By CLIFFORD NDUJIHE

Ado-Ekiti—EKITI State Governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi, has described as unfortunate, comments attributed to Vice President Namadi Sambo that the state is a war front.

Gov Fayemi

Sambo, who heads the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, campaign to the Ekiti and Osun states governorship elections, last week, said they were going to the war front to end electoral stealing and to recover the two states for the PDP.

Reacting to the vice president’s comment, weekend, Governor Fayemi said it was unfortunate. On the contrary, he said Ekiti State, which was almost like a place coming out of war when he took over three and a half years ago was now very peaceful.

The governor, who said he was not entertaining any fears about the PDP’s threat to reclaim the state, said the people of the state, whom he had empowered, would re-elect him to deepen the development in the state.

He also picked holes in the alleged roles of Minister of State, Defence, Mr. Musiliu Obanikoro in Ilaje-Ese Odo, Ondo State House Representatives by-election, saying in decent climes, Obanikoro would have lost his ministerial appointment.

His words: “Quite frankly, my immediate reaction when I saw the statement from the Vice President was disbelief until I eventually read it in about five newspapers and saw that the language was consistent and that the reports are not different in all the papers.

“I was not going to believe it because the Vice President is someone I relate with very well. He and I are on the board of Nigeria Integrated Power Project, NIPP. He chairs NIPP and I represent the South-West in the power project in the country. And through that we meet fairly regularly.

“The Vice President has every right to push for his party in any election. That is his legitimate right but to have said what the media reported him to have purportedly said was quite unfortunate because we are not at war in Ekiti.

“We have seen here three and a half years of peace – one of the most peaceful states in this country today.

“So for somebody who occupies one of the highest offices in the land as our Vice President, to reduce the importance of his office and promote insecurity – either directly or by subterfuge, and in this case it is pretty much directly and it wasn’t used figuratively, he used it in a matter of fact that he was going to a war front is very reminiscent of former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s do-or-die statement, which is really unbecoming of the person who occupies the number two office in the land. I hope he would deny saying that and it would be some form of reassurance.”

“I think it is the underlying text that should worry us. There has been a lot of sabre-rattling about this election.

“All of us also saw what happened at Ilaje – Ese Odo and the role played by a minister of government who does not even come from the state, has no responsibility in the state.

“The way he was said to have soiled his hands in the Ondo by-election is unbecoming. In any decent government Mr. Musiliu Obanikoro would have been asked to leave by now.”