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Tag: Ayo Fayose

  • Ekiti judicial crisis: Jonathan finally speaks

    Ekiti judicial crisis: Jonathan finally speaks

    After Ekiti State governor-elect, Ayo Fayose, inspired the intimidation of the judiciary in Ekiti a few weeks ago, I wrote that it was necessary for Nigerians to wait for the reactions of President Goodluck Jonathan, given his oath to defend and uphold the constitution, the National Judicial Council, and a few other leading Nigerians. The NJC, perhaps for obvious reasons, was quick to respond. It ordered the reopening of the courts in Ekiti, asked for the police to both provide adequate security for the courts and investigate the crisis, and arrest those who planned and executed the attacks on the courts and their judges.

    The ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) also spoke fairly quickly. Through its spokesman, the unscrupulous Olisa Metuh, the party reiterated the allegations made by Mr Fayose suggesting that the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC), which lost the June governorship election, was planning to use the courts to subvert the swearing in of Mr Fayose. He saw nothing wrong with the self-help embarked upon by thugs acting on behalf of his party. He did not see the danger of the consequences of intimidating the judiciary, how it could predispose the country to anarchy, where everyone second-guesses the courts and takes unlawful steps to achieve or enforce private objectives.

    For weeks, the president kept quiet. Finally, however, Dr Jonathan has spoken, and what he had to say is truly depressing. By keeping silent over the grave attacks on the courts, attacks that horrified the rest of the world more for the tepid response of security agents and the government, the president is unaware he has spoken. He in effect has endorsed the attacks by conniving at it. Any other president would have moved speedily to protect the judiciary. But since he himself had once attacked the judiciary by prejudicially sacking a president of the Appeal Court, Justice Ayo Salami, it was inconceivable that he would be horrified by the attacks on Ekiti courts inspired and led by Mr Fayose.

    To reinforce the president’s unspoken but unmistakable views on the attacks, the courts ordered reopened by the NJC have been kept under lock and key by soldiers and policemen. The security agents are supposed to provide security for the courts as they reopen, but they have ensured they are shut even against a few of the judges who attempted to gain entry and resume work. The security agents hide under the strike embarked upon by Ekiti civil servants to defy the NJC and to keep the courts shut until Mr Fayose is sworn in. The country has not felt sufficiently outraged enough to compel Dr Jonathan to live up to the oath he took to uphold and defend the constitution. Politicians, unable to appreciate the enormity of the precedence being laid in Ekiti, hide under partisanship to excuse the anomaly. We are sowing the wind; and it is certain we will reap the whirlwind.

    It takes a visionary leader to see the damage to the body politic caused by the Ekiti attacks. It takes a leader to understand the dangerously sublime message being sent out by the attacks. It takes a deep leader to recognise that in a global village the madness shown in Ekiti and connived at at the highest level lowers us, and particularly the president, in the esteem of the world. The president has indeed spoken, and we must recognise that what he had to say is unflattering and humiliating to the black man. The consequences are unavoidable. They will come. And it is not only the victims of the court closure and attacks that will suffer; even the inspirers and executors of the attacks, not to say the presidency itself, will suffer much more.

  • Fayose’s surprising defenders

    Fayose’s surprising defenders

    GIVEN all the accounts of the violence that convulsed Ekiti State last week, particularly the attacks on judicial officers, the state’s governor-elect, Ayo Fayose, is clearly in the eye of the storm. He has unintelligently implicated himself in the mayhem, and he remains remorseless and even defiant. But though he will become the state’s chief executive before the end of this month, neither he nor the state’s judicial workers, nor other eyewitnesses have absolved Mr Fayose of blame. With his extreme views on the judiciary, democracy and civil rights, an outsider will shudder to think what awaits Ekiti people soon. But apparently, the state is content to accommodate the new helmsman’s excesses.  Mr Fayose’s idiosyncrasies are quite well known, as displeasing and unorthodox as they are. What surprises most people is the number of people that lend him support. So far, the defenders have not yet included the president, even though his body language gives tacit approval, the Minister of Justice, and the now tamed and reticent National Judicial Council. But don’t rule anything out.

    The talkative National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Olisa Metuh, was first to rise stoutly in defence of Mr Fayose’s violent disposition in Ekiti. His defence, sadly, resembled Mr Fayose’s own rationalisation. Said Mr Metuh: “After losing roundly in an election widely acclaimed as one of the most credible in our recent history as a nation, the APC in its desperation for power has shamelessly designed a heinous plot to compromise certain judicial officers in order to stop the inauguration of Mr. Ayo Fayose as the democratically elected governor of Ekiti State.” In other words, violence and intimidation were the best measures to ensure no one thwarted Mr Fayose’s enthronement.

    More surprisingly, however, is the manner the Ekiti chiefs weighed in. Rather than denounce the violence that attempted to usurp the powers of the courts, Ekiti monarchs met and issued a warning that nothing must be done to subvert the mandate given Mr Fayose if further violence was not to be procured. They said nothing about the attempt to destroy the judiciary. In short, Ekiti is unimpressed by such amenities as rights of individuals, judicial independence and political stability.  The state has chosen a fateful, discordant and corrosive path to the past; obviously its people cannot now be easily dissuaded, even if that path should lead to social and political retrogression.

  • Ekiti: a dress rehearsal?

    Ekiti: a dress rehearsal?

    Perhaps nothing best signposts the times we are in as a nation than the assault on some judges in Ekiti State between September 22 and 24, apparently by some political bandits, led, according to the state chief judge, by Governor-elect Ayo Fayose himself. I thought I was too young to cite if ever there was any such precedent in the annals of Nigeria’s history, but I was reassured by some people who have seen it all, I mean older citizens who have spent more than seven decades plus on earth, that never in our country’s history have we witnessed such assault on judges. It then dawned on me that the incident may be one of the unusual lows we have witnessed under the Goodluck Jonathan administration and could jolly well be one of the end-time signs that we would be seeing as a nation.

    Even the police that should protect the judges happened to be the spectators-in-chief. Maybe the police realised their powerlessness in the matter, hence their lukewarm attitude while the assault lasted. So, the judges who did not were taught a lesson to be able to read the body language at the top, I mean the very top!

    No one is saying that people cannot be aggrieved over any matter. But the most civilised way to go is to get the law courts to decide on whatever the contentions are. However, when we now put the fear of hoodlums in judges, the cause of justice cannot be well served and the citizens are the ultimate losers.

    Anyway, in the lighter mood, since nobody gets angry at a dog for barking, just as no one kills rams for fighting. (I am not chanting incantations), please. These animals are only doing what their creator made them to do. So, no one should be surprised at what is happening in Ekiti State. We were told before that the ruling party pushed some people forward in the southwest not necessarily because the people have anything to offer but because they have an infinite capacity to cause mayhem. What is happening in Ekiti could jolly well be a precursor to what to expect in the ‘Fountain of knowledge’ in subsequent weeks, months or even years. The good thing is that whoever had any doubt about Ekiti being a ‘Fountain of knowledge’ must have realised after the June 14 governorship election that he or she was mistaken. Ekiti has lived up to its billing in that wise by adding to our political lexicon what we now famously know as ‘Stomach infrastructure’, which has significantly contributed to our knowledge. Many of us have had such thing in mind before but we never knew what name to call it until Ekiti people came up with that ingenious concept. Even Western journalists now famously refer to it in analysing elections in Nigeria. The beauty of it all is that the concept might soon be internationalised. We should therefore not be surprised if the Americans and the British, etc. start putting ‘Stomach infrastructure’ on their political menu! That would have been a contribution that would put Ekiti on the global map and if it is already there, it would boost its standing in the league of states with uncommon knack for inventions.

    Still in the lighter mood, the Ekiti incident reminded me of a drama by Moses Olaiya, better known as Baba Sala many years ago. He said that given the calibre of people behind him: mo le gba eegun loju; mo le fo olopa leti; ma tun wa so’ko lu adajo’ (I can slap a masquerade; I can also slap a policeman and as well stone the judge!) These are possibilities when you have our kind of federal might solidly behind you. Who is a judge? As one of them in the ruling party said a few months ago, “Ta lo nje ode aperin niwaju ode apeeyan?” (who is an elephant hunter where a human hunter is? }

    It remains to be seen whether their Lordships will be able to do “as their Lordships please”. Court!

  • Fayemi appoints eight new permanent secretaries, Fayose kicks

    Fayemi appoints eight new permanent secretaries, Fayose kicks

    Ekiti State Governor, Dr.  Kayode Fayemi, has appointed eight new permanent secretaries to fill existing vacancies.

    While details of the appointment were still sketchy at the time of filing this report, The Nation gathered that the appointments took immediate effect.

    Meanwhile, the state Governor-Elect, Mr Ayo Fayose, has faulted the appointment, saying Fayemi was playing politics with issues that have serious consequences on the welfare of the state.

    Fayose, in a statement issued in Ado-Ekiti by his Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Idowu Adelusi, on Thursday, said recent actions by Fayemi showed that he was desperate and playing politics of vendetta and putting stumbling blocks in the way of incoming administration.

    The statement reads: “As much as we are not opposed to people progressing in their chosen careers, one finds the recent appointments questionable. The questions the people of the state should help ask Fayemi include which ministries the new permanent secretaries will be attached? Will two permanent secretaries man a ministry? Are there vacancies that the new permanent secretaries will fill?

    “It is very ridiculous for Fayemi who has less than two weeks to leave office to appoint permanent secretaries for the incoming administration. It shows how evil the APC is.

    “In the last four months, the outgoing government has created 19 new LCDAs, employed 3,000 workers without following due process and right now backlog of salaries of workers are yet to be paid and workers are currently on strike.

    “It is evidence that Fayemi does not love Ekiti State. His activities are not statesmanlike and honourable. Nigerians should now know that his activities are to put stumbling blocks on the path of the incoming government.”

     

  • How Fayose led thugs to attack courts, by Ekiti CJ

    How Fayose led thugs to attack courts, by Ekiti CJ

    Judge writes CJN, police chief

    PDP, APC trade words

    For the first time, the Chief Judge of Ekiti State, Justice Ayodeji Daramola, has spoken on how thugs molested judges in the state.

    He identified thugs loyal to the Governor-elect, Mr. Ayo Fayose, as those who perpetrated the assault on judges.

    He alleged that Fayose specifically led an army of thugs who attacked the High Court on September 25.

    He also expressed regrets that policemen and security agents  watched helplessly as judges were beaten up by the thugs.

    He said he had no choice than to close the court in the light of the “prevailing lawlessness” in the state.

    Justice Daramola, who is scheduled to appear before the National Judicial Council (NJC) tomorrow, said the errant thugs beat judges and workers “black and blue”.

    Fayose has denied that his supporters beat up Justice John Adeyeye. He described the allegation as not only unfounded, but spurious.

    He said: “I am not aware that a judge was beaten up. In fact, this is strange to me.

    “This is reckless and strange to me. I visited the election petition tribunal as a party to the case and I was the only one that was allowed passage by security men. To the best of my knowledge, the three judges handling the tribunal case sat.

    “How can I order the people to beat up a judge that has nothing to do with me? At what point was this judge beaten? Was he a member of the tribunal? Because I went to the tribunal and not the regular court.”

    The Chief Judge chronicled the travails of the judges in two letters to the Commissioner of Police in Ekiti State, Mr. Taiwo Lakanu, and the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Mariam Alooma Mukhtar.

    The letters gave rare insights into the mayhem in Ekiti which forced Governor Kayode Fayemi to declare a 12-hour curfew.

    The CJ’s letter to the Commissioner of Police, dated September 26, 2014, reads in part: “ I write the letter to appraise you formally, the sad events of this week at the premises of the High Court of Ekiti State even though I have earlier before now stated this verbally through frantic and distress phone calls.

    “May I therefore chronicle the said sad event as hereunder stated please:

    “On Monday 22nd of September while I was attending the Supreme Court Special Sitting in Abuja, I was called on phone that thugs loyal to Mr. Ayodele Fayose have invaded the headquarters of the Judiciary of Ekiti State where Hon. Justice I.O. Ogunyemi was to deliver a ruling on the matter instituted against him.

    “The thugs beat workers black and blue while the presiding Judge and lawyers had to run for dear lives. They smashed windows and furniture.

    “Meanwhile, the policemen and other law enforcement agents deployed within and without the premises in large numbers were looking on completely uninterested and unconcerned while these thugs were on prowl beating and maiming workers and court users.

    “The thugs went on searching for the Judge who ran into hiding. It took your personal intervention when you were duly informed on phone to rush to the scene of the mayhem within the court premises to rescue the said Judge and took him out into safety.”

    The Chief Judge insisted that the attacks on judges were pre-planned by the said hoodlums, 13 of which the police alleged it had arrested.

    The letter further said: “The above in the main was just the beginning of what would appear to be a pre-planned long siege and onslaughts on the Court and its personnel. The political hoodlums showed again in large numbers on Tuesday 23rd and Wednesday 24th of September, 2014 on the spurious ground that they came to listen to the ruling which they did not allow the presiding Judge in Court No. 6 to deliver on Monday 22nd day of September, 2014. No such ruling was slated for hearing since the thugs invaded the premises of the court on Monday before.

    “Now on Thursday the 25th day of September, Mr. Ayodele Fayose, the Governor-elect again led thousands of people and thugs into the premises of the High Court beating and maiming the staff.

    “The thugs invaded my court where I was to deliver a judgment in a land matter, tore the Record Books, beat the court officials and vandalized the furniture in Court No. 1

    “The political thugs descended on Hon. Justice J. A. Adeyeye the presiding Judge in Court No. 3 beat and dragged him on the ground. The Judge’s suit was also torn into shreds. I could not gain entrance into the premises of the court and had to hurriedly turn back on being alerted that I was the prime target of the hooligans.”

    The Chief Judge narrated how policemen and security agents refused to come to the rescue of the assaulted judges, court workers and users.

    The letter added: “It is needless to reiterate here that while the mayhem and attack on judges, staff and property of the Court was in progress, scores of policemen and State Security Service (SSS) operatives posted to protect lives and property within the Court premises looked on and watched without taking any step to save the situation. All entreaties to officers and men of Ekiti State Command to protect the Court as an important institution of State yielded no positive response.

    “I should put it on record here again that it took your personal intervention to rush to the Court premises to rescue Members of the Election Tribunal who started sitting within the Court premises on this particular day and escorted them out of the premises into safety when your men and officers would not lift a finger  to help us.

    “I write this letter to formally inform you that your officers and men posted to guard and protect the integrity of the Court and its personnel in the face of looming danger within the premises of the High Court of Ekiti State have failed us and left us at the mercy of political hoodlums.

    “In the premises of the prevailing lawlessness in and around the court premises, I have no other alternative than to direct a closure of the court until the safety of Judges, Magistrates and Staff of Ekiti State Judiciary can be guaranteed by the law enforcement agents. Please accept the assurances of my kindest regards.”

    In forwarding a similar letter to the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Mariam Alooma Mukhtar, the Ekiti Chief Judge on September 27, 2014 said: “Further to my letter dated 25th day of September 2014, I hereby forward to your Lordship my letter to the Commissioner of Police, Ekiti State Command the situation report on events of the preceding week at the premises of the High Court of Ekiti State. With kindest regards to your Lordship.”

    ThePeoples Democratic Party (PDP)yesterday accused the All Progressives Congress (APC) of planning to influence the Judiciary, subvert the will of the people and stop the inauguration of Ekiti State Governor- elect Ayo Fayose on October 16.

    But the APC denied being interested in stopping Fayose. It accused the PDP of impunity, saying it should allow the judiciary to operate unfettered.

    In a statement yesterday by its National Publicity Secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh, the PDP called for a full investigation into the activities of some officers of the Ekiti State judiciary involved in the crisis.

    The statement described what it termed as “underground plot” to stop Fayose’s inauguration as a “slap in the face of the people of the state, assault on democracy and an attempt to rape the judiciary”.

    The statement said: “In the past two weeks, we have witnessed series of lies, propaganda, threats and blackmail by the APC in their desperate bid to truncate the wish of the people. This desperate party has gone notches up in this awkward quest for power by inciting violence and outlandishly calling for the arrest of the state governor-elect.

    “After losing roundly in an election widely acclaimed as one of the most credible in our recent history as a nation, the APC in its desperation for power has shamelessly designed a heinous plot to compromise certain judicial officers in order to stop the inauguration of Mr. Ayo Fayose as the democratically elected governor of Ekiti State.

    “We have here in our hands an attempt to re-enact the design where the same APC leaders under the defunct ACN sabotaged and truncated the popular mandate given to the PDP in the 2011 governorship election by the people of Osun and Ekiti states through the verdicts of certain judicial officers.

    The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief John Odigie-Oyegun asked the PDP to leave the court to determine whether or not the Governor-elect of Ekiti State is qualified to contest election into the office.

    He said the APC was not out to stop Fayose from being inaugurated and warned PDP against rushing to judgment.

    Odigie-Oyegun, who spoke exclusively with our correspondent last night, said the attacks on judges in Ekiti State amounted to abomination.

    He said: “We don’t want to stop the inauguration of Fayose . It is absolute rubbish because everybody knows the sequence of events in Ekiti State.

    “Since there are issues about Fayose’s qualification before the court, let us not rush to judgment, let us leave it to the Judiciary to decide. We are ready for the legal course up to the Supreme Court.”

    Odigie-Oyegun said the APC was not behind the mayhem unleashed on judges in Ekiti State.

    He added: “We profit nothing by disturbing the court process. We know who stands to benefit by obstructing the course of justice.

    “It is a terrible trend to desecrate the temple of Justice. What happened in Ekiti amounted to abomination. It is just unfortunate that thugs were mobilised to beat up judges. Nigerians should ask: Who is afraid of the court? Who is afraid of justice?

    “We are waiting for what the Judiciary will do to defend their own honour.”

    The APC National Chairman warned PDP against recourse to impunity in a democracy.

    He said: “They (the PDP) should stop this excessive arbitrariness. Their impunity is now getting to an unacceptable limit.”

     

  • Ekiti: Ifa ti se o! (Ifa has done it!)

    IN Ekiti of Ayo Fayose, governor-elect, on the brink of taking over from the outgoing John Kayode Fayemi, Ifa has really done it!

    Translated in a way, Fayose could mean: “Ifa will do it”.  Since that is Governor-elect Ayo’s surname, and no sane person spews out sweet palm kernels thrust in their mouths by benevolent spirits, it can logically be deduced that Fayose prayed that prayer for himself; and that Ifa has actually delivered to the lucky name bearer the very promise of his name. Talk of metaphysical incest!

    But as they say in the great Nigerian lingo, nothin’ spoil.  In any case, in plain English, ill luck is not transferable — and neither is good luck! So, you can’t really blame Ayodele Fayose for benefitting from the great promise of his own name?  Mba! Oti o!  A’a!

    Still, there is a terrible déjà vu about Fayose’s name and its peculiar promise fulfilled. On his first coming, Fayose was an enfant terrible, a gubernatorial gadfly, nay Leviathan, before whom everyone, king or subject, patrician or plebeian, Jew or gentile, must rock with fear. Ah, those days! It was one day, one trouble; one minute, one scandal; one second, one uproar; and you-know-who was masterfully strutting the stage of the grand orchestra of discord.

    Yeah, Ekiti had known some peace these past four years. But if you think those bad old times are gone, just re-witness what happened in an Ado-Ekiti High Court yesterday.  For the taste of the bedlam, the intro of The Nation’s front page report of Tuesday  September 23: “Panicky lawyers, litigants and officials ran out of the court room, screaming as scores ran into their offices and shut their doors; others hid under tables, away from the rampaging thugs.”

    And what did the High Court do to deserve being laid so low; sacked by low-life thugs that mercilessly cracked down on the cream of society, and invaded our Law’s high temple of justice turned mere den of thieves?

    Mr. Justice Isaac Ogunyemi just permitted himself the temerity, and awarded his court the illusion that both can assume jurisdiction over a case against the All-mighty Fayose, Ifa’s own appointed!  What arrant nonsense!  So, in front of Ayo Fayose, even the courts must bow? And if so, what happens to our democracy, anchored, at least in its pristine form, on rule of law and checks and balances?

    And Jonathan? As always, he sees no evil, he hears no evil — especially if that evil works for his own good! Welcome to a presidency of anything goes, where no abomination is foreclosed! By their brazen court show, the Fayose camp’s tactics are clear: intimidate the court and the case will vamoose! Under Jonathan’s presidency of anything goes? It is very, very possible!

    But let no one defile Ifa. Ifa, to the Yoruba, is awo mimo (immaculate cult), which suffers no stain. It is at the heart of the Yoruba religious cosmos. Whoever dares it with dirt only dooms himself. Proof? Ask Fayose himself: from the disgrace of his first coming.

  • Fayose begins moulting

    Fayose begins moulting

    EKITI people may have voted as they pleased in the governorship election of June 21, a fact that only the APC seems to be half-heartedly disputing, but it won’t be long before they are numbed into befuddlement by the unflattering manner they made their choices. They signified their preference for the unprepossessing and rambunctious Ayo Fayose, and disposed of the urbane Kayode Fayemi. In their anger, Ekiti refused to look for any other option but Mr Fayose, whom this column has warned would soon become an albatross around the neck of Ekiti.

    Well, hardly had the ink dried on the thumbs of voters when Mr Fayose started to moult to reveal his pristine self, his unflattering self, his dismaying self. At a PDP rally in Ibadan last week, Mr Fayose, still inflated with the Goodluck Jonathan helium said, “Give Jonathan peace of mind to work. When they were there, nobody disparaged them like that…This is the last time and should be the last time that anybody in this party will disparage Mr. President or the PDP. If you disparage this party, we will sack you. We will suspend you whether you are a former president, former governor or former senator.” The governor-elect was probably referring to Olusegun Obasanjo, the former president who has become the most acerbic critic of the president. But he could also very well be referring to any aspiring critic of the president.

    Ekiti may have punished Dr Fayemi with their votes, but to elect a Mr Fayose who has not the faintest idea what democracy is, nor how decent behavior is defined, nor yet what it means to be a gentleman, let alone a refined one, is to fly in the face of providence. Mr Fayose has begun to talk the talk, but that talk will improve only in obscenity, in language filled with violence, malignity and abrasiveness.

  • We’re not worried over Ekiti poll, says Ogun APC

    We’re not worried over Ekiti poll, says Ogun APC

    THE All Progressives Congress (APC), Ogun State Chapter, has denied being worried over the loss of the party’s candidate, Governor Kayode Fayemi to Mr. Ayo Fayose of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in last month’s Ekiti governorship election.

    Its publicity secretary, Mr. Sola Lawal, in a statement, said the party was confident that verifiable infrastructural rebirth effected by the Senator Ibikunle Amosun’s administration in Ogun would always be translated into electoral victory.

    It debunked suggestions that the Amosun administration embarked on panicky welfarist measures following the trouncing of APC in Ekiti State, saying that all recently executed policies were earlier planned.

    “For instance, the public distribution of severance gratuity cheques to more than 200 past political office-holders by the administration on Tuesday June 24, barely 48 hours after the Ekiti election, could not have been planned, processed and executed in such a limited period of time if it was informed by the outcome of Ekiti election,” the party stated.

    APC said the governor pointed out that the exercise was delayed by the insistence of his administration to ensure payment of backlog of pension and gratuity of civil servants before turning to past political office-holders.

    The party stated that the interactive parley the governor had with civil servants the following day could not also have been informed by the Ekiti electoral saga, since the event was part of Civil Service Week that ran between June 16 and 22.

    It added that other items on the week-long event, included tour of government projects and friendly football tournaments.

    “Similarly, the Civil Service Week also featured hand over of 200 units of affordable houses to civil servants in the state in furtherance of the administration’s policy of promoting better standards of living for civil servants.

    “No magic could have achieved this barely two days after Ekiti if the idea was a stampeded reaction to the election in question,” the party said.

    According to the APC, the Amosun administration, since assumption of office, has always paid salaries promptly, including the extra one month salary every December – a feat never achieved by any past administration before him.

    The party also observed that the administration had committed itself to clearing of backlog of pensions, leave bonuses, allowances and areas of salaries ever since assumption of office, adding that workers’ subsidised transportation scheme has become operational more than a year ago.

    “On the educational front, massive investments in schools’ infrastructure, such as intra-school road network and new modern classrooms have been effected, while bursaries have been astronomically increased and promptly paid apart from scholarship and grants to challenged students,” the party concluded.

     

  • Why Fayose’s ambition is dead on arrival

    SIR: When Donald Duke was sworn in as Governor of Cross Rivers State on May 29, 1999, he was unquestionably one of the youngest democratic governors the state and even the Nigerian nation had seen so far.  To the admiration of all, he was able to comport himself in a very dignifying manner in the course of his term of office. He attained the age of wisdom, 40, after he was through with his first term and deservedly, earned the second term in office.

    On May 29, 2003, exactly four years after Duke’s first term, on the other side of the country, Ayo Fayose was being sworn in as the Governor of Ekiti State. At the time of his swearing in, he was 43 years old.

    Throughout the over three years of his turbulent rule, it was one battle or rumours of battles or the other at the expense of good governance. Either the Governor was throwing expletives on the First Class traditional rulers like Ewi of Ado-Ekiti, Elekole of Ikole, or threatening kings who failed to do his bidding with deposition or even being rumoured to have locked one of the traditional rulers in the state in the booth of a car. He was also always busy abusing, harassing or assaulting the revered leaders in the state who had made their marks in their area of human endeavour before he was born or at most when he was still a pupil in an elementary school. In that class of men who were not spared was Chief J. E. Babatola, a Minister in the First Republic, Chief Afe Babalola, SAN, Justice Olakunle Olatawura, Justice Edward Ojuolape, Dr. Bode Olowoporoku, Chief Wole Olanipekun, SAN and a host of others.

    The other category consisted of men who were not necessarily politicians, but whose personalities and profile were considered to be political threats to the governorship of Fayose. Somehow, these consisted of men who had made a mark in their field of endeavour and who had the qualification and right to be governor of the state. This category included, but not limited, to men like Femi Falana, SAN, Segun Oni, Kayode Fayemi and Dr. Daramola, a United Nations consultant among others. Most of the people in this category were hounded out of town but unfortunately, Daramola was assassinated and the security forces are yet to unravel the facts of his assassination.

    The government of Ayo Fayose got to its lowest ebb when it graduated from government of mediocrity and brutality to the realm of direct and brazen stealing of the state’s meagre resources. At the end of the day, Mr. Fayose was impeached and like a thief at night, was smuggled out of the state under the covers of darkness.

    Lately, Fayose has been going around in Ekiti campaigning to have another bite on the governorship of Ekiti State and in a manner of conceding to the puerile nature of his truncated regime, he came back on his knees claiming to have changed. He claims that Ayo Fayose of 2003 is not the Ayo Fayose of 2014 and that his misdeeds of the former time were informed by his tender age.

    The relevant question at this point is whether at mid-forties Fayose was really too young to be thoughtful and to exercise discretion that was needed for the office he occupied? If he has truly changed as he claims now, when, between then and now, did he learn decency and discretion?

    Can the Ekiti people afford to use the future of their children to gamble and investigate if a self confessed fool at 45 is truly no longer a fool?

    Can decency, decorum and good manners be learnt at over 50? What then happens to the saying that a man does not learn how to be left handed in his old age?

    The office of the governor is not a learning field and neither is it a testing ground. Rather than subject the office and destiny of its people to test whether a person has changed from his old offensive ways and manners, it would be suggested that the government should set up a rehabilitation centre where social derelicts could be rehabilitated. This will make us test and access how and if men could truly change in their old age!

    • Soji Olowolafe

    Abuja.    

     

  • Ekiti: let the people win

    Ekiti: let the people win

    For the Ekiti and Osun elections, no prize for guessing the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) grand  strategy: Ayo Fayose would stage his adult delinquency stunts, Iyiola Omisore would scowl his sinister scowl and the petrified — and pacified — electorate would fall in line!

    It is bully tactics as perfect electoral recipe.

    A colluding presidency, pushing a failed president for second term, sure needs the destructive force of the twain, in its manifesto of fear and threat.

    It also fits perfectly into an historical pattern: whenever the South West is making progress, even amidst pan-Nigeria chaos, noxious forces, with their local office-seeking collaborators, would attempt a scuttle.

    It happened in the old West, shortly after independence.  It happened in the Second Republic.  Now, it is about to happen — in any case, the electoral invaders wish so — with President Goodluck Jonathan’s desperation to get a second term at all cost, using both Ekiti and Osun to establish some phoney toe hold in the West, despite a record of glaring presidential failure.

    The snag is: the first battle ground is Ekiti: happy graveyard of past all-muscle-no-brain federal vote fiddlers.  But the “invaders” are hardly fazed — for they have good, old “federal might” — illegal use of the police and other security agencies for partisan electoral ends.

    If you think this painted scenario is alarmist or even harsh, then you have not been closely following the Ekiti unfolding drama, in the run-up to the gubernatorial election of June 21.

    Flashback, June 8.  The local Mobile Police (Mopol) OC (officer-in-charge), one Gabriel Michael Selekenkere, reportedly threatened to “arrest” the governor, claiming “orders from above”.  His “orders”, specifically, was Vice President Namadi Sambo.  The VP was in town, the insolent policeman snapped.  So, the governor must dive for cover!

    But all of these are really not new.  Since Mopol junked its truncheon-and-shield for firearms, and assumed its notorious kill-and-go moniker under IGP Sunday Adewusi in President Shehu Shagari’s Second Republic (1979-1983), police pre-election rascality, in favour of federal electoral bullies, has become tales of the expected.  Even then, Selekenkere’s recklessness ploughed new depth in infamy.

    But there is also some satanic symbolism to it all, suggesting some inexplicable electoral death wish.  VP Sambo is the latest federal ogre.  But in 2009, it was VP Jonathan, then trying to earn stripes under Olusegun Obasanjo’s do-or-die electoral regime.  As Jonathan declared war on Ekiti then, Sambo is declaring war on Ekiti now.

    Still, between then and now, a lot has happened.  The 2007-2010 electoral conspiracy had come a-cropper, with Kayode Fayemi judicially regaining his stolen mandate.  Mr. Fayose, Ekiti’s enfant-terrible governor (2003-2006) had been thrown to and fro, out and in, and is now back gobbling his vomit as PDP candidate; and scowling face of unrepentant retardation in Ekiti.

    Olusegun Oni, principal actor in the 2007-2010 electoral judicial war, and dashing general of the fierce Ido-Osi re-run manoeuvre, has somewhat executed a Pauline conversion, back into the progressive camp.

    Not unlike Brutus who joined to kill Julius Caesar, not because he hated his imperious friend but because he loved Rome, many say Oni was part of that electoral steal not because he hated Fayemi, the winner, but because he loved Ekiti.  But saint or sinner, Mr. Oni is alive to the clear catastrophe of Fayose’s second coming, with its aridity of ideas, executive criminality and gubernatorial gangsterism.

    But alas, Opeyemi Bamidele, Labour Party (LP) candidate in Saturday’s election, appears headed in opposite direction as Mr. Oni.  The one heads for destruction; the other heads for redemption.

    Ripples’ frank opinion: the Bamidele defection is another manifestation of Nigerian progressives’ abject failure to manage prosperity, without falling upon themselves.  Mr. Bamidele was too rash.  Governor Fayemi and his court were too smug.  Things fell apart and the centre could not hold.

    Now, an election that ought to be a shoo-in, based on Dr. Fayemi’s demonstrable performance, is now the subject of some phoney speculation of “closeness”, because the proverbial wall has opened; and the treacherous lizard has entered.

    Still, on the electoral street, on both sides of the partisan divide, Mr. Bamidele is viewed much more emotively.  His LP is a PDP Trojan horse, a treacherous Jacob who voices progressive ideas but whose Esau arms are hairy and sooty with deeds of reaction and retrogress.

    If Mr. Bamidele fronts for LP and LP itself fronts for PDP (which just virtually yesterday ran Ekiti aground), even Mr. Bamidele and his new company would admit theirs is a treacherous enterprise which, given Mr. Fayose’s disastrous first coming and President Jonathan’s catastrophic current term, can only take Ekiti back to the Egypt it thought it had left forever.

    Of course, Mr. Bamidele’s foes in the Fayemi camp waste no time to trigger the Yoruba political cosmos of extreme saints and sinners, and put their former comrade-turned-antagonist pat in the hottest part of that sinners’ corner.

    Whatever happens, the notorious fact is that should the Ekiti election go awry, and the invading forces succeed to use the notorious “federal might” to rig the election, claiming a bogus victory but explaining the crime away with Mr. Bamidele, as a factor in splitting the All Progressives Conference (APC) vote, Mr. Bamidele would be installed on the throne of infamy which Mr. Oni just vacated.

    Still, the most annoying thing in all the electioneering hullabaloo is the PDP cynical posture that performance does not count; and that the electors are idiots.

    The president rode into town like some sheriff, his deputy bawling war, his police bullying everyone; implying such empty braggadocio is enough to sweep the polls.  But if Jonathan has ruled Nigeria the way Fayemi has ruled Ekiti, the country would not be in this mess.  Yet, there is so much hype about the partisan endorsement of a failed president.

    Mr. Fayose too blabs and roars.  But does he think the Ekitis would just forget four years of Fayemi’s systematic governance, and zombie-like, opt for the haphazard Fayose: his government by sub-human impulse and pedestrian thinking, which spectacularly undid them less than 10 years ago?

    From cynical water in 2003, Mr. Fayose has graduated to cynical rice and Okada bribes in 2014.  Some news sources, quoting Thai authorities, even claim the Fayose electoral rice is toxic.  If true, it becomes all the more interesting: Toxic candidate.  Toxic rice.  Toxic future!  It doesn’t get more diabolic!

    On Saturday, Prof. Atahiru Jega’s INEC has its job well cut out.  If it delivers free, fair and transparent election, the best candidate will win.  Ripples has no doubt that would be Governor Fayemi.

    But if it succumbs to the Anambra magic, and later turns round to rationalise brazen fraud, it would court untold trouble, given Ekitis’ past reactions to such shenanigan.  Federal electoral bullies, itching to use lawful force for lawless causes, had also better dust up their history books.

    Let the Ekiti people win on Saturday.  That is the only way to deepen democracy and ensure sustainable development.