Honourable Tayo Ekundayo, Ekiti State Commissioner for Information and Civic Orientation, says APC has repositioned the state such that no group of individuals or political mercenaries would have it easy, as was the case in the past, to foist upon the state, through ballot rigging, an undesirable character as governor after the June 21 election.

It’s been said, in some quarters, that the 2014 Ekiti governorship election, scheduled for June, promises to be a close race between the incumbent, Governor Kayode Fayemi, and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, ex-Governor Ayo Fayose…
I do not know your source of information, but I believe, very strongly, that that information   cannot be correct, because what we have on ground in Ekiti State does not speak in that direction. What we have are people who are very appreciative.

We have a people, who have been able see and touch what Governor Fayemi has been able to do within a space of three-and-a-half-years. Beyond this, between Fayemi and Fayose, the difference is clear: You are talking about light and darkness, with Fayemi standing for light, and Fayose standing for darkness.

The impression in some quarters is that the APC is the ruling party in Ekiti but the party is not on ground?
We, in the All Progressive Congress, (APC), are very much on ground and we’ve been able to feel the pulse of all the people of Ekiti and the expectation is that Fayemi is going to score a landslide victory.

This is the clear picture on the ground, but we are not unmindful of the fact that the PDP has a notorious predilection for rigging election in Ekiti, like what happened in 2007, for which we had to go to court, in protest against what we perceived to be a case of undisguised injustice against Dr. Kayode Fayemi our flag-bearer, who actually won that election.

But, we do know,  that every well-meaning tax-payer and voter in Ekiti is a lot wiser: we’re not going to wait until the mandate is stolen again, such that we’ll have to go through the long, costly process of legal contest to regain power, as handed over to us by the good people of Ekiti state.

It will interest you to know that the seven-and-a-half years of the PDP in Ekiti  was, to the generality of the people, like years of the locusts. The average man or woman, voter or tax-payer, in Ekiti  does not want to relive that agonising, sorry experience.

That being the case, we, in the APC, strongly believe that with what we’ve been able to do and the rugged determination of the Ekiti people to root in against any evil design to impose a candidate on them, the election is for us to win.

In Ekiti state, what that presupposes, ever since the cadmean victory of Fayemi at the court, is that we don’t brook indiscipline, political rascality: see how Fayemi, remained philosophically calm, in the face of consuming injustice after the PDP had robbed him of his well-deserved victory at the polls. That is what we in Ekiti State, today, stand for: respect for the law.

The governor has been linked to violence in the course of the electioneering campaign. People say he is desperate to return to office.
Fayemi is a refined student of politics. He believes that you don’t, necessarily, have to be rascally to win a gubernatorial race – in the course of which costly blood would be shed, property would be destroyed, and, more than anything else, a climate of fear would be in the air in the affairs of Ekiti state.

No – repeat, no; that is not what the APC or the Fayemi administration would encourage. Today the APC administration, headed by Fayemi is all about tolerance, peace and sustainable human development. Fine, all that comes with a prudent and transparent use of tax-payers’ money.

And that, I think, should be the guiding principle or motto of a people-oriented, democratically-elected party or administration. Today, under the Fayemi administration, Ekiti State is a haven of profound peace, which, if you ask me, is a prerequisite in any political setting; it comes with orderliness and that, in itself, makes for orderly progress of human development – whichever way you look at it.

Does the Fayemi-led administration make opposition politics in Ekiti irrelevant?
As I said earlier, the 2014 governorship race, which comes up in June, is for the APC to win. I have little doubt about our party’s ability to win the election. But, still, there seems to be a certain jinx about politics in Ekiti state, for which some people, based on historical experience, tend to believe that no governor does a second term – as in Oyo state.

We’ve had a couple of military administrations, then, in 1999, there was Otunba Adeniyi Adebayo, who ran the compass of his four-year term, until the election of 2003, which was heavily and criminally rigged throughout the South-West, except in Lagos, that was able resist the temptation of wanting to be an extension or appendage of the Obasanjo administration at the centre.

But about three-and-a-half years into that, the PDP operatives realised that the Fayose administration, which, in any case, had been foisted upon the state, was not what Ekiti state deserved. And, so, Fayose was impeached.

In effect, he never completed the four years he was expected to be in office. His successor, Mr. Olusegun Oni, became governor through a heavily-rigged election; eventually, the court invalidated his victory. But, in retrospect, there have been some seven governors in Ekiti State. And,during those years that those past governors were in office, it was turbulent: one day, as it were, one trouble or crisis, until we, in the APC, came into office.

What is your general assessment of the Fayemi administration?
Fayemi is actually moving,  with a lot of confidence, to finish his four-year term. He’s on the homeward stretch already. Fayemi, as you and I know very well, has been able to show that with a tenacity of purpose and deep-seated commitment to developing Ekiti you can finish your first four-year term and – with some justification – request, somewhat humbly, for a second term.

Still, we, in the APC, are not unmindful that a good government, like the Fayemi administration, which has laboured so hard to serve Ekiti people, should have an opposition to keep it on its toes. There is, yes, a vibrant opposition in Ekiti, but if the Fayemi administration is doing the much it can do, you can’t wish it away: you do not throw away a first-rate team; a winning team is always allowed to continue. That is the situation report in Ekiti.