The self-acclaimed Governorship candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in Ondo State, Mr Jimoh Ibrahim, has advised his party rival, Eyitayo Jegede, SAN, to queue behind him in the governorship race since he (Ibrahim) had been in the party and declared ambition to contest as governor under the party long before the coming of Jegede. Eyitayo Jegede and Jimoh Ibrahim “Jegede is brand new in the system.
He’s new and let him take his time. It took me 2008 to the present date to join this political legitimacy. You cannot come just in one day and begin to think you can win election like that in Ondo State. Nobody can just come and enter like that. Take your time and queue behind.” Ibrahim gave the statement on Monday, in Akure the Ondo State capital, during a parley with journalists.
Ibrahim who declared that he would not embark on any aggressive campaign to win the forthcoming election, said he was not new in the politics of the state and would need little or no introduction to the electorate since he is walking on a familiar terrain. “This is not my first time of running for the governorship of the state. In 2003, I ran for the governorship of the state under ANPP. So politics is not new and I’m not like those people who are running for the first time. I need not to do all the work by moving to all the nooks and corners of Ondo State.” “I am not new to the people of Ondo State.
I had very impressive result at the last engagement when I ran for the governorship of this state. It’s my ambition to become the governor of this state and I’m back to realise that ambition,” he said.
Commenting on his rift with Governor Olusegun Mimiko as well as on the allegations that he has no political structure in the state, Ibrahim said, “Even a blind man knows that we are running for the governorship of the state. I don’t need to pay back Mimiko at this time and if I have anything against Mimiko, I can sue him at the end of his tenure and who tells you that the fight ends when he has finished from office? If I have any petition against him, I can write it after he leaves office.
” On his vision for the people of the state, Ibrahim said priority will be given to the prompt payment of workers’ salaries while workers would be exposed to training and retraining to ensure the state workers are the best in the country. “I need to take the state from the hopeless situation as now to a very hopeful situation.
I need to take away injustice; we cannot afford to have a senatorial district producing governors for 16 years at a go. That is completely injustice; That is hopeless and we will not allow that, and that will not happen in Ondo State.” “My priority is the payment of outstanding salaries of workforce because it is the workforce that can deliver the dividends of democracy or deliver efficiency and effectiveness. The public service is really my own major focus.
I want them to be trained and retrained and I want them to be first among equal in public service spectrum in Nigeria.” “I am not coming to close people’s businesses down; I’m going to encourage entrepreneurs to ensure efficiency and capability development, a strategy of innovation in the work force.”
VANGUARD
