Ekiti 2022: Don’t pick candidate outside South, Faparusi warns APC

The Ekiti State Commissioner for Infrastructure and Public Utilities, Bamidele Faparusi, has warned the All Progressives Congress (APC), not to pick any governorship candidate outside the Ekiti South Senatorial District for the 2022 election, saying that such could be costly for the party.

Bamidele, a former House of Representatives member, who maintained that there should be balance of power in the state, noted that the North and the Central senatorial districts have produced the Governor for 12 years each, but the south has not done it before. 

He said that it would amount to fatal error and disrespect to the South, for the party to ignore the zoning agitation by some party members who are calling the attention of APC to fact that the district has not produced the governor since 1999.

The Commissioner was responding to alleged claims within party circles that Governor Kayode Fayemi had endorsed the Secretary to the State Government, Mr. Biodun Oyebanji, who is from Ikogosi in Ekiti West Local government area in Ekiti Central Senatorial district, for the APC ticket.

Addressing journalists in Ado Ekiti, Bamidele said that it is incumbent on the political parties to pick candidate from the south, saying that electorate is already agitating. “An average voter on the street is saying that parties should pick candidate from the south.”

Bamidele said that it is in the interest of the parties, especially APC to endorse candidate from the south. “Our party stakeholders should look for a candidate that can win election from the south.”

He warned that politicians from the zone would resist attempt by anyone to subjugate the voices of Ekiti South citizens and render them irrelevant and inconsequential in the State’s political equation.

“Dispelling the rumour that someone had been endorsed, Bamidele said Governor Fayemi has not endorsed anyone. “I only heard it like a rumour, just like it has been flying around and I regarded such as a gutter and dustbin politics. 

“To me, those laying claim to that are playing gutter and dustbin politics. They are lightweight politicians like someone had earlier said. They want to curry the Governor’s favour and mislead our party leaders, that they have the support of the Governor. I am an insider in this government and one of the critical stakeholders. There was nowhere where it was discussed that a person should be endorsed and if the governor would do that, such person must be from the South.

“My agenda is that of Ekiti people. My agenda is that the APC must win agree and fair election and not struggling to win the coming election because of error of picking wrong candidate. 

“We don’t want to pick our candidate by error, we can’t afford to lose because Governor Fayemi has done a lot of work in the last three years to put Ekiti back on track.”