By Rotimi Ojomoyela
Some political appointees from Iyin Ekiti in Irepodun/Ifelodun local government area of Ekiti state have declared that their kinsman and Labour Party governorship candidate, Hon. Opeyemi Bamidele, was not qualified to be governor of Ekiti state.
The political appointees who are serving in Governor Kayode Fayemi’s administration, also described as “reckless and unfortunate,” the statement credited to Bamidele where he allegedly branded ex-Governor Niyi Adebayo a failure in the town, saying that the LP chieftain had proven that “he is an ingrate by this derogatory comment about his brother and benefactor.”
At a press conference in Ado Ekiti at the weekend, their spokesman and the Chairman, Ekiti State House of Assembly Service Commission, Chief George Ojo, said Bamidele has not impacted positively on the lives of his constituents in Ado/Irepodun Ifelodun Federal Constituency, since he became a member of House of Representatives in 2011.
Ojo said Adebayo, who hails from Iyin Ekiti like Bamidele, ruled the state between 1999 and 2003 on the platform of the Alliance for Democracy during which he employed no fewer than 300 graduates of the town into the state public service, saying that “Adebayo has never been a political liability to Iyin Ekiti as claimed by Bamidele.”
He said: “the progressive advice given by Adebayo to Bamidele to drop his governorship ambition for senate in the principle of fairness, did not in any way betray the collective interest of Iyin Ekiti people.”
Bamidele, who spoke through his Media Aide, Ahmed Salami, said: “Nobody is more qualified than me amongst all the contestants. I quite understand the fears of these people, they are only trying to protect their jobs, but they should not have done it in a much ridiculous and demeaning way because they spoke against the obvious facts on ground.”