Ayodele Fayose, the Governor of Ekiti State, says the Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government is one that suffers the righteous and protects the wicked.
Fayose said this on Thursday at Ado-Ektiti, the State Capital, during the celebration of the 2017 World Teachers’ Day.
He lamented that teachers in the state could not be paid their salaries because the EFCC is still holding the State’s Commissioner for Finance and the Accountant General over allegations of misappropriation of bailout funds.
“Those who want to be in governance should have the interest of the people at heart,” Fayose said.
“Not like today, the righteous are suffering (and) there is protection for the wicked. Today, my teachers can’t get paid because of the EFCC arrested my Commissioner for Finance and my Accountant General.
“If they are fighting Fayose, let them fight me. Don’t suffer Ekiti people. You can take my salary if you like, because I won’t stop talking.
“They should look at the plight of these teachers and if they want to do anything they should charge them (the arrested persons) to court. What is right is right.”
Fayose also said that the federal government should understudy Ekiti State so as to learn how to put the nation’s education back in shape.
Ekiti State has emerged tops in the number of candidates that passed the National Examination Council (NECO) Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (SSCE) in 2017.
“There’s no pride. They should come and see. What are we doing differently? Why are we coming first? How did we move from number 35 to number 1?” Fayose said.
“We must be doing something right. The Federal Government too can learn from states. There should be a peer review that should represent the interest of the people more.
“We are doing a lot, we are at the back of our teachers. We listen to them. I pick their calls, when they call me I listen to them. When their children and wards are getting married I’m always part of it. When they are taking chieftancy titles I’m part of it.
“I do not relate to them like teacher-governor relationship. I pick calls, I reply text messages, if can’t do it now I do it later because everybody is important.”
Fayose has declared his interest to run for the 2019 presidential election under the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in spite of the party’s zoning arrangement.
It was during his declaration ceremony in September that the EFCC arrested his Toyin Ojo, Fayose’s Finance Commissioner and Yemisi Owolabi, his Accountant General.
Both men were arrested “following their refusal to honour previous invitations for interrogation in relation to pending investigation on the misuse of bail-out funds by the Ayodele Fayose administration”, read a statement that was later issued by the EFCC.