Ahead of the June 21, 2014 governorship election in Ekiti state, Governor Kayode Fayemi has expressed worry at rate at which external forces were meddling in the politics of the state.
He expressed optimism that June 21 governorship election would be free, fair and credible, if external forces could stop heating up the polity in the state.
He said: “The popular notion that Ekiti will be a test case to the 2015 election has been causing the crisis and that was why they were heating up the polity in Ekiti to attract the attentions of those external forces who are interested in the outcome of Ekiti election.”
Fayemi said the governorship election in the state was never the beginning of the 2015 Presidential election, as it was being portrayed in some quarters, adding that “the two elections are different from each other and should not be lumped as one.”
The governor stated this yesterday during an interview with media executives, who paid him a courtesy call in Ado Ekiti.
He said he became suspicious when the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) lumped up the date of the Ekiti and Osun elections with that of the Presidential election coming up in 2015.
“Ordinarily, what the electoral act stipulated was that, the time table should be announced four months to the date of election. So, immediately INEC took the step, some people now see Ekiti as a gateway to the South-west ahead of the Presidential election because the North seems to be a no-go-area.
“But I want to believe that the two elections are different and approach to them must be handled differently.”
He, however, said Ekiti would not tolerate any form of political fraud that could ignite crisis in the state as witnessed between 2007 and 2010.
“An average Ekiti man doesn’t want a flawed election. They don’t care about who wins or loses the election provided the election is free and fair. Ekiti is a different state because everybody is interested in who governs him unlike states where the people may decide not to raise eyebrow even when rigged.”
