• APC stakeholders pass confidence vote on the governor, others
• Landlords, landowners to pay property tax, says Ekiti govt

Ekiti State Governor Kayode Fayemi said that the Special Adviser to the President on Political Affairs, Babafemi Ojudu; former Minister of State for Works, Dayo Adeyeye and others who launched attacks against him were not his enemies.

At an All Progressives Congress (APC) stakeholders’ meeting held on Saturday, July 4, 2020, in Ado-Ekiti, Fayemi was quoted to have said that his disagreement with Adeyeye, Ojudu and others was a family affair.

A statement by the party’s state Publicity Secretary, Ade Ajayi, yesterday, quoted Fayemi as having said: “Whatever disagreement we have in Ekiti APC is a family affair. I’m not an enemy to anyone and neither is anyone an enemy to me.”

Ajayi said that, at the meeting where issues affecting the party were discussed, a vote of confidence was passed in Fayemi after a review of many projects carried out by his administration, including road and water projects, schools’ renovation and sinking of boreholes across schools, among others.

The Ekiti State Government in another development, said it had introduced mandatory payment of property tax by landlords and land-owners across the 16 local councils.The government said that the move was part of efforts to shore up its internally-generated revenues (IGR) for more infrastructural development.

Chairman of the Ekiti State Internal Revenue Service, Mr. Muyiwa Ogunmilade, who disclosed this in a statement made available to newsmen in Ado-Ekiti yesterday, said the Ekiti State Property Tax Law was backed by the State Land Use Charge Law No 3 of 2013, which comprises payment on ground rent, tenement rates and neighbourhood improvement levy.

He said that the policy had been neglected for long, saying that time has come for it to be put to full use in view of the low revenues from the federal allocation to the state.

He also said that the governor was not interested in imposing double taxation or obnoxious tax policy on residents, but that the new measure was just an implementation of an existing, but abandoned law.