Prominent sons and daughters of Ikere-Ekiti in Ekiti State, including a legal luminary, Chief Wole Olanipekun, Monday evening said that they are satisfied with either the deputy governor, Prof. Kolapo Olusola or a medical practitioner and businessman, Dr. Wole Oluyede, elected as the next governor of the state in July governorship election.
Olusola is of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) while Oluyede is eyeing the post on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Their recommendation followed the screening conducted for four APC aspirants: Oluyede, Chief Sesan Fatoba, Hon. Funminiyi Afuye and Mr. Kola Alabi on February 10 and 11 under the aegis of the Ikere Development Forum (IDF), led by Olanipekun, a former President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA).
The group said the decision was aimed at boosting the town’s chances of producing the next governor for the state.
Governor Ayo Fayose had earlier adopted Olusola, an Ikere indigene, as his preferred PDP candidate.
IDF was working towards having the two major parties fielding Ikere indigenes as their flag bearers for the July 14 poll.
It was gathered that at the February 10 session, Olusola and the five APC aspirants were given few minutes each to address the gathering on their suitability.
It was unanimously agreed that Ikere aspirants should shelve personal interests and ensure that only one of them goes into the primary election on the platform of each political party.
All the four aspirants, it was further gathered, met with the IDF leadership on the following day for over five hours during which they were given forty five minutes each, to agree among themselves who should be the party’s consensus candidate from the town.
The aspirants gave the IDF the privilege to choose one of them after which the group went into another private session where it was unanimously agreed that Oluyede is the preferred APC candidate.
Oluyede told correspondents that he was humbled to have been chosen among the five aspirants as the community’s preferred candidate for the APC ticket.
Oluyede said: “All the five of us were eminently qualified to be Governor. Ikere has illustrious sons and daughters. I do not see my emergence as a victory; it’s not a victory that I am better than anyone of them.
“I see the process as an effort to focus on one person and they are sending me on an errand. The process was one of the most honest, open and fair process.
“We left that place; we couldn’t take a group photograph because nobody was happy, I was not happy because I felt for my fellow brothers.
However, another APC aspirant from the town, Mr. Muyiwa Olumilua, distanced himself from the IDF position, maintaining that his ambition was still alive.
Olumilua, who expressed his mind on the telephone, said his fate would be decided by delegates at the APC governorship primary and not by IDF.
“I don’t agree with the decision of IDF because it was a choice among them. The IDF decision has no bearing on the choice of APC because IDF is a socio-cultural organization.”
