The General Secretary of pan-Yoruba socio-cultural organisation, Afenifere, Sola Ebiseni, has declared his intention to contest this year’s governorship election on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Ondo State.
Ebiseni recently returned to the PDP after working for the Labour Party in last year’s general elections.
Speaking to journalists in Akure on today, Ebiseni said he remained the most experienced politician to lead the sunshine state, having served as a local government chairman and commissioner.
Ebiseni said this year’s governorship election would be a defining moment for the state.
He noted that that the trajectory of governance from the Ajasin era showed the state had been governed by governors who were intellectually suave, grounded in their chosen carriers, thoroughly bred and groomed in the ideology of the Awolowo school of thought.
The Afenifere scribe said development of the state required someone who was fully acquainted with the territory and the people.
He said: “Such knowledge affords the new manager the opportunity of the location of resources, creates wealth therefrom and fairly allocate same without undue concentration in one or few places.
“From serving as an elected Local Government Chairman to being Commissioner three times in the strategic Ministry of Environment and Mineral Resources, we have a comparative advantage in the knowledge of the state and the geo-political distribution of its natural resources. These include oil and gas, forestry resources, economic crops, solid minerals etc.
“Diversification of the economy of the state from over-reliance on the federation account is the only means of getting out of the woods and must be prioritised. There is a creative way of developing our resources within the provisions of the Constitution.
“Certain social services which set our state apart ideologically and which have been discontinued or totally abandoned must be resuscitated in terms of quality and affordable education and health services including the Mother and Child hospitals which will be fairly extended in the zones and many of such welfare programmes. It is a cheap petit-bourgeois mindset to argue that the state cannot afford such existential programmes.”
