EKITI State governor, Ayodele Fayose, yesterday in Benin declared that Nigerians made a grave mistake by voting President Muhammadu Buhari into office saying that the president had reached a stage of diminishing return when he was voted into power.
He said that most of the people that voted President Buhari did not even know him or assess his capacity for the office, but were brainwashed to vote for a change that has now become a cause to Nigerians.
Governor Fayose also admitted that he was a controversial person because he did things other people dreaded to do.”I am controversial because I am doing things others are not doing because they lack the courage and are afraid. Controversy is necessary in a democratic setting , and we must be courageous enough and if you are not controversial, then you are afraid”
Speaking in Benin while delivering the convocation lecture of the Benson Idahosa University (BIU), the governor said the time for young Nigerians to pilot the affairs of the nation was now, adding that under his watch, nobody above the age of 50 would become a council chairman while the maximum age for a councillor would be 35. He said, “You can only give your best at your best. Our president is at diminishing return as at today. I should be quoted.
“We cannot all sleep and face one direction. Idahosa did not do these things when he was close to his grave; he did them at his prime when he had the energy to make a difference. “How do you give laptop or I-pad to a seventy-something year’s old man? How can we continue to struggle with our sons for positions meant for them?”
On the call for the restructuring of the country, Governor Fayose said past leaders have been paying lip service to the issue, saying that “ the restructuring should be in such a way that every nation that makes up this country must be respected for what they are”
Speaking on the menace of the Fulani herdsmen, he called on his colleagues to do the needful and educate their people on the activities of the herdsmen, saying that “the security of our people will depend on the capacity of our leaders to confront the issue”
The governor also demanded for a review of the revenue allocation formula in favour of the States insisting that a situation whereby the Federal Government pockets 52 per cent of the allocation was awkward because the challenges facing the country reside in the states.
He said, “How will the Federal Government take 52 per cent when the problems are in the states? The Federal Government must shed its weight and allow states do the work for them.
“Federal government must take 22 per cent and states take 52 per cent.
Governor Fayose praised the national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, saying “he is our leader in Yorubaland, forget politics and it does not matter he is in the APC.”
He revealed that the late Archbishop Benson Idahosa, got his father converted to a born-again Christian at a crusade in Ibadan, Oyo State, in 1980 and that his father later sowed the family’s only car to propagate evangelism.
He charged the management of BIU to sustain the vision of the late Archbishop Idahosa, saying the man of God could see far beyond his peers when he was alive.
Fayose said handlers of the education sector must live their words and put those concerned on the driver seat.
END
Be the first to comment