Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Kayode Fayemi, on Saturday vowed to jail Ekiti State Governor Ayodele Fayose, if re-elected.
Mr Fayemi, who spoke during the declaration of intent to contest for Ekiti State governorship, stated that Mr Fayose would be made to account for the gross mismanagement of the state’s resources and allocation in the last four years.
Mr Fayemi, who was governor between October 2010 and October 2014, shocked the crowd by bringing out a red card from his pocket which he symbolically showed to Mr Fayose and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
He said the red card is an answer to the White Paper issued against him by the Fayose-regime which indicted him of financial impropriety and banned him from holding public office for ten years.
Traffic was grounded for about four hours in Ado-Ekiti, the state capital, where a massive crow turned out to hear Fayemi speak on his readiness to win Ekiti for APC in the July 14 governorship poll.
Mr Fayemi said the state has retrogressed sharply in the last four years he left office saying his bid to run again was motivated by the need to “rescue Ekiti people from bad governance, want, hunger and poverty.”
He lamented the suffering of teachers, state civil servants, local government workers, and pensioners who are being owed backlog of arrears of salaries, allowances and benefits.
According to him, Mr Fayose owes core civil servants six months, local government workers ten months, community health workers ten months; pensioners, ten months; teachers, ten months and students, bursaries of over three years.
Mr Fayemi said the governor had no excuse not to pay workers’ salaries and pensioners’ benefits having collected two tranches of bailout funds, two tranches of Paris Club refund cash and Budget Support Funds for thirteen months.
He also disclosed that latest records from the Debt Management Office, DMO, showed Mr Fayose has borrowed N56 billion since coming to power in October 2014 with nothing appreciable to show for it.
The former governor was joined by his wife, Bisi; former deputy governor, Modupe Adelabu; Nigeria’s Ambassador to Hungary, Eniola Ajayi and other officials who served in his administration to the APC secretariat where he officially informed party leaders of his intent to run.
After declaring at the secretariat, Mr Fayemi and his train moved to the nearby Jonathan African Church Ajilosun, Ado-Ekiti where he addressed another crowd waiting for him on his agenda for the state.
