2023: Fayemi Declares for President, Vows to Retool Military, Address Poverty
By Kabir Akintayo
Governor Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti State has formally declared his intention to contest for president in 2023 on the platform of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
Fayemi made the declaration on Wednesday at the Transcorp Hilton, Abuja, in the presence of his wife, Erelu Bisi Fayemi, including a former Governor of Ogun State, Ibikunle Amosun; former Senate President, Ameh Ebute; former Ekiti State Deputy Governor, Prof. Modupe Adelabu; and many traditional rulers.
While promising to re-shape the Armed Forces and security agencies in the country, the Governor said he will personally supervise the security architecture of the country, by equipping, leading and changing the tactics of the Nation’s security.
Fayemi pledged to address the poverty syndrome by applying the method of Ekiti where the state pays ‘Owo Arugbo’ and ‘Owo Ounje’, which means elder’s money and food money.
He also promised to bring the Government closer to the people by decentralisation, saying that Nigeria, regardless of tribe and ethnicity, will live as one entity.
“Programmatically, as the standard bearer of the All Progressives Congress (APC), I will be leading the implementation of a holistic and integrated response to the multifaceted security crises confronting us.
“To this end, the retooling of our armed forces, intelligence agencies, and border guards will be pursued in tandem with an overhaul of our policing system and the phasing in of bold universal social policies that will enable us decisively tackle poverty and upgrade human capital and security.
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“In this perspective, the deliberate expansion of employment opportunities, youth entrepreneurship, skills development, and innovation, support to the weak and vulnerable such as we have done in Ekiti State for the elderly with Owo arugbo and Ounje arugbo and women’s socio-economic empowerment will be treated as just one dimension of our comprehensive response to the costly security crises that have destabilised us, as will the pursuit of broad welfare policies that are embedded into a new state-society bargain and the empowerment of citizens.
“Considerable work is already ongoing on the upgrading and expansion of our infrastructure and one of my prime objectives would be to accelerate this both through public investments and partnerships with the private sector whilst simultaneously ensuring that we enforce accountability and get much greater value for money.
“I fully understand that we cannot secure our prosperity without ensuring that our agricultural sector is able to deliver self-sufficiency in critical food markets, feed our efforts at agro-allied industrialisation and thus meaningfully enable the transformation of the unemployed into gainful employment, reinvigorate the rural areas, foster the coordinated expansion of commodity exchanges, and boost the flow of foreign exchange into the economy.
“We will prioritise the sector for the multiple benefits it can bring to the agenda of national prosperity and transformation that we will be pursing with unrelenting vigour. As part of this commitment, issues of streamlined and transparent access to agricultural finance, and the expanded adoption of agricultural technology by farming populations will rank high in the priority areas for focus,” he said.
