Ekiti 2018: Olowoporoku joins governorship race, says PDP “strangulated” by Fayose

A former member of the Senate, Bode Olowoporoku, has indicated his interest to run in next year’s governorship election on the platform of the Mega Party of Nigeria, MPN.

While declaring his ambition in Ado-Ekiti on Monday, Mr. Olowoporoku said he chose the MPN platform because “the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has been strangulated by Governor Ayo Fayose while the All Progressives Congress (APC) is sailing on wide sea without any sense of direction.”

Mr. Olowoporoku had aspired to be governor of the state in 2014, but was disqualified by the PDP screening committee over allegations that he had no evidence to show he paid his tax.

Mr. Fayose got the party’s ticket and went ahead to win the governorship election after defeating incumbent Kayode Fayemi of the APC.

Mr. Olowoporoku however went historical, claiming that a “generational curse” on Ekiti State was the reason it had failed to develop 21 years after its creation.

The politician, who represented Ekiti South senatorial district between 2003 and 2007 as a PDP senator, alleged that there were attempts to erase the role he played in the creation of the state.

According to Mr. Olowoporoku, the Ekiti Parapo war hero, Fabunmi Okemesi placed a curse on Ekiti land because the people he fought to liberate from the Ibadan/Oyo oppression rewarded him with ingratitude when their Obas and leaders allegedly instigated the colonialists to incarcerate him in Ibadan.

“Ekiti has since been cursed into paying all their benefactors with ingratitude hence the state is in agony today and this generational curse has been responsible for the backwardness of Ekiti land,” he said.

“Myself and those who led the struggle for the creation of Ekiti State have been plotted against since immediately the state was created paving way for total invasion of the state by ‘strangers’ to become governors of Ekiti State.”

Mr. Olowoporoku said he decided to run for the office of governor “because of the suffering civil servants, teachers, farmers, market women, artisans and small scale commercial enterprise owners.”

“Senator Bode Olowoporoku had made his bit, but how to erase the generational curse on Ekiti children yet unborn is the issue,” he stated.

“This is why I have decided to make attempt once more to redeem Ekiti by becoming the next Governor of Ekiti State come 2018.

“So, I use this forum to declare to Ekiti people that I want to contest as the redeemer Governor to liberate Ekiti land from generational curses of ingratitude.”

The former senator argued that those who had a good grasp of the history of the creation of the state had urged him to run for governor.