Top Afenifere Chieftain, Sole Ebiseni Joins Ondo Governorship Race

Top Afenifere Chieftain, Sole Ebiseni has joined Ondo Governorship Race.

The Publisher Nigeria reports that the Secretary-General of Yoruba social-cultural group, Afenifere, Sole Ebiseni has announced his plan to contest at the forthcoming governorship election in Ondo state.

This is as the state’s governorship election is billed to take place on November 16, 2024.

According to Ebiseni, the state’s forthcoming governorship poll will be a turning point in the state’s history.

Recall that the Afenifere chieftain recently defected to the Peoples Democratic Party.

Speaking on Thursday in the state capital of Akure, while making a case for his candidacy, the lawyer claimed that the state required someone with a thorough understanding of the state and a solid sense of groundedness.

Having held positions as a council chairman and three-time state commissioner, Ebiseni asserted that he had a comparative advantage over other candidates.

According to him, the state’s economy would be diversified with a primary focus on reducing its overreliance on federal funding if he emerges as the governor of the state.

He said, “First and foremost, if you follow the trajectory of governance from the Ajasin era, our state, has had a rare privilege of being governed by governors who are not only intellectually suave, grounded in their chosen carriers, thoroughly bred and groomed in the ideology of the Awolowo school of thought which defines our welfarist programmes with which our people and politics have been identified.

“Besides Ondo State is very proud and has produced Ajasin, Adefarati, Agagu, Mimiko and Akeredolu who were and are men who gave our state a delightful corporate image in the comity of governors. As one of the leaders of the party told me when I visited him on consultations, we must always strive to maintain such standards.

“Development of our state also requires being fully acquainted with the territory and the people. Such knowledge affords the new manager the opportunity of the location of resources, creates wealth therefrom and fairly allocate same without undue concentration in one or few places.

“Certain social services which set our state apart ideologically and which have been discontinued or abandoned must be resuscitated in terms of quality and affordable education and health services including the Mother and Child Hospitals which will be fairly extended in the zones and many of such welfare programmes.

“It is a cheap petit-bourgeois mindset to argue that the state cannot afford such existential programmes. I was privileged to be part of the team that accomplished this for the state.”