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Why he wants to contest

Ekiti is a place
that I know very well. I grew up there, I know the challenges that
people face day in, day out, and things are not the way they should be.
I believe we have all it takes to be a developed state. We have the
resources that God has endowed us with. Our land is very good for
agriculture. I think that is one of the things our forbearers like
Obafemi Awolowo worked on. He was able to do a lot. We want to put all
these resources together to liberate us from the bondage of poverty
that is already depressing our lives.

His line-up of programmes

If you travel from
round most of the towns in Ekiti State, apart from the state capital,
there is not much economic activity going on. I know we have the
capacity to feed Nigeria and that means many people would be gainfully
employed. The government focus would be to provide the environment for
it, either in agricultural input, and also to provide infrastructures
that are needed to make these work, good roads and hospitals that are
really functional.

It is not a strange
thing if we are saying what we had as industry, which is education, has
crumbled. We want to revive it. We are getting back to the basics.
Ekiti was different from others, so we are getting back to the basics
to build our land. If I come in as governor, we would give opportunity
to people to excel. There would be a lot of programmes to re-orientate
the youth on how they can channel their energy into productive use.

His ability to confront the incumbent state executive

It is a beautiful
thing that the reform that is being carried out in the party is
providing a level playing field for everybody. The party chairman has
said it several times over that the issue of special delegates would be
looked into so that it would create the same opportunity for everybody.
So, we are praying that such reform would be carried through to the end
so that each would almost be at the same level, selling our ideas to
the people. Ekiti people are intelligent. They know what they want.
Once they listen to ideas, they would be able to identify which one can
work, which suits their purpose, which one can really deliver. We have
seen things that are not working and we cannot just continue to fold
our hands and continue the same way, thinking that things would change.
I’m happy that there is an opportunity that there is an opportunity for
all of us to sell our ideas to the people and the people would decide.

Revenue generation challenges

If we are used to a
way of life and it is not giving us a desired result, it is time we
start thinking of other ways and I believe that just relying on
something that comes from the centre would not be strong enough to
deliver us economically. Ekiti State is regarded as a civil service
state. There are so many in the civil service that are not supposed to
be there. Their passion and talent is probably elsewhere. People are
just managing where they are and, of course, the best would not
necessarily come from them. I’m sure a lot of people would be
encouraged to resign voluntarily from that civil service to come and do
something that is more profitable to them and they would pay their
taxes and we would all be better off. We are going to have some
agencies, and their goals are to generate funds for us and they would
be given targets of which at the end of the day what comes from Abuja
would look like peanuts compared to what we are making here.

Challenges of getting people to pay taxes

Let me bring up two
that I am familiar with. There is no rich man in the world that is not
involved in the stock market. There is no financial institution in the
world, especially the big banks, that does not have a platform for
Forex and people are making huge money from it every day and these are
markets everybody can access. So, if we have an agency that we task:
grow this money to this point, it is money that every individual can
access. We employ people that can do the trading for us. If you hear
banks are declaring so much profit, most of it come from this trading.
If we have such a platform too, or we have an agency that can do that
on our behalf, I see no reason why we can’t be grossing or netting N35
billion per month.

Lack of power and his plan to transform the state

Let’s take the
present situation as a thing that would not prevail for much longer,
because we are hoping that the power problem would be tackled. There
are so many inventions in power supply, small and medium scale, that
can power little communities. I believe that by the time we have 10
communities coming together, acquiring power generation, gradually the
whole state would be covered. We want a situation whereby people would
say in Ekiti, no power interruption and before you know it, people are
relocating to Ekiti. In fact, when people think of a place to relocate
to, they would think of Ekiti and it would become a destination choice.

Reviving moribund industries in the state

Government has no
business in business. What we can do is to encourage people and of
course we would do that. I did not know the importance of burnt bricks
until I travelled outside the country. Most of the houses you see in
Europe are made with burnt bricks. Whatever inputs we can put in, and
with proper monitoring, many of those industries would come up, not
just Ire and Ikun but many of them in different parts of the state. All
these businesses, we want to ensure that we put them in the hands of
the right people, if we have to sell them through bids and of course
see how we can come in to support. Once those companies are coming up,
people are employed and everything is on.

His background

I gained admission
to Ife in 1989, where I bagged a first degree in Mathematics, and after
my service year, I went for further studies in Mathematics at the
University of Ibadan. After that, I went for another Masters in Agric
Econs before I started working in the banks. I worked in two banks. The
first was the defunct Allstates Trust Bank, then later Intercontinental
Bank before I now decided to be on my own. Presently, I’m into a little
bit of farming, property and also into electronic Forex trading.