Kayode Fayemi, Governor-elect of Ekiti State, says his administration will investigate why the administration of Ayodele Fayose was unable to pay workers’ salaries as and when due.

Fayemi, former Minister of Solid Minerals Development, said this while addressing State House correspondents on Thursday in Abuja, after he had presented his certificate of return to President Muhammadu Buhari.

President @MBuhari receives the Ekiti State Governor-Elect, Dr. @KFayemi accompanied by Gov. @AABagudu of @KBStGovt and @GovSIA of Ogun State. pic.twitter.com/9pOq8pXKn4

— Bashir Ahmad (@BashirAhmaad) July 19, 2018

He, however, stressed that it would be wrong to conclude that the probe would be targeted at Fayose as an individual.

“It is not about probing Fayose, probing Eleka etc. It is about not repeating the mistakes of the past and giving our people good government. So, we will also involve in looking at what transpired in the last four years,” Fayemi said.

“l think we need to remove this election from personalities. This was an election that we fought on issues and it will be irresponsible on my part to come here and say that we will not examine what transpired in the last four years in the manner of government.

“What was received in Ekiti State and the expenditures in that period? why were we not able to pay salaries in the state? These issues should be examined in the interest of good governance.”

Fayemi said he expects the outgoing officials of the state to cooperate with him when the process of looking into the state’s records commences.

On the allegations of vote buying by the All Progressives Congress (APC), Fayemi said there was nothing like that, adding that anyone who has concrete evidence should forward it to the appropriate authorities.

“I haven’t seen any substantive evidence of allegations of vote-buying and intimidation. In the place where l voted, there was no vote buying anywhere,” Fayemi said.

“As far as our party is concerned, we did not engage in that, it is not our style. We won the election fair and square and it was an election that we fought on issues and not on the basis of any vote-buying.

“So, whoever has any evidence of that should present it to an independently verifiable audience.”

Fayemi’s denial of APC’s involvement in vote-buying was contrary to the comments by Ayo Arise, an APC chieftain in Ekiti State, who admitted that the party actually paid money to voters on the day of election.

Arise, who spoke during an interview on Channels Television, argued that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) started the vote-buying first, and so the APC could not afford to “sit back” and risk being “bought out” of the election.

“The PDP started buying votes two days before the election, they were sending money (to) every voter in Ekiti… you don’t expect me to sit back,” Arise said.

“We knew that if we sat back, how do we explain to Ekiti people that the incumbent bought us out of the election?”

Fayemi will take his oath of office as Governor of Ekiti State on October 16, 2018.