Ado Ekiti- Former Senate Deputy Chief Whip between 1999 and 2003, Gbenga Aluko on Sunday accused Governor Ayo Fayose, Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party Governors’ forum of making surreptitious moves to join the All Progressives Congress(APC), having realized that the PDP can’t win the impending election.
But Fayose’s Chief Press Secretary, Idowu Adelusi, in a statement Sunday night, said to say ‘Mr. Ayodele Fayose is making moves to defect to APC, is false’and that Joining APC was like leaving Jesus Christ for Satan. It is like wanting to die by taking Gamalin 20 or planning to commit suicide by jumping down from sky scrapper.
Aluko, who declined further explanation on the moves being made by Fayose over this allegation, said: “In APC, there is no move that you make that a leader like me won’t know. Fayose knew that he can’t win the forthcoming election and we are following every one of his moves and attempt to join APC”.
Aluko added that Fayose had always been riding on the back of the presidency to win the election, saying the 2003 and 2014 elections that produced him as a governor were fraught with irregularities.
As against the rumour flying around that former Governor Kayode Fayemi is interested in the 2018 Governorship poll in Ekiti State, Aluko declared that the Minister still remains a strong backer of the zoning agitation in the state.
Aspirants from the south senatorial district are agitating for the zoning of the governorship ticket to the area, which has never produced the governor since 1999.
At a press conference in Ado Ekiti on Sunday, where he reviewed his visits to 11 local governments and 122 wards to canvass for votes ahead of the APC primaries, Aluko said Fayemi shared the view that it is the time for the south to produce the governor.
Fayemi has been rumoured to be eyeing the governorship seat he lost four years ago. “Fayemi himself is an advocate of zoning. At various fora, he has made it clear that he backs the agitation. He believes there is logic and sense in it that the south should also be given the ticket in the spirit of justice and fair play”.
On the widespread impression that he may have obtained the endorsement of the presidency, Aluko, former Southwest Campaign Director of Buhari/Okadigbo presidential campaign organization in 2003, said he has been campaigning vigorously around the state despite his closeness to President Muhammadu Buhari.
“If I am waiting for President Buhari to impose me, I won’t be working hard like this. The President doesn’t believe in imposition. But I will work hard to get the ticket after which I will go to him as my political father and soul mate to seek his endorsement”, he said.
Expressing confidence that the APC would triumph in the 2018 poll, Aluko said: “Fayose has always been riding on presidential power to win the election in Ekiti.
“In 2011, when the election was free and fair, he lost the senatorial election in the Central district to Senator Babafemi Ojudu of the APC. So, 2018 will prove him wrong that he is only overrating his popularity because he can’t win without the federal might”.
Aluko discountenanced the insinuation that there were divisions in his party, disclosing that “a large number of aspirants doesn’t amount to the division.
“The aspirants shall be sorted out by the delegates at the primary. Ondo APC started with 46 aspirants and 26 of them went into the primary and the party still went ahead and won. This confirmed that the large number is of no consequence provided that the process is free and transparent”, he said.
Fayose’s Chief Press Secretary, Idowu Adelusi in a statement Sunday night, said to say ‘Mr. Ayodele Fayose is making move to defect to APC, is false.’
The news going viral that Ekiti State Governor, Mr. Ayodele Fayose is making moves to defect to APC, is false. It is a figment of the imagination of the APC which manufactured the story.
Joining APC is like leaving Jesus Christ for Satan. It is like wanting to die by taking Gamalin 20 or planning to commit suicide by jumping down from sky scrapper.
Fayose will never join the APC, rather, he would welcome APC members to the PDP. When PDP was embroiled in a leadership crisis, Fayose did not leave the party. Is it now when PDP is positioning itself to win back power in 2019. Is it APC which merely exists only on pages of newspaper in Ekiti that Fayose will join? Fayose is too big for the APC to accommodate. Fayose is preoccupied with a plan to transmit power from PDP to PDP Ekiti in 2018.
