Politicians are attention seekers –Fayemi

The Governor of Ekiti State, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, spoke to journalists about threats to the security of the state, the 2014 governorship election in the state and sundry other issues. JOHN ALECHENU was there. Excerpts:

We are less than a year to the 2014 election. Will governance not suffer as is often the case at such times?

Government is not just about the governor and I think that is something we have to get away from. We still have an authoritarian mindset in Nigeria because of our military past. I’m one governor who is on the road a lot and governance does not suffer when I’m not in Ado – Ekiti. So, the fact that I’m on the road should not mean government is suffering. I’m spending the entire November, for example, as I normally do every year, touring the communities because we do that in preparation for the budget. So I’m spending 30 days in November going round about 150 communities in Ekiti. So, does that mean government will suffer because I’m not sitting in this office (Governor’s office)? That is governance for me. That is what government is! When I’m with the people I’m governing.

Then you are also campaigning?

I’m not campaigning. I’m preparing for 2014 budget. But you know this is not the first time I’m doing this. I do it every November. So, you cannot associate it with campaign. I’m not campaigning.

Apart from the endorsements you have been receiving, tell us, will you contest?

Yes, I will.

You have said that Ekiti State ranks 35th on the revenue allocation ladder, but there are allegations about the bond obtained by your administration. What have you done with the money realised from this?

I don’t think the issue is about my critics not seeing what we have done the way you are seeing it. As a matter of fact, I think they are seeing it. And it has become a political hot potato for them. Their challenge is: What are we going to use to campaign against this man? Since there is nothing to use to campaign against him, and since we are politicians, there must be something. Yes, we may not have anything to take to EFCC or ICPC about him, but we must find something against him. And the best they could find is the bond.

Yes, we went to the bond market. It was public information. We took N20bn bond in December 2011 – meaning about 18 months ago and the projects that we said we were going to use the bond for are specific.  They were identified. If you look at the bond book, they are listed there. The 10 projects were listed. You can just google Nigerian Stock Exchange website or the Security and Exchange Commission; you can access the information there. We took N20bn, we were going to build roads, we were going to revive our moribund brick factory in Ire;  we were going to re-develop Ikogosi; we are going to build a government house; you can see it on the top as you drive around Ekiti and you will see what we are doing there. There is not a single project that we took bond for that is not being implemented. So the issue is not that we took bond, the issue is whether we have worked with the bond. Lagos State that makes N20bn from internally generated revenue every month has bond of about N250bn. These are facts that you can check. Akwa – Ibom, Rivers have N300bn bond. And why do you want to go for bond? Simple- it is better structured. It has a lower interest rate of about 14.5 per cent as against straight loan where you pay as much as 22.5 per cent interest. So, bond works out better for us over a long period. Otherwise how are we going to carry out any development in this part? Yes, we have increased the IGR in Ekiti from about N109m to N600m but that is just a scratch. Or is it the N3bn from Abuja that is going to give us all these things that you have said we have done? So, when the election comes, we would have that debate about bond and anybody who wants to come with a superior argument would also table it. And what is our track record? The last government that ever did anything in this state that you can refer to as concrete  legacy was the Adebayo government. Adebayo’s government took a N4bn bond in 2002; Ekiti House in Abuja that was built in 2002 for N700m; we have just done revaluation, and the Ekiti House is now worth N4.7bn. So these are trade-offs. It’s even wiser to take these bonds to develop, because Ekiti people are not going to say to me that because money does not come from Abuja, I would not work. It is an excuse for inaction. They are not interested in that. Didn’t I know that the money was limited before I became governor? When I was running, hadn’t I thought through how I was going to get money? We took N20bn in December 2011 and as of today, as I speak to you, we have paid N9bn out of that because it is deducted automatically from our FAC account. The second issue for me, which I think ought to interest our colleagues, is: are there obligations that this state had that are not being met because we have taken bond? Do we owe salaries? Things that were not done when we didn’t take bond under Fayose and Oni administrations, we are doing now- social security, housing loan, car loan – these were things that were not there before and we have increased salaries. When I became the governor, the salary in this state was N7, 500 minimum wage, we raised it to N13,500 and now N19,300 and we have not had a corresponding increase in the FAC allocation to Ekiti. These are calculations that can be easily done but for mischief-makers they would just sell all sorts of silly things about us. Yes, we know he is working but he borrowed money.

Are you not worried that Hon. Opeyemi Bamidele who is a member of your party is coming to challenge you in the coming election?

As far as I am aware, APC does not even have members yet in Ekiti State. APC membership registration has not taken place. It is taking place in November. So, we would know if Opeyemi Bamidele is a member of APC in November. So I don’t want you to jump to that conclusion.

How close are you to Opeyemi Bamidele and is there any betrayal along the line, because he appears to be aggrieved?

To the best of my knowledge, he is my brother and he is representing this organisation, but what you should know is that in politics you don’t even need permission to have ambition.

The state used to be relatively peaceful, but in recent times, we are beginning to experience political violence?

You know we politicians are attention seekers by the nature of the business we are in and that is part of the problems. If you are a politician and you want to impress your political leaders or masters in Abuja, you want to give them the impression that you are the one in charge and you go to Abuja and the people say to you: but there is nothing happening, the place is peaceful there is no problem in Ekiti, how do you think you are going to challenge this man if the place is this quiet? Then, you will begin to look for opportunities to create crisis or to foment trouble and I think that is what we have noticed in the last couple of months here. But I am determined to ensure that we have a peaceful state even if it means bending over backwards to bring in all of the people to agree to a code of conduct – a code of ethics that binds us. Maybe we would call all our elders in Ekiti so that it will not be seen to be partisan or that the governor is dictating his position to them. But I would like to think that the majority of our politicians are interested in peace. You know this was a state of one week one trouble. How else do you want to explain a state that had six governors in seven years? How do you explain that? We have had too many problems here. That already tells you the instability we had. When we had the pension law for ex-governors, it was only two people that qualified; Niyi Adebayo and Paul Alabi, because they were the only people- governor and deputy governor – that completed their tenure of office.

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