Otunba Niyi Adebayo, the first executive governor of Ekiti state on Monday described Ayodele Fayose as a “by accident” governor.
Adebayo said this while fielding questions from reporters at the National Secretariat of the All Progressives Congress in Abuja.
He was responding to questions about the level of the APC’s preparedness for the 2018 governorship elections in Ekiti State.
According to him, the APC is prepared to reclaim the state, all that is left is for it to hold its primaries and pick a candidate.
He dismissed claims that Ekiti State was a stronghold of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party.
Adebayo said, “Basically, I believe the present governor got there purely by accident and I believe people are more than ready to change the place.
“Pertinently, I am somebody from Ekiti and the key player in Ekiti, I can tell you categorically that we are more than ready. I am sure that you’ve all heard that we are ready for elections in Ekiti.
“I believe all we have to do is to go through the process of selecting our candidate and once we have our candidate, I don’t see us having any problems in the general election in Ekiti.”
Reacting, however, Fayose’s Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Idowu Adelusi, said the comment showed that Adebayo had yet to recover from his electoral defeat of 2003 and the APC’s loss of 2014.
He said, “How could someone who defeated the incumbent twice be an accidental governor? The comment shows that they (APC) have yet to recover from the shock of the defeat.
“They should wait and see but one thing is obvious: the performance of Governor Fayose in his first term has completely erased the reign of former governor Adebayo from the mind of the people. Governor Fayose has performed better than all of them combined.
“The performance of Governor Fayose has erased the APC from the mind of the people. Come July 2018, the Ekiti people would overwhelmingly vote for the PDP candidate because the party has been more beneficial to the Ekiti people than the APC.”
