The All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship candidate for the July 14 election in Ekiti State, Dr Kayode Fayemi, has assured the party would win the election given its issue-based campaign.

Fayemi, a guest at a forum organised by Prince Adedayo Adeyeye Movement (PAAM), attended by members of the group across the 16 councils of the state, said “brain rather than brawn” would help dislodge Governor Ayodele Fayose’s anointed and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Prof Kolapo Olusola, noting that July 14 would be the end of Fayose’s “misrule.”

The event witnessed Adeyeye’s formal declaration for the APC with members of PAAM across the 2,195 polling units in the state.

Fayemi said: “We shall win the election with logistics. The election will be free, fair, credible, transparent and acceptable.”

According to him, Adeyeye, who he referred to as “my leader,” is not a stranger in the camp of the progressives, adding that his teaming up with APC would assist the party’s successful outing in the election.

Fayemi assured Adeyeye and his teeming supporters that they will receive the same treatment as genuine APC members, adding that rewards will be distributed according to assessed commitment.

The former governor equally assured he would not sack teachers as the opposition has been promoting against the APC, noting that there are ways and alternatives to assuring qualitative enhancement if teachers’ capacity, aside subjecting them to written test.

He maintained his party has lined up programmes for improved living for teachers, civil servants and the people of the state, decrying that all the welfare programmes of his administration had been cancelled and stopped by the PDP government in the state.

Fayemi, who recounted his ordeal over the shooting at last Friday’s APC rally, said he and others including Ondo State governor, Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, Adeyeye and Hon Opeyemi Bamidele would have been killed, but for God’s intervention.

“We thank God that we are alive. What do you think would have happened if Akeredolu, Adeyeye, Bamidele and I had died? It was possible for the bullets to have hit and killed all of us, but we thank God. We pray that God just prevented it.

“The unprecedented crowd we saw at Ikere Ekiti and how people were rushing out shows that Ekiti people are determined to fight a liberation war against Governor Fayose,” he said.

Adeyeye expressed regret that Fayose tricked him and others in 2014 into believing he was a changed person, only for him to get into office and reenact his familiar traits.

He, therefore, promised to deliver bulk votes for Fayemi in the election, saying: “The unprecedented winning of 2014 against Fayemi was made possible because of people like us. We knew Fayose’s tricks and his antics. That is why we are joining hands with like-minds like Fayemi to rescue Ekiti from him because he has pauperized everybody.”

He added: “We decided to join APC because the party nominated a good person like Dr. Fayemi as its candidate. Dr. Fayemi is highly educated and exposed, he is not crude like our brother and we are going to deliver our votes for him.

“Governor Fayose said teachers and civil servants will vote for him even if he owes eight-month salaries. He even claimed Fayemi is coming to sack teachers; these are all lies. That is his stock in trade. We gave him benefit of the doubt in 2014, thinking he would be a good person, but he turned out to be worse than before.

“As we speak today, Fayose is alone. He has no credible leader behind him. He is empty and naked and this coming election will expose his weakness. With the way he has carried himself, it is obvious that he came to loot Ekiti. But we thank God that we have a reliable opposition in Fayemi.

“This work is ours; we must do it with all our hearts. I know and I am confident that Fayemi won’t disappoint us because he has the love of Ekiti at heart. We are talking to those who are aggrieved in APC to have a rethink because working with Fayose would only make Ekiti worse. By all standards, you can’t compare Fayemi with Fayose.” (New Telegraph)

Update news