By Oludamisi Ojo.
Ahead of June 18 governorship election in Ekiti State, Former Commissioner for Works in the state, Mrs Funmi Ogun, has rejected her nomination as the Peoples Democratic Party’s Deputy Governorship candidate.
This was contained in a letter dated February 24, 2022, and entitled ‘RE: My Nomination As Deputy Governorship candidate.
It was addressed to the PDP National Chairman, Dr Iyorchia Ayu, on Thursday.
The development ruffled PDP stakeholders because the commissioner is a close ally of former Governor Ayodele Fayose.
It would be recalled that closure of nomination will come up on Friday, February 25, in tandem with INEC’s guidelines.
She was the Commissioner for Works under Fayose between 2016 and 2017.
Ogun’s letter read: “This is to formally inform you that I am not unaware of my nomination by Ekiti Stakeholders for the position of the Deputy Governorship Candidate in the 18 June 2022 Gubernatorial Election.
“Notwithstanding their good intentions, I formally write to reject the nomination for personal reasons.
“However, I appreciate the uncommon recognition and assuring the Party that no effort will be spared at ensuring our victory at the election.
“The Candidate can therefore be approached for a fresh Nomination”.
Speaking on the telephone for clarification, the former Commissioner, admitted authoring the letter, but outrightly denied the widespread insinuation that certain disagreement with former governor Fayose prompted her action.
Ogun said the leadership of the party in Ekiti, had endorsed her as the Deputy Governorship candidate to the party’s candidate, Hon Bisi Kolawole and forwarded the same to Ayu-led National Working Committee, whom she allegedly refused to act appropriately.
She said “I want to confirm the authorship of the letter, but it wasn’t meant to slight anybody or confirms that I disagreed with our leader, former Governor Ayodele Fayose, who is presently abroad for a medical check-up.
“All the stakeholders in Ekiti politics had endorsed me and forwarded my name to our national leadership, but they didn’t act on it. So. I have decided to reject my nomination for me not to be on collision course with our national leaders.
“I have written this letter while awaiting the reaction of our leader, Ayo Fayose and the national leaders. But this doesn’t suggest any trouble in Ekiti PDP”.
Meanwhile, the party has accused the State Governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi, of wasting over N250 million public funds on the launching of his book in Abuja.
The PDP alleged that two aircraft were chartered to ferry over 200 people from Akure Airport to Abuja yesterday, asking what benefits the people of Ekiti will derive from the book.
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State Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Raphael Adeyanju, in a statement in Ado Ekiti on Thursday, said “it is funny that Governor Fayemi, who has envisioned nothing in Ekiti is wasting public funds to launch a book on envisioning a New Nigeria.
“What manner of a new Nigeria can an absentee governor like Fayemi, whose first four years plunged Ekiti into debt, with borrowed money used to execute projects on billboards envision for Nigeria?”
The party described the book launch as a declaration of Fayemi’s presidential ambition.
It stressed that Nigerians will have to ask him how secured he has made Ekiti think that he can rule Nigeria”
“In Ekiti here, travelling from one town to another has become a nightmare because of bandits and all roads are bad (Akure to Ekiti, no road). Nothing to point to as an achievement of his government. Yet, he is jumping up and down, wasting public funds on a presidential ambition that is bound to fail” The statement added.
