The Special Adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on Political Matters, Sen. Babafemi Ojudu, tells SUNDAY ABORISADE that the removal of his billboards by the Ekiti State Government will not affect his governorship campaign
What are your plans for the people of Ekiti State, if you become the state governor?
There is so much poverty in Ekiti. Our people are hungry. The farmers are angry. The artisans are jobless and the civil servants are living from hand to mouth because they are owed several months’ salaries. The level of unemployment is massive. Our brilliant young men and women struggle to acquire higher education but they remain jobless despite the good grades on their certificates.
The first thing we are going to invest heavily in is agriculture. Ekiti is an agrarian society; so, our people should not go to bed hungry. We are going to embark on massive mechanised farming. We will not only put foods on the table, we will also provide jobs and boost the internally generated revenue by encouraging investors in the sector. They will process our raw agricultural products for both local and foreign manufacturing firms.
We will collaborate with the private sector to ensure that we have farm settlements in each of the local government areas of the state. We have fertile lands that do not require fertiliser to grow all types of consumable and cash crops. There is massive unemployment in Ekiti at the moment because there is no agro-based firm that can employ up to 30 people. We have both the human and natural resources that we can use to banish poverty from Ekiti. What we lack at the moment is visionary leadership which I am coming to provide.
Are you sure that the political environment in the state is conducive for the emergence of a governor from any of the opposition parties in the state?
We do not expect anybody to create a political atmosphere for the emergence of a visionary leadership that will liberate our people from the shackles of political louts for us. We will create it by ourselves. I am not alone in this. We have a mass movement known as the Ekiti Rebirth Organisation. We have a long list of prominent indigenes of Ekiti within and outside the country who share in our vision and have pledged to work together with us in order to make our dream a reality. They are channelling their energy, resources and time to the ERO project with the hope that their dream of a modern, peaceful Ekiti will be realised with our emergence as governor. We are not only determined to win, but to also make the state a model in Nigeria.
Your campaign organisation recently clashed with the state government over the issue of billboard erection in certain areas of the state capital. What actually happened?
We have been erecting billboards and posting bills in various places since we started our campaigns about three months ago. The practice is that when you erect a billboard, the signage agency will issue an invoice and give you the time to pay. On the eve of our campaign, we erected about 200 billboards and we approached the signage agency and obtained the invoice so that we could pay. Four days to the expiration of the date the agency gave us, the state government mobilised some policemen to remove our billboards from strategic areas. They are dazed because they have not seen anything like that in Ekiti State before.
So, what action are you taking to retrieve your property from the state government?
Governor (Ayo) Fayose and his aides know that we are too determined to be intimidated or harassed. We expect them to do the right thing by returning our billboards, but in any case, we have briefed our lawyers and all necessary legal actions are already being taken on the issue. We will definitely challenge the state government’s action in court.
You were accused of going abroad to inaugurate your campaigns with huge funds that could have been used to empower some of your people. What is your reaction to this?
I inaugurated my campaign successfully in Nigeria, precisely in Ekiti, and many people all over the state witnessed it. What I did abroad was to talk to the Ekiti people in the Diaspora to let them know that I cannot do it alone and that I need their support. Our people back home are poor. They depend on them to join hands with us to provide a kind of leadership that will deliver them from poverty and that will enable them to pay their children’s school fees and clear their medical bills.
It has been alleged that some of you are enjoying special support from the Presidency and might be anointed above other aspirants in the All Progressives Congress. What is your take on this?
I can assure you that there will not be anything like an anointed candidate and the party leadership will not adopt any aspirant and impose him on the others. The APC will organise a credible primary election and the best candidate will emerge. We are all united and determined to take over from the Peoples Democratic Party. There is no controversy or rancour among us. We have resolved to mobilise massive support for whoever emerges as our candidate.
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