Mr Akinyinka Akinnola, candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in Ondo Central Senatorial District, says he is going to the senate as a public servant, and not to make money.
Akinnola spoke on Sunday in Akure on his political ambition and the chances of the SDP winning the 2023 general elections.
The SDP senatorial candidate said that he had been touching People’s lives directly, even as a private individual.
He explained that he had invested in his community through students’ scholarships and widows’ empowerment.
According to him, the SDP is made up of people who are not after money but people who are committed to a positive change in the country’s socio-economic status.
“In the last seven years, I have done a lot of empowerments where I gave 800 scholarships to students in both primary and secondary schools.
“I have also empowered over 300 widows. I have partnered with the Trauma Centre of the University of Medical Sciences in Ondo, where we treated many people free of charge in life-saving surgical interventions.
“I have done training for over 100 people in poultry farming and built bridges in rural communities.We have done all this and many more without earning one penny from the government.
“So, if I can do that for almost seven years, it is chrystal clear that I am not going to the senate for money,” he said.
Akinnola said that, if elected as a senator in the forthcoming elections, he would facilitate and bring many empowerments to the constituency and the state at large.
The SDP senatorial candidate, who pointed out that Nigerian politics had moved beyond political structures, said “it is now politics of personality and not politics of parties”.
He, however, decried the low level of voting in the state, charging the electorate to come out in numbers to cast their votes for real change in the 2023 elections.
According to him, in the 2019 elections, there was about 1.5 million registered voters in Ondo state while only about 450 people came out to vote and about one million did not vote because they had lost faith in the system.
But he expressed hope that more people would participate in the 2023 elections, saying “the electorates now have interest in the elections because they want a real change”.
He said that recent happenings in the country had reawakened the consciousness of the people to the fact that the real political powers reside in them.
“The people are now more enlightened and more determined than ever before to take their destiny in their own hands by using their votes to create a Nigeria of their dreams.
“It is from this set of new voters that we hope to garner the votes that will bring us to power in the forthcoming general elections.
“My good people of Ondo State, you are part of change you are looking for and this is the time to change the narrative by coming out to cast your votes and support the real change, which is SDP,” he said.