Ayodele Arise: After 15 Years, It’s My Turn to Represent Ekiti North in Senate

After 15 Years, It’s My Turn to Represent Ekiti North in Senate. A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress in Ekiti State, Senator Ayodele Arise, bares his mind on the political developments in the state, alleging plots to foist a consensus candidate on Ekiti North Senatorial district. Excerpt:

In recent times, you have expressed strong reservations about the consensus option in the selection of candidates. But the Electoral Act makes provision for direct primary and consensus. If the party decides to adopt a consensus candidate, what actually do you have against consensus?

The party cannot say we have adopted consensus without following the guidelines. Consensus means that among contestants, you have agreed that this is the person that you are supporting to represent you for a particular position. Where that is not achievable, you go for direct primaries to select your candidate. That is the stipulation on the ground. So the party is not saying that all we want to do is a consensus. How do they achieve it when you have more than four contestants in the same party running for the same office? So does the consensus now say that a governor must now point or one or two leaders must now say, we are picking somebody? There’s no picking system in that arrangement. It is either consensus or direct primaries. Everybody has a constitutional right to say I want to go to this particular office. So if the party now says we want to adopt a consensus, then let us know, let them spell out the ways and manners to achieve that consensus.  Without the participants saying, I have agreed, or we have agreed that this is our consensus candidate, it is not meant for one or two people to pick people and say these are the people we have selected by consensus. Which consensus is that? I will give an example of my senatorial district. I am a leader there, I’m the second most senior political office holder in that senatorial district in terms of ranking and the years that we went to head political office. So, other than the fact that (Kayode) Fayemi, who was governor under APC and now an ex-governor from the same local government I come from, I am next to him. So if he’s going to make a decision that seems like it’s a consensus where they’re making that consensus arrangement, he will be seated there, I should be there. It’s not for him to say, I am picking this person. That is not a consensus. As I said, he’s free to express interest in his favorite, in whoever he feels that is good for the office. If other candidates do not agree with his position, everybody goes to the polls. So there is nothing I’m asking for that is out of place, that is unreasonable, that is selfish, nothing. This one is most likely going to be my last election I want to participate in. I will be 70 this year. This primary will still happen before my 70th birthday and I have told them this is what I want from the party. If they cannot give it to me on a platter of gold  for my efforts, for my sacrifices, for what I’ve done for the party, then let’s go to the field. But if I see that the process leading to the emergence of that preferred candidate is fraudulent, I will not agree and I will go to court, and I will take my ticket back, because we have to teach our people that there is decency in integrity. When you don’t have that, you can’t lead.

Have you tried to convey your feelings to the governor? The party has always maintained that the governor is the leader of the party in the state?

I’ve told you, before I started this journey, I consulted all of them. It was December 2024, I  went to Niyi Adebayo, the first civilian governor of Ekiti state and actually the godfather of the current governor by any definition. That is because he was his Personal Assistant, he was his Chief of Staff and he has continued to promote his political career. So I went to him first. When I left him, I went to Fayemi. I told him, I want to run. And he said, we should just face the governor’s election first, and that after that, he will know what he will do. I went to speak with the governor himself. And he asked me, have you spoken to my boss?  I said, Yes, I’ve gone to Governor Adebayo, I have told him. I have gone to Governor Fayemi, he said you have told Fayemi too, I said yes. He said I will call him. I said call him now, I’ve told him. I left that place. Even before then, I called my brother and friend, Adedayo Adeyeye, I told him. Then I called Segun Oni, I told him, these are the people that are supposed to say, ‘Yes, this man deserves the ticket, give it to him.’

Governors have cashed in on this consensus arrangement to determine who becomes what in a state. Do you think the consensus arrangement that was added to the new Electoral Act has given governors so much powers over other politicians and do you see this as a challenge,  using your state as a case study?

What I’ve noticed is that there’s no method that you can use outside of voting that does not give the governors  an advantage. We are developing our democracy. We are growing it. The governors have been given tremendous powers. And the state has more resources than individuals who want to contest, so they will give the logistics and all that to back their candidate. It’s only in this case that they have a very bad market. That is why there is nothing they can do. Like I told people, once I believe in something, don’t just mess with me, don’t get me angry, because it is my right. We have two federal constituencies in my senatorial district. The constituency that Senator Cyril Fasuyi represents by the end of his tenure in May next year, they would have spent 24 years. His local government has done three terms, and his constituency has had about two senators from there. Then, the other local government has had eight years. In my federal constituency, which constitutes Oye Ekiti and Ikole, I am the only person who has represented them in the Senate — one term.

Are you saying the zoning favours you?

Of course, if it is a matter of zoning, I am the person who is supposed to go. So, there is no question about it. These people have monopolised the thing, and at the end of the day, it’s just like some other places that monopolise power, and they have not used it for their people. My four years had very serious meaning for people of my federal constituency, which is why I don’t know what the parameters they are using to say they want somebody to go and repeat when I am standing and I’ve waited for 15 years, and they have been doing it without quarrel. I said, “ This is my time,” and you are saying you don’t want to give it to me and you don’t want to follow the law. It’s not going to happen. I’ve told them, so if they use it by force, they write somebody’s name by force, I will go to court and claim that victory because I’m ready for them.

So what is your message to your constituents? This is not the first time you are aspiring to represent them. They know your capacity. So what is your message to them in this scenario?

Well, I have gone around the 56 wards, and I can assure you that there has been no election I’ve ever received such support at the ward level. I told them, you have only seen the little I was able to do in four years. Now I’m going in there as a ranking senator. My focus, like always, is your welfare, your development, your progress, the ability for your children to go to school, and  ability for them to be able to defeat poverty, that is the message. I keep on telling people, I was the Chairman, Senate Committee on Privatization, Vice President Jonathan was the Chairman, National Council for Privatization. So I was the only one supervising anybody in the presidency, which was the Vice President. That is how we grow some friendships. Thereafter, when I was asking for this, I never asked him to sell me any company belonging to the government. I never asked him to give me shares. All I asked him was to give me a federal university, which he did. So we have a difference. Everybody goes to the Senate for a purpose. I was there for a purpose, and I achieved that purpose for my people.

Away from Ekiti politics, let’s discuss a burning national issue which is State Police. The House of Representatives has laid its reports, but the Senate has not laid its own report and the new IGP has set up a committee on state police, and they have submitted to the Senate ad hoc Committee on constitution review. Tell us why they should fast-track the Constitution review so that they can make provision for state police

Our greatest challenge in Nigeria today is security. And there have been two previous or three presidents that have had to face the security challenge, and it seems it is not abating, but there are improvements that we are seeing on a day-to-day basis. But the federal government with a unified structure for the police will now have to send people from Abuja to all the nooks and crannies of this country. The State Police have numerous advantages. One is attacking insecurity, the other is providing employment to the youth.