemi continues to do. Fayemi has redefined governance by involving the masses in decision-making and budget-making. He goes round communities yearly to get their input into the budget for the coming year and to ask them what they want. This has consistently formed the fulcrum of budgets under the Fayemi administration.
“It is this all-inclusive approach to budget-making that is responsible for the tangible achievements Ekiti people can see and feel today. The PDP was not able to do this when it was in power because it lacks creativity and this is why it cannot appreciate brilliance and ingenuity.
“It is laughable for Olubolade to say he would domesticate the transformation agenda of the Jonathan Presidency in Ekiti. It simply means the domestication of the pension scam, Odua-gate, kerosine subsidy fraud, petroleum subsidy fraud, Oteh-gate and many more of the episodic corruption with which the Jonathan presidency is dogged. Ekiti people do not want to have anything to do with such transformation.
“We would have left Olubolade to his noise-making as he is a politician with no clout, but for the unsuspecting public outside Ekiti, who may think he is on ground here.”
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