A member of the seventh House of Representatives, Opeyemi Bamidele, has joined the 2018 governorship race in Ekiti.
He declared his intention at the All Progressives Congress state secretariat in Ado Ekiti on Wednesday.
Bamidele said he and other APC leaders, including a former Ekiti State governor, Kayode Fayemi and Senator Babafemi Ojudu, were working round to ensure the party win the July 14 governorship election.
“Yes, the minister (Fayemi) visited my office in Abuja and the Special Adviser on Political Matters to the President, Mr. Babafemi Ojudu, also wrote a goodwill message to me as I declare my intention today. To me, this is a sign of good development.
“All these shouldn’t give room for speculation that someone was trying to persuade the other to shelve his ambition for the other. All the party leaders must work together, so our working together and their visits to my office were not for selfish interest or about our ambitions alone.
“What these signalled was that, it is no longer the old story. It showed that the APC is no longer at war with itself. It shows that the party is becoming more united and stronger. It shows that we are giving each other mutual respect.
“I have made it clear at every political gathering I attended that I have settled the rift with Fayemi. The two of us are frontline party men and we have to work together to rescue our party. We are doing same with Engineer Segun Oni, all in the interest of our party,” he said.
Describing agitations by aspirants from the Ekiti South Senatorial District that power must shift to the zone as legitimate, Bamidele clarified that such would not preclude contestants from other districts from exercising their constitutional rights to seek political offices.
He said, “I want to say that zoning is a legitimate issue. It is also legitimate for every district of the state to aspire in line with the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
“The constitution of our party does not respect zoning and even the constitution, so we are free to contest irrespective of the legitimacy of the agitations.”
Punch
