The chieftain of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Sen. Ayo Arise, on Saturday, said that Governor Kayode Fayemi had lost his bid to be re-elected as the Governor of the state a year ago.
“It was only the APC people that did not see the handwriting on the wall. He had lost this election a year ago” he said while speaking as a guest on Sunrise on Channels Television.
Arise, who was holding forte for the candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Ayo Fayose, in Oye Local Government, added that “we don’t do governance by the newspapers or by propaganda.”
Sen Arise attributed the failure of Governor Kayode Fayemi to retain the trust of the people on a “policy that affected civil servants, that affected the teachers”, insisting that “those ones constitute the majority of opinion moulders in any election.”
He mentioned the Teachers’ Development Need Assessment as one of Governor Fayemi’s policy that affected his re-election bid, maintaining that the teachers “should have been trained to meet the standard” the Governor wanted for the teachers.
He commended the leadership of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for conducting a free, credible and fair election in the state.
However, in a swift reaction, a member of the House of Representatives, Mr Bimbo Daramola, debunked the alleged ill treatment of teachers by the Fayemi-led administration.
“No government in (the history of) Ekiti has been as nice and kind to teachers like Kayode Fayemi”, he said, challenging the former senator to prove him wrong.
Mr Daramola said that the Fayemi-led administration approved several welfare packages for teachers in the state, including the 20 percent teachers’ rural allowance to “incentivize teachers deployed to rural areas”, 20 percent core subjects allowance, teachers’ housing scheme, first-ever loan scheme for primary school teachers, distribution of laptops to teachers, 27.5 percent Teachers Salary Structure (TSS) and capacity building training, which has produced the best teacher in Nigeria consecutively in 2012 and 2013.
He went further to challenge the governor-elect, Ayo Fayose, to “a step by step analysis of what Kayode Fayemi has done in three years and see whether Fayemi lost that election on the basis of his policies”. He added that “no government can be perfect”.
Congressman, Daramola, however, alleged that Governor Fayemi lost the election based on an “extraneous factor” and accused security agents of selective arrests.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared the candidate of the PDP, Mr Ayodele Fayose as the winner of the June 21 governorship election in Ekiti State.
Mr Fayose, according to the electoral body, scored 203, 090 votes to beat the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr Kayode Fayemi, who scored 120, 433, while the candidate of the Labour Party, Bamidele Michael Opeyemi scored 18,135 votes to place third.
