Senator Ayo Arise represents Ekiti North senatorial district on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) He left the Action Congress (AC) after he lost the primaries to Fayemi. In this interview with Samuel Olatunji, he says Fayemi is keeping Ekiti people is the prison of hope. Excerpts:

Is it true that the incoming of forensic experts have undone your victory at the election?
Nothing could be further from the truth. I was in the court when Andrain Forty took a stand and he was cross examined by lawyers. I was interviewed after then and I said it was a charade; there was nothing to write home about it, and it was a bloody waste of time listening to him. Because the procedure for what you call finger print evidence was not followed in the case of Ekiti. I was expecting that we will get a result of what we call AFPIS, which is an acronym for what we call, Automatic Finger Print Identification System, but what he brought to court was a visual comparison of a photocopy or scan of the ballot paper. Any technical person that works with computer or photocopy machine or scanner will know that a faulty drum can make a constituent line on every image at the same location.

Their major claim is that, there were similar patterns of lines in some of the fingerprint that they photocopy and took to the UK. Having said that, they came back to say that there were 31 000 votes out of over 270 000 votes counted. This comes to a margin of about 11%, that is if we are to consider anything they brought. That is if we are to say it is valid, whereas it is not valid. It’s very far away from what we can consider credible evidence. Even at that, if you have about less than 11% of the total ballot, does that constitute substantial ground for reversal? Even if we say add 31 000 to Fayemi’s votes does it override what Segun Oni has? I don’t see any reason why anybody should be joyous over a non-issue. It is still part of the orchestrated plan to misinform the people and keep them in perpetual ignorance and make them prisoners of hope.

That is exactly what Fayemi has been doing in Ekiti. He’s been holding AC people to ransom, keeping them as prisoners of hope and telling them he is going to win at tribunal when there is nothing on ground to support him. First he doesn’t have the popularity; he was only able to win in Ado Ekiti with 6000 votes and Ikere Ekiti with less than 1000 votes. Those are two of his major wins in the whole state. I believe he probably won in four local governments. Having heard the results of Ado on the day of the election, they went to town jubilating that they had won the election. On the strength of that he went to court that he had won. Where will the votes come from? Was he planning a judicial fraud? I don’t see how Fayemi could have won that election in Ekiti.

Are you saying it will take a judicial fraud for him to win?
When a person has been expressing optimism where none exist, and there are no facts to back it up. With the fact on ground, I do not see the reason for this celebration or misappropriation of facts. I can see that the facts on ground do not support all the noise in Ekiti. AC has no people, all the people in AC that count , left the party for Fayemi because of the fraud he perpetrated during the primary with the help of his sponsors. If he now believes in his heart that he is more than those of us who are from the other local governments, then how else a person can be described other than that he is living in a fool’s paradise. We left that party for him on purpose, to show him that this state does not belong to one individual. Ekiti state belonged to all of us. Once we left, the whole thing called AC crumbled. He lost the main election the day they declared him the winner of the rigged election. So going to the tribunal is frivolous. There is no basis to support it in logic and law.

He alleged that there was non-compliance with electoral law and that there was massive rigging.
I don’t know what he meant by rigging. They were the one that had made elaborate plans to rig, they imported thugs from far and near and we ensured that we effectively protected ourselves and our votes from being stolen by AC. As far as I was concerned, what I did in my local government was to ensure that those OPC guys were rendered impotent. Invariably, they don’t need to cry foul when we did not allow them partake in fraud. I don’t see any point.
What of his allegation that the governor is using state resources and that he has the power to transfer judges which could lead to some form of influence.
May be he’s now challenging Gov. Oni, he might want to take those powers away from him. But those are constitutional powers and Fayemi cannot say because he is challenging him in court he would deny him of his constitutional duties. If Fayemi wants the power to be transferring judges when he’s not the governor he would have to go and look for another state where that would happen. We will not allow that to happen in Ekiti.

There have been talks that Fayemi would win at the tribunal.
Fayemi is living in the world of illusion. Like I said, that election was won fairly and squarely in Ekiti. If we have the power to rig, we would have rigged him out in Ado, we would have rigged him out in Ikere and other places he won. If we had the power to rig we would not have allowed them to have 13 people in house of assembly where we too had 13. People voted their conscience.

I saw an earlier interview you granted Daily Sun, what do you mean by over your dead body would Fayemi become governor?
I’d put the caveat now; even then, I’ve received a number of calls concerning that caption. When I looked at it myself I did not like the way the whole thing came out. I’m not playing God; he is the one that directs the affairs of men. The statement did not reflect my kind of personality. I didn’t mean the way it came out. What I meant to say or what would have been most appropriate is that as long as I’m in politic and I’m in that same local government, Fayemi cannot defeat me in that local government and that is a fact, because the votes from my town alone overrides all the votes in the constituency. I don’t have problem with Fayemi as a person, it is only his politics that I completely disagree with. For him, he is beginning to get known. Gradually, may be in the future, his time would come.

So Fayemi’s time is not now.
No, certainly he is just wasting his time with this court case.

How long do you think it is going to take him to govern Ekiti?
Well, at least Segun Oni will spend his eight years and if Fayemi decamps to PDP may be he will stand a chance. Because, right now he has succeeded in ensuring that there is no party called AC anymore in Ekiti. His followers are handful. When you look at what is going on in Ekiti right now I don’t think people are interested in voting for anybody called Fayemi o! Not at this time.

Is it true Ekiti state has witnessed no development under Oni?
If you say there has been no development, it depends on who is talking. If you pass through Aramoko road, you’ll see the changes that are taking place there. If you are traveling to Ifaki and going to Ado Ekiti, you will discover a road that has been un-motor able almost forever is now being worked on. There are no less than 25 roads under construction as we are speaking in Ekiti today. Road tarring is not something you award today and it’s there today, it’ll have to pass through a lot of processes. The same Ekiti that we go to, one would remember when Fayose used to used generator to power the street light but Segun Oni has gotten experimental solar power street light in Ekiti.

Once, the testing gets completed these contractors would light the street with solar power. Again, almost all the primary school in Ekiti did not have toilet when Segun Oni got there. Immediately he got there, he awarded contract that toilets should be built. We are correcting things that have been wrong for years. If the entire governors did what Segun Oni has been doing since he got there, then, Ekiti state would have been better for it. And I know one thing; all the roads awarded in Ekiti in 2007 were awarded cheaper than any other governor that had governed in the last 10 years in Ekiti.

But the opposition says some of the works being done now were awarded under Olurin.
Should we then abandon it since Olurin did not leave money? Does that make sense? Most of the works federal government is talking about have been awarded several years ago. Instead of abandoning projects let’s finish them. We are still continuing the abandoned projects and we are paying for them. So if somebody sits down and starts talking to the press without getting his fact right, he is a propagandist.

What about water?
I know that in my own house in Oye Ekiti, I have seen street water there. Public water works there. I know it covered Ikole, Oye, Idose, and these things are being revamped gradually. They are changing the pipes that have been laid since 1959. So you cannot cover the whole of Ekiti with water overnight. He is changing the pipes gradually, so for somebody to say there is no water, the person is being mischievous. You only see what you genuinely want to see.

People say he is too slow in delivering?
I’ve said it is a question of somebody bringing out money and dashing it out, you can do it in one day. If it is a question of putting infrastructure on ground, it is going to take time, may be he took his time on few things but it is better to plan very well. Don’t forget he is an engineer. Everything requires planning.

Dr. Fayemi said the governor lacks vision. How true?
Like I told you, Fayemi is a young man whose claim to fame is NADECO. I don’t know of any other major job he has ever done in his life. For him to say somebody does not have vision, I don’t know what he is talking about. He majored in War Studies and we are not going to any war in Ekiti. He believes he can do better than others but it is part of wisdom to admit qualities in other people. If you see something that is good let us appreciate and admit it. He lacks vision and he is working on a very huge agro projects, he is working on bio-diesel factory in Ekiti. When you speak with the governor he will expatiate further. He has so much at stake for him not to perform.

This is somebody who has worked for an international company in Nigeria, Rank Xerox and from there they recognised that he can do very well, they sent him to Kenya to become the GM. He came back and went to ETF and from there he set up his private business. He made first class in Chemical Engineering from Ife; he went to Ajaokuta to work and later got an MBA. He made his own money to go to school. When you look at the profile of Segun Oni, he is not in the same league with Fayemi. Fayemi still needs to sit down and acquire solid 10 years working experience somewhere.

It is not about noise making or one NGO. We cannot see anything concrete to say he has used to better the lives of the people apart from NADECO sojourn days. In that case, he did not play more roles than the like of Babarinsa, and others. They waited and stayed in this country to make sure that they fought the war against Abacha. Some of them were outside and all of a sudden this is the profile they bring to Nigeria to say they want to govern people that have been working all their lives.

He should show us 10 solid years of track records of where he has worked. Yes, he has a Ph D in war studies and history so what? Does that now mean he has what it takes to govern Ekiti? You can say his pedigree is better than Fayose’s but not Segun Oni. For now, Ekiti needs re-engineering. Of what benefits is a person with PhD in war studies to Ekiti people? If he has his doctorate in Management we can say fine, but not in war studies. If he were to be the only person in Ekiti he could govern, but there are people with far superior qualifications. Segun Oni is one of them.