2023: Fayemi declares intention to take offer to run

Ekiti Governor Kayode Fayemi may not have announced his intention to contest for presidency in 2023, but he has already settled up that decision.

In a Channel’s Televisions programme, ‘Hard Copy’, on Friday, Fayemi revealed how alluring Aso Rock has been for him.

“I get asked this question all the time. I don’t know any serious- minded politician who will have the opportunity to govern a country with the blessings that we have – in spite of the challenges – that will not give it a shot but we are not there yet,” he said while responding to questions on the 2023 presidential ticket.

His party, he state chapter, endorsed him for Nigeria’s topmost job as early as last year.

But , during the interview, he quickly doused the excitement—the way ambitious aspirants who don’t want to offend incumbents in their party do—with urgency of his current job.

“Frankly, I am eternally grateful to Ekiti people for giving me the opportunity to govern the state twice and I still have a lot to deliver on that agenda,” he said.

“So, the future will take care of itself. I have no means of knowing what is going to happen but for me, the certainty is that I am the Governor of Ekiti State and that term expires in October 2022.”

As the Nigeria Governors Forum chairman, Fayemi wields some influence which he has been using to one-up some of his likely contenders in the APC.

Many believed he joined the conspiracy to push out the APC national chairman Adams Oshiomhole—the handyman the party’s national leader Bola Tinubu planted in the National Working Committee.

Tinubu has become the most noised about as 2023 approaches, though he has yet to declare his intention.