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Governor of Ondo State, Lucky Aiyedatiwa, has returned his completed expression of interest and nomination forms ahead of the April 20 the All Progressives Congress (APC) primary election, boasting that other aspirants would not constitute any threat to him.
He argued that the people of Ondo know what they are looking for. Emphasising that there is no reason to entertain any fear, Governor Aiyedatiwa said: “We have almost 15 aspirants jostling for this same office and they are eminently qualified. Let me tell you here that we know ourselves, they have been around and we know who they are and what they can do.
“There is nothing to fear, we are all indigenes of Ondo State but the people know what they want. The students, the men, support groups, and artisans are clamouring for my continuation. These are the people that will determine who will be their governor, and I can tell you they have even spoken by all that they have been saying since this whole process started . So there is nothing to fear.”
On what he intends to do differently, he said: “As deputy governor all power lies with the executive governor of a state. In democracy, the deputy cannot act on his own. As deputy I was then serving the state through the governor because the deputy has no function of his own unless what is assigned to him by the governor.
“So the years of being a deputy governor, I was serving the people through the governor and running with the agenda put in place by the governor because we were on a joint ticket.
“As acting governor, yes we follow through, the period was just for 21 days when the governor is on vacation. I want to commend the late governor for all that he did when he was governor of the state. We worked together for the vision he had for the state. I couldn’t do anything differently because it is the same joint ticket. Now as governor, in the last three months I have tremendously brought innovation into governance by the things that I and my team have been doing. In governance, we have seen in the last three years as deputy governor areas of weaknesses, and areas that we can improve upon.
“These are the areas we are working on so that we can improve on what has been before because I have always been part of the administration in the last three years. And part of that we have been able to improve upon is to ensure that no staff of Ondo State is being owed their salaries. All their arrears had been cleared immediately I came into the office
“We are also recruiting about 2,000 teachers right now both in primary and secondary schools levels to cover the gap that has been created by the dealth of teachers in our school.”
These are the things we have been improving upon so that we can have enough teachers in our various schools. We just paid for the WAEC examination of all students in public schools in Ondo State.
“I have just set up agric and food security committee to look into how we can improve on our agriculture and agro-business in Ondo State to make it attractive to the youths. I have been able to assemble the best we can get in our state – the chairman of farmers Congress, the president of OSAKA, the South West chairman of poultry farmers association and some other technocrats to work with them so that we can improve on our agriculture because Ondo State is blessed and we can make agriculture our mainstream.
“We will take advantage of the three seasons that God has given to us in Ondo State. We have good arable lands, we have comparative advantage that we are going to invest in so that we can improve production and ensure that we have food security for our people,” he said.
