Governor of Ekiti State, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, on Wednesday, formally declared his presidential ambition on the platform of the All Progressives Congress.
The Chairman of the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) listed some challenges he intends to fix if he becomes the president of the country in 2023.
The Ekiti State governor explained that he wants to be a president to ensure peace, and secure a future for Nigeria’s children. He also said he has enough public service experience to pilot the affairs of Nigeria.
Fayemi said: “Beyond my early forays into the public sphere as a student leader, my abiding faith in the oneness of our country has been further reinforced by all my subsequent engagements in national affairs as a scholar, civil society voice and institution-builder, community and political organiser with an unapologetic pan-Nigerian and pan-African outlook, tireless advocate for human rights and democratic governance, two-term governor, federal minister, a founding Coordinator of the Progressive Governors’ Forum, and two-term Chairman of Nigeria Governors’ Forum.
“Here then is my motivating testament and confession: I am a patriot born in these climes in the course of the first decade of our country’s independence, and I stake a bold claim to say that I am a full-blooded child of Nigeria. I grew up as did many of my generation socialised into the ideals of a united and virile nation. In my lifetime, I have witnessed some heart-warming moments of nation- and state-building that would make any citizen anywhere immeasurably proud.
“But I have also seen some truly challenging days in our journey of nationhood which have tested our collective resolve and demanded the exercise of considerable political savvy by our leaders over the years. I have taken as a key lesson from the admixture of high and low points we have experienced as a country that when and where we are charitable to one another and allow our shared humanity, innate spirit of solidarity, hard work, perseverance and underlying patriotism to prevail, we always succeed in overcoming and thriving through adversity.
“Hope such as I offer with my candidature is premised on a shared vision on which we can all agree, and for which we collectively strive, of a nation that is more confidently and uncompromisingly at one with itself, serving as home for all of us regardless of ethnicity, class, gender, age, disability, region or religion.”