Ekiti State Governor, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, on Wednesday, joined the presidental race under the the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC), to contest the 2023 election.
The Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), formally declared his intention, while addressing a news conference at the Transcop Hilton Hotel, Abuja.
The Governor said he is joining the presidency to restructure the Nigeria’s security challenge heading the military in the frontline against bandits and terrorists.
Fayemi promised to make the economy of Nigeria bouyant, revive agriculture, and build infrastructure as well as ensure good governance, while building on the unity, and national cohesion.
The governor also promised to take drastic measures to have a major rescue and investment programme for the educational sector, the health system, the civil service, and the local government system.
The Governor stated that with clear vision and necessary commitment, there is no noble project of national advancement that is beyond grasp.
According to him, there’s the need to secure the prosperity of the nation by ensuring that agricultural sector will be able to deliver self sufficiency in the critical food markets, absorb an important swathe of the unemployed into gainful employment, feed the efforts of the nation at agro allied industrialization.
He stressed that actions are to be taken to reinvigorate the rural areas, foster the coordinated expansion of commodity exchanges, and boost the flow of foreign exchange into the economy.
He promised to prioritise the sector for the multiple benefits it could bring to the agenda of national prosperity and transformation that the nation would be pursing with unrelenting vigour.
Fayemi assured that as part of his commitment, he will address the issues of streamlined and transparent access to agricultural finance, and the expansion and adoption of agricultural technology by farming populations which he said would rank high in the priority areas of his focus.
He said, “We must build on recent successes in restoring our national planning system and statistical capacity in order to open new, forward-looking approaches to development management.
“This will form an integral part of the new elan that we will be bringing to governance as a whole, driven by a philosophy of efficient service delivery, the enthronement of a civic culture, and the encouragement of an empowered citizenry to engage with public affairs understanding that it is the repository of power.
“Trying times such as we are traversing as a nation and which we are witnessing on a global scale can, if properly managed, be converted into transformatory moments that allow both for the achievement of a fundamental national reset and a major leap forward in our affairs.
“The words that fellow Nigerians from various walks of life have spoken in recent times assure me that as a people, guided by the right leadership coalition, we are determined not to allow tough times to lead us either to lose sight of some of the gains of the six decades of our independent statehood or drive us into the cesspool of a self-deprecating pessimism from which there are no exits.
“Instead, we share a strong desire to seize the moment and strive for a wholesome recalibration that enables us to build upward and higher in unity and unison. That is the Nigerian genius that the world has seen displayed intermittently – though without always sufficiently understanding.
“Combined with an uncommon spirit of fortitude, this genius has helped us to defy all doomsayers and naysayers to triumph over adversity, anomie, and discontent. It is one reason for hope; it is also partly why, like my fellow travellers, some of whom are here with us in this hall, I am proudly Nigerian and will always remain one.
“For it is out of unity and cohesion that we have always found the strength to transcend all barriers, defend our freedom and dignity, scale new heights, and provide leadership for Africa.” He stated.
Fayemi called on Nigerians to have faith in the country and the promise of its unfinished greatness that he stand before now, adding that with all sense of responsibility, he declared to run for presidency after his wise consultations with the party’s stakeholders and members.
“I embarked on these outreach visits neither with prior assumptions about what they would yield nor with any sense of personal entitlement.
“However, after a careful consideration of where we are as a nation and the many perspectives which are emerging about the challenges, old and new, which we must gird our loins to tackle and transcend, I am convinced that my entry into the race to bear the standard of the APC will offer our members and Nigerians the opportunity to examine competing visions for national rebirth in the best interest of our country.
“And it is on the foundation of a clear vision accompanied by a carefully thought out programme of action that I present my candidature. I do so fully convinced on the basis of what I have experienced, heard, and seen about the demands of the times and the aspirations of our people that the agenda that I am proposing for our country is one which will find favour with APC members and win resounding traction with the generality of Nigerians.
“Here then is my motivating testament and confession: I am a patriot born in these climes in the course of the first decade of the independence of our country, and I stake a bold claim to say that I am full-blooded child of Nigeria.” He disclosed.
“I offer myself as the leadership figure who is willing and primed to work with you, beloved compatriots, to launch and drive the hard work of surmounting difficult times, fostering trust, and building bridges with a view to carrying us in unity, equity, and justice into our new dawn of progress and prosperity.
“Hope such as I offer with my candidature is premised on a shared vision on which we can all agree, and for which we collectively strive, of a nation that is more confidently and uncompromisingly at one with itself, serving as home for all of us regardless of ethnicity, class, gender, age, disability, region or religion.
“It is a vision of a nation of multiple diversities in which each and every one of us can recognise ourselves in its fabric and workings as equal stakeholders and co-constructors, complete with all the rights, freedoms, and duties provided under the constitution for citizens.
“The ideal of Nigeria as home to all of us who are its children is one which we can all rally around as a starting point for the work of unfinished national greatness that must taken to its next phase.
“To give full effect to this, concrete programmes of action will be launched in priority areas that will allow for a revamping of the credibility of the Nigerian state, the promotion of an enhanced social contract, and the revamping of the national identity.
“Programmatically, as the standard bearer of the APC, I will be leading the implementation of a wholistic and integrated response to the multifaceted security crises confronting us.
“To this end, the retooling of our armed forces, intelligence agencies, and border guards will be pursued in tandem with an overhaul of our policing system and the phasing in of bold universal social policies that will enable us decisively to tackle poverty and upgrade human capital and security.
“In this perspective, the deliberate expansion of employment opportunities, youth entrepreneurship, skills development, and innovation, support to the weak and vulnerable such as we have done in Ekiti State for the elderly, and women’s socio-economic empowerment will be treated as just one dimension of our comprehensive response to the costly security crises that have destabilised us, as will the pursuit of broad welfare policies that are embedded into a new state-society bargain and the empowerment of citizens.
“The adoption of broad socio-economic measures that enhance our capacity to fight insecurity must be done at the same time as investments in reinforcing the deterrent capacity of the state through its armed forces, security agencies, and policing authorities.
“Authority and legitimacy and deterrence and rapid response go hand in hand, just as we must better interface economic policies with broad social objectives and goals of political inclusivity towards a well-defined outcome, namely, the sustained peace, stability, and progress of our country.
“And let there be no doubt: For the economy to serve broader social and political purposes that enhance human and state security, stem poverty, and promote national prosperity, my agenda for Nigeria encompasses attention to questions of productivity, diversification, domestic value addition, investments in and incentives for research, development, and innovation, and the expansion of domestic revenue mobilisation, among others.
“Considerable work is already ongoing on the upgrading and expansion of our infrastructure and one of my prime objectives would be to accelerate this both through public investments and partnerships with the private sector whilst simultaneously ensuring that we enforce accountability and get much greater value for money.” He disclosed.
