The Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum and Governor of Ekiti State, Kayode Fayemi has called on the political elite to cultivate a habit of imbibing and internalizing democracy as a culture.
The governor was quoted as making the call while speaking at the National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies, NIPSS, Kuru’s2019 Lecture of Executive Course 41 in Plateau State.
A statement by the Head, Media and Publicity Affairs of the NGF, Abdulrazaque Bello-Barkindo, said Mr Fayemi warned that politicians would continue to incur the wrath of the people, if such culture was not put in place.
The Governor was a Guest Speaker at the National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies, NIPSS, Kuru, Jos Plateau State on Tuesday. The occasion was the 2019 Lecture of Executive Course 41.
Mr Fayemi said, “until our democratization process becomes an everyday culture, it would continue to be met with a dissonant disposition among the people generally.”
Mr Fayemi, who speak on ‘Twenty Years of Democracy: Looking backward, moving forward’, lamented that political elite democratized poverty instead of democratizing hope.
Mr Fayemi noted that there was a course to assess our democracy with some trepidation and anxiety, “because the journey has exerted sweat and blood from all Nigerians.”
He, therefore, said that a lot more needed to be done, moving forward, “because it is still an unfished job”.
On what he intends to leave behind as his legacy after his term as the NGF chairman, Mr Fayemi mentioned the rebranding of governors’ image before the Nigerian population as well as improving school enrolment nationwide.
Speaking on security, the governor explained that it was not just the elite that should carry the can for insecurity in the country, but all Nigerians.
According to him, “culpability comes from both sides.”
