 As the breakfast on Plastivia Africa, the governorship election is scheduled for June 18 and on that day, little over a week from now, the people of the state will elect a successor to Governor Kayo Defayemi, whose term is coming to an end soon. According to the final list released by the independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, 16 political parties, will run in the elections with 14 male candidates and two female candidates, leading the pack of contendants, Abiodum or Yebanji, as the governorship candidate of all ruling progressive Congress, Ola Bisi Kolawale, fourth year position, that's the People's Democratic Party, Sheguoni, candidate of the Social Democratic Party, who was the governor of the state between 2007 and 2010. Now before he was sacked by the judiciary and the judgment, the broad incumbent governor fired me into office in his first term. The list is almost endless and that's because we're out of time. The truth is everyone is seeking to become the governor. Now you also have that fact that you have a former governor seeking to return to a doikety government house through what his supporters call the Third Force, 12 years after leaving the office without prejudice to the other candidates or political parties. Checks conducted across the state suggest that the above-mentioned candidates are the front runners in this year's Iketi governorship election. We have a guest joining us, Larry Olainka. It's good to have you join us this morning as a political analyst. Thank you for joining us and once again, happy belated democracy day. Good morning and thank you for having me. So let's get straight to it now. Looking at the four runners, I mean, you have like 16 candidates, including two females, which we must commend and you have 14 male candidates. But according to reports, you have strong contenders, frontliners. What do you think that Iketi state currently needs? Well, Iketi state personally needs, like every other state in Nigeria, in the peaceful environment, an environment where people can go out and do their businesses without fear of being attacked, where people can move freely without fear of being abducted by bandits. That is the most important thing now. The moment you are not secured, the moment you are at the high level of insecurity, nothing will move. Iketi state is an agrarian state. Most people can no longer go to their farms now. People are kidnapped in their farms. People are killed. Women are raped. Their daughters are raped in their farms. So what Iketi state needs now is a secure environment. And what the state needs is a government that doubt people enough to confront the issue of insecurity. But let's also look at this candidate. The election is very close, 18th of June, and look at the candidates that are vying for the office of the governor and the spin of debate, the spin put out, juxtaposing, looking at the speech that they have made, which of this candidates you think has actually captured the interests and the concern of the Iketi people? The first thing you need to look at is the pedigree, personality, political party, the experience of the people contesting. For the APC, we have somebody who was who was personal assistant to Ohtumbania, the bio between 2003, 1999, 2003. And we know what happened during that government. Well, it was because during that government, the local government worked as workers for our own salaries up to like 12, 30, 40 months. And it was part of the government. It was also secretary to the state government thing, like up to like, like six, seven months ago. So it was, it won't be fired me from, it won't be fired me between 2010 and 2014 as a commissioner. And it was during that government that the Iketi was plunked into untold debt. A lot of money was borrowed, nothing was, nothing was used. It was used for nothing. Then it was also part of the government, of this present government. And it was a member of the governing council of the DC University. It was part of that governing council that sucked over 1,000 workcasts in that university. So I'll read out his own antecedents. And then we have candidates of PDP, Ohtumbia Pensicola O'Ole. Who was his professor in the local government? Who was, who was, I also remember between 2007 and 2011. Who was also a member of the governing council of federal polytechnic leader between 2012 and 2014? Who was commissioner for environment in the Iketi state between 2014 and 2018? It was chairman of PDP, the Iketi state between 2020 and 2020, 2021. So those are the two then, the other persons in Asheguni, who was governor of Iketi 15 years ago? If you have been governor 15 years ago in the states, and you say you are coming back as, are, are, are, are, are, are reasons to then put this the same way who President Bahari was brought back having the president 30 years ago. And he brought him back, he thought he was going to come and apply 1985 solution to, to Nigeria's 350,000 system problems. We know where we are today. So if, my question is, is, is clear, if you have been governor in 15, 15, 20 years ago, there's no point trying to force yourself back because the situation there will be different from the situation now. The dynamics then are different from the dynamics now. So to those are the three, three main contenders, though, though I like to limit myself to the two main political parties in the country, that's the APC and PDP. But do you think that, but do you think that ideology is fair at the time where we're pushing forward thought force? I mean, you know, usually the media has been blamed for pushing that narrative of having just two forces. In Nigeria, we have always been pushing for thought force. Let me give you an example. In 1979, we had like five political parties, the UPN, MPN, PRP, GMPP and MPP. The predominant party then was PDP, was UPN and MPN. And the same thing happened in 1993 when political parties were increased to like six. I think one NAP or something by later to a two-year break rate was added to it to make six. We still had MPN and UPN as the two predominant parties. In 1999, we came up with many political parties. At the end of the day, what did we have? We have PDP as the predominant party, then we had AG, APA, MPP and as I went on, all those parties matched to become one. So at every point in the political life of Nigeria, we always had two main political parties. People always had two main political parties, but they are always the slashes of thought force. In 2015, at the national election, there were two digital thought forces. In 2019, they came with, some people said they were going to bring UPN back to the thought force. That was when they brought SDP to some point, we have had time where they thought AGP would be thought force and AGP would be thought force and all those things, all those things. So if we've never had any use of, during the election, you will always, in the Kudisek airport instance, in 2007, our two party clearly contested the government's election under AFDP. We thought it was going to be thought force. How many votes did it get at the end of the day? In 2014, Senator Mike up in the middle of that, we call him would be brought up as thought force. At the end of the day, it got less than 20,000 votes in the election. So there has always been this thought force, this digital thought. But at the end of the day, it always, it always ended up that it will always be two predominant political parties. But you also can take out the fact that if you have Shigoni, he's very prominent, I mean, has been governor before. And that already is a fact that has been established. And the SDP is not as much as it doesn't match up the popularity with the predominant party, that's the APCR and of course the PDP. But do you think it would be fair to rule out the SDP? As a matter of fact, we have 16 contenders. Now it's been limited to three because of the capacities, strongness and the platform of this party. Do you think it would be fair to rule out the SDP out of this? Like I've said, there have always been contenders. There have always been contenders. We have been more than 10 contenders. But in most cases, because I've been part of politics here for a very long time, I've also witnessed a issue of people trying to bring thought-forcing. So in this case, Saturday is very near, why do you have a political party that's up to today? How many governors does SDP have? How many senators we rally support for SDP? How many political officials? How many persons we rally support for SDP in each state? So I don't want to restrict this matter to talking about SDP or whatever. But what I'm telling you clearly is that this election will still be between PDP and APF, the APC. Okay, so this will just be the final in just a few seconds because we're at a time. We're looking at these contenders now and according to the report and data that's been made available, we have three of them contending despite other political pauses. Do you think that they have the capacity to deliver the kind of leadership and solution that the people of Iqiti need? I read out their political CV. I've told you about APC candidates who was second to the state government and who are the part of the communist government. They were part of its government, the government is first to know and they were also part of its government during the second tunnel. And we know what the state is witnessing today. There is insecurity everywhere. All bans have been kidnapped in their palaces. People can no longer go to their farms. Their workers employed by PDP government were sacked. I mentioned the worker worker sacked in Exxu where the APC candidate was a member of the government council representing the government. I've also mentioned that even when caught three months ago, the APC court, which is the last court for industrial matter, gave dogma that those workers should be restated immediately. Up to now that dogma has not been obeyed. That is the person coming on the platform of APC, a party that is refused to obey court government. And I've told you about the PDP who has worked, who has experienced in grassroot governance, who has experienced in legislative governance, who has experienced even in executive governance and having been commissioner, who also has political experience, having been chairman. We have to let you go now. Thank you so much for your time and your thoughts. I mean, I wish we can continue with this conversation, but of course, as we inch closer to June the 18th, we will definitely share your thoughts on the issue as we proceed. Thank you so much for being part of the breakfast. We'll begin with Larry O'Leanker, he's a political affairs analyst. We appreciate his time on the show. That's the size of the conversation this morning. On the breakfast, I hope you had a great time. We'll definitely return tomorrow. The time again is seven o'clock to nine when we take you through the entire show with great conversations generating different reactions in different spaces and great analysis coming your way right here. I am Messi Boko, follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and do subscribe to our YouTube channel if you missed out on any part of the conversation is at Plus TV Africa and Plus TV Africa Lifestyle. Have a great day.