Former Governor Ayo Fayose of Ekiti State and the national executive of Labour Party have vowed to take over the control of the South Western states from the Peoples Democratic Party.

Fayose and the party officials said this on Saturday in Ado-Ekiti during his official declaration as a member of the LP in the state.
The former governor, whose declaration for his new party pulled a large crowd of people to a field along Iworoko Road, burnt the symbol of the PDP, an umbrella, before accepting LP’s symbol.

Fayose, who described himself as the financier of the PDP in the state, won the governorship election in the state when the Alliance for Democracy was in power.
While addressing the crowd, he said, “What is happening in Ondo State will happen in Ekiti State. Ondo State has taken the lead by dumping the PDP and we in Ekiti State will follow suit. We are taking over in Ekiti State.

“Today, the umbrella has gone down in history as a dead party; it has gone down as a burnt party; we will use every lawful means to sweep the poll in 2011.”
The National President of the LP, Dan Iwanyawu, who led other officials of the party to the declaration, also said that the party would very soon dominate the political arena in the country starting from the South-West.

Iwanyawu urged the people to dump any party which did not meet the needs of the people irrespective of whether such party was in power or not.
He said, ”Former Governor Ayo Fayose is now a member of the Labour Party. He can now vote as a member of the party and be voted for. We are glad to welcome him to our midst. But let me tell you again that Nigeria ought not to be poor but the prevalence of poverty in the country is due to bad leadership.

”We need to change this. We have begun to take over starting from Ondo State. It is one after the other; we have come to take over in Ekiti State.”
The party‘s national chairman expressed the hope that Ekiti State would bounce back again pointing out that the ruling party did not believe in true democracy. ”These people we are talking about don‘t believe in your votes and that is why they don‘t care about the masses. You did not vote them; they rigged themselves into power, that is why they don‘t care about working for the people. But we will resist rigging in 2011. We will not allow anybody to steal our mandate.”

He berated the ruling party for calling the former governor a criminal saying that the crowd at the declaration would not have come out to pledge their loyalty to Fayose if truly he was a killer.

He said, ”A person, who is a known kidnapper or killer as being rumoured by the PDP cannot have this kind of followers. I know people will be running away from such people. The PDP is a party of blackmailers and liars. They have been lying since assumption of office and they will continue to lie forever.”

The LP chairman also inaugurated members of the state executive of the party in the state.

It would be recalled that Fayose had recently resigned from the PDP and was given a membership card of the LP at Afao-Irepodun Ward on Thursday.

By Femi Makinde, Sunday, 28 Feb 2010