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The governor of Ekiti State, Dr Kayode Fayemi, on Wednesday in Abuja, formally declared interest to contest the 2023 presidential election under the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Fayemi, by his declaration, has joined the growing list of aspirants for the ticket of the ruling party, joining others like party’s National Leader, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Vice President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo, Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi, former Ogun State governor, Senator Ibikunle Amosun, among others.
Making the declaration at the Trancorp Hilton Abuja, the governor claimed that having paid the price, he is the best man for the job, assuring that he is on mission to take the country to greater heights.
“I offer myself to serve you as president. I will build bridges to unite Nigerians and take us to greater heights. I am a fully blooded Nigerian,” he said.
The chairman Nigeria Governors Forum further revealed that his focus, if elected, will be to scale up productivity, diversify the economy, and expand revenue mobilisation.
“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. By the same token, a major rescue and investment programme for the educational sector, the health system, the civil service, and the local government system will be launched in order to re-orient each of them for the task of overall national development, progress and prosperity. Each of these domains can benefit much more from a deliberate and systematic deployment of digital technologies as appropriate to their context; the opportunities will be followed through as an integral part of our programme of rebirth.
“I fully understand that we cannot secure our prosperity without ensuring that our agricultural sector is able to deliver selfsufficiency in critical food markets, absorb an important swathe of the unemployed into gainful employment, feed our efforts at agroallied industrialisation, reinvigorate the rural areas, foster the coordinated expansion of commodity exchanges, and boost the flow of foreign exchange into the economy. We will prioritise the sector for the multiple benefits it can bring to the agenda of national prosperity and transformation that we will be pursing with unrelenting vigour. As part of this commitment, issues of streamlined and transparent access to agricultural finance, and the expanded adoption of agricultural technology by farming populations will rank high in the priority areas for focus.
“No vision of national prosperity however impeccable or programme of national transformation however comprehensive can deliver the outcomes desired without attention to the planning system of government writ large. 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. As part of this commitment, a wholistic approach to decentralisation will be embraced and institutionalised so that government and its services are brought closer to the people. Our programme of decentralisation will also feed into the goals of a stronger, more united, and stable Nigeria. These are outcomes which are not only good for our domestic prospects but which will also benefit West Africa, the rest of the African continent, and a troubled international multilateral system.”