Reasons given for Fayemi’s loss in 2014 untrue, wife reveals

Four and half years after the June 2014 Ekiti State governorship election, Governor Kayode Fayemi’s wife, Bisi, has said the reasons given for her husband’s loss in the election were untrue and far from reality.

The governor’s wife said: “In the aftermath of the June 2014 elections, a number of narratives emerged about the reasons Dr Fayemi lost, most of them tainted with half-truths, outright lies, and distortions. In every political contest, someone will win and some people will lose, and it is okay to try to identify reasons for political failure or glory”.

Mrs Fayemi, who spoke on Friday while delivering a lecture entitled: ‘Reclaiming our Lands, Restoring our Values: Beyond Slogan’ at a forum in Ado Ekiti, disagreed with the accusations that Fayemi was arrogant and disconnected from the people during his first term.

She said her husband had “four years of back-breaking work with projects that touched the lives of people in all communities in Ekiti, a commitment to excellence, transparency, professionalism, merit and accountability, with hardly any breaks,” wondering how such a person could be accused of being arrogant, disconnected and a political novice.

The governor’s wife, who dismissed insinuations that Fayemi had appointed expatriates into his government during the second term which began in October, said that rather, he had in the last two months appointed more of homegrown politicians.

She said, “The rumour peddlers have started again the way they did in our first term where a governor that did well to empower the people, make life abundant for Ekiti and worked hard to uplift our values was said to have lost election as a result of disconnect from the people, which was a lie.

“In any political contest, one will lose and the other will win. Was it the Secretary to the State government or the Chief of Staff or some of them that are present with me in this gathering that are expatriates? Who among the appointees?

“They have started this time and we are not going to tolerate them or allow them to spoil our government with their rumour. This time, we are ready for these rumour peddlers,” she said.

The First Lady said that the well-articulated policy thrust of Fayemi’s second term was anchored on social investments, infrastructure development, knowledge economy, agriculture and rural development, which she said would be prosecuted to add values to Ekiti and make life abundant for the poor.