By Gbenga Ariyibi
Ado Ekiti— GOVERNOR Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti State, yesterday, said he had no political godfather that could dictate how the state should be governed.
Fayemi spoke in Ado Ekiti while playing host to participants of Course 35 of the National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies, NIPSS, Kuru on a study tour of Ekiti State.
He said he had mentors, but that it was practically impossible for him to have the will of a godfather imposed on the people of the state, renowned for their high intelligence, saying that was why he had enjoyed the people’s support right from his election in 2007 till date.
He said: “I do not think we should denigrate mentorship. Mentorship in politics has been bastardised but we do not have any problem of godfatherism because it cannot succeed in this state. Everybody in Ekiti is a governor and has a sense of how government should work. Ekiti people are my godfathers because they send me short messages (sms) everyday on what they want done and that is exactly what I do because we run a participatory government.”
He argued that if he had got into office through some manipulations or godfatherism, it was unlikely that he would respect the wish of the ordinary citizens.
While stressing the need to demystify political offices to bring government closer to the people, the governor said the nation’s democracy was fragile because citizens had not been carried along in decision-making processes.
Earlier, the leader of the NIPPS course participants, Prof. Aja Akpuru-Aja, said the team was not in the state for fault-finding, but fact-findings so that the State Government could develop its own templates of development aimed at moving in the same direction with the federal government to achieve the vision 20:2020.
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