The governor of Ekiti State, Dr. Kayode Fayemi has said the people of the state would resist any attempt to rig the forth coming governorship election.
Fayemi said this in an interview with journalists in Ado Ekiti, on Saturday. He was reacting to a statement credited to Vice- President Namadi Sambo.
Sambo was quoted as saying that for the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, the elections in Ekiti and Ondo States was akin to going "war."
Fayemi said at first, he thought the Vice-President was misquoted but that when he read the statement in more than five newspapers and that since neither the Vice-President nor his office has offered a rebuttal he is inclined to believing it.
While expressing disappointment that such a statement could emanate from the second citizen of the nation. This, he maintained tells a lot about the thinking of members of the ruling party.
He explained that it is on record that the people of Ekiti have a history of resisting vote rigging right from when they were part of old Ondo State. This, he said has not changed.
Fayemi said "This is Ekiti and people who are familiar with the history here would know that this is not a very good place to rig election. You can afford to manipulate elections in Anambra because Anambra has a lot of rich people who are even richer than the governor.
"My friend, Peter Obi used to say to me when he was still the governor that there are so many people with mobile police and security that they throw him off the street, even when he was still governor.
"So an election is not what Anambra people see as big deal; yes, they are interested but it is not for them any big deal.
"In Ekiti, you will discover that everybody is interested in what happens because we have 2.5million governors in this state. Every single indigene believed he has what it take – that he understands government and that he knows how to govern.
"So you can't say such a person does not have an opinion. And when you try to manipulate elections in a place like Ekiti, the result has not been palatable.
"Whether you refer to 1964 – 65; Ekiti was even more of a resistance zone than Ikenne and of course, when you talk of 1983, we all can remember what happened here.
"Even though our son was the person seen to have perpetrated the crisis; they still did not spare him and his supporters."
The governor noted that from his experience, the people of the state have demonstrated that they are too sensitive to allow external interference in their affairs.
He said unfortunately for the PDP which was in power for seven years in Ekiti, it has little, if anything, other than a season of violent upheavals to show for its time in office.
The people of the state he stressed were now accustomed to peace and would not be party to anything that will alter this.
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