The governorship election in Ekiti State was the most keenly contested in its history, with the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, emerging winner. Governor Ayo Fayose lost in his bid to install Prof. Kolapo Olusola of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as his successor. ODUNAYO OGUNMOLA examines the factors which worked against the PDP and those that aided the APC’s victory.
The July 14 governorship election marked another watershed in the history of Ekiti State. There will be power shift on October 16.
The All Progressives Congress (APC) is on its way to power after dethroning the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). It is regaining the power it lost in the June 21, 2014 poll.
The broom party and its leaders have been savouring the joy of victory.
It was a “sweet revenge” for the APC and its governorship candidate, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, who endured the pain of losing the crown, despite his performance in office during his first term.
But the tide has changed, with the declaration of Fayemi as the governor-elect by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). The bitter pill of defeat was forced down the throats of outgoing Governor Ayo Fayose and his protégé, Prof. Kolapo Olusola.
Fayemi, the APC candidate, polled 197, 459 votes. Olusola, the PDP flag bearer, garnered 178, 121 votes.
Fayose lost his local government area (Irepodun/Ifelodun) to APC, despite his towering stature as the governor, party leader, chairman of PDP Governors’ Forum and a presidential aspirant.
That Fayose was rejected in his council was an indication that his popularity has declined sharply and this may do an incalculable damage to his presidential ambition.
It was a dramatic twist of fate for Fayemi, who left office on October 15, 2014, amidst controversies that surrounded that year’s election.
Fayose staged a comeback in 2018, eight years after leaving power. Fayemi has staged a comeback after four years outside the Government House.
Fayose tried many tricks and to prevent the pain of handing over power to the man he upstaged, blackmailed and pilloried endlessly. He did everything possible, including a ten-year ban from public office, to stop Fayemi. But, fate had other ideas for Fayemi.
Some of the actions taken by the wily Fayose in the run-up to the election included the collection of workers’ Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) and writing down the Voters’ Identification Numbers (VINs) in a bid to give his candidate an advantage at the poll; promotion of 45,000 workers without payment of the promotion arrears; the recruitment of 2,000 new workers and payment of N3,000 into accounts of workers and pensioners as ‘mobilisation’ for the election.
On July 10 when President Muhammadu Buhari was in town to campaign for Fayemi, Fayose ordered commercial drivers and motorcyclists off the streets to ensure that APC members were stranded to embarrass APC national leaders with an empty stadium.
The most egregious pre-election trick was the alleged contrived theatricals of “teargas attack by mystery policemen in the presence of his security aides” a situation that has him to wear a neck brace since then.
The drama was believed to have been hatched to whip up sympathy, which was achieved to a large extent.
The election was full of surprises. For the first time in Ekiti, the candidate that won in the two largest towns, Ado and Ikere, failed to win the governorship seat, unlike what it used to be in the past.
Although Olusola won in the two Fayemi narrowed the gap to ensure that the lead achieved by the defeated candidate did not damage his chances.
Having succeeded in narrowing his rival’s lead in the four council areas where Olusola won, Fayemi leveraged on the votes in the grassroots where he got substantial votes to get the crown.
The four council areas won by Olusola are Ado, Ikere, Efon and Emure.
Fayemi won in 12 council areas of Moba, Ido/Osi, Ilejemeje, Oye, Ikole, Ekiti East, Gbonyin, Ise/Orun, Ekiti Southwest, Ekiti West, Ijero and Irepodun/Ifelodun.
The analysis of the result shows that Fayemi won all the five LGAs in Ekiti North senatorial district where he hails from, four out of six LGAs in Ekiti South Senatorial District where Olusola hails from and three out of five LGAs in Ekiti Central senatorial district.
For the first time in 19 years, PDP lost its hitherto strongholds in Ekiti where it had been winning elections. They are Ido/Osi, Ijero and Ise/Orun local government areas.
Fayemi leveraged on the votes of core civil servants (workers in ministries, departments and agencies), voters at the grassroots (in appreciation of projects he executed there during first term), Hausa and Ebira communities.
Olusola enjoyed the backing of primary and secondary school teachers and local government workers who are die-hard loyalists of Fayose, although they are being owed arrears.
Fayemi would have won by a higher margin, but the label of herdsmen crisis hung on his party (APC) made many voters changed their mind to vote for PDP.
Polarisation of pdp/imposition of candidate
Fayose’s decision to anoint Olusola as his preferred candidate almost a year to the election signaled the beginning of the end of the PDP four-year hegemony. The decision caught many prominent PDP governorship aspirants, leaders and members unawares and triggered their exit in droves to other parties, particularly the APC.
The time lag between the announcement of Olusola as his successor and the time of the election (ten months) gave Fayose’s ‘opponents’ within the party an ample time to plan a counter-strategy PDP went into the election as a “divided house.”
The governor personalised the party, took its official businesses to the Government House rather than the state party secretariat, imposed candidates for offices based on his whims and caprices and cracked down on anybody who challenged him.
Fayose forgot that he rode into power in 2014 on a united coalition of leaders and members who held the fort in their units, wards and local government areas to ensure that he won convincingly.
Allowing prominent party leaders, like Senator Clement Awoyelu, Prof. Tunde Adeniran, Prince Dayo Adeyeye, Chief Adebisi Omoyeni, Chief Abiodun Aluko, Dr. Sikiru Lawal, Ambassador Dare Bejide and Mr. Owoseni Ajayi, to leave the party was a “political suicide.”
All what the aggrieved leaders asked for was an assurance of a transparent primary. But, Adeyeye who participated in the primary, had to leave over Fayose’s alleged intimidation and order that delegates for the primary must wear the same cloth to identify those who voted for his preferred candidate.
The aggrieved PDP members saw the APC as a sanctuary and they flocked there in droves after their former party became polarised.
These party leaders who could not tolerate Fayose’s alleged dictatorship and arrogance had no option than to leave the party while others who did not leave were not committed to the election because of their sidelining.
Fayose ought to have stooped to conquer by doing everything possible to prevent Adeyeye, who has a large bloc of supporters in the party, from leaving. But, he called the former minister’s bluff.
The governor failed to manage the post-primary crisis believing that he has the party and the state in his pocket.
That Adeyeye’s home base, Ise/Orun, a hitherto PDP stronghold, fell to the APC was a protest vote against Fayose whom they believed worked against their son’s governorship ambition.
The votes won by APC in Ise/Orun cancelled out the gains made by Olusola in his native Ikere.
Disunity in Olusola’s hometown and the Olukere factor
Any candidate hoping to win election must profit well from the “homeboy factor”. He must win well in his unit, ward, hometown, local government area and senatorial district and expects that everything goes well in other places. That was not the case with Olusola.
His hometown, Ikere, was divided. Signs that all was not well in the town manifested with the fact that the town produced three other governorship candidates who ran on the platform of different parties.
Two former deputy governors, Chief Abiodun Aluko and Chief Adebisi Omoyeni, ran on the platforms of Accord and Mega Party of Nigeria respectively while Mr. Tosin Ajibare contested on the platform of Independent Democrats.
APC enjoys a strong followership in Ikere and the party members do not believe in an Olusola candidacy and were ready to vote for the candidate of their party despite the perceived threats not to do so.
Fayose’s celebrated confrontation with the Olukere of Ikere, Ganiyu Obasoyin, damaged Olusola’s chances a great deal because of the massive followership he (Obasoyin) commands in the town.
The remand of Obasoyin in prison custody for about one month on a murder case believed by his followers to be a trumped up charge without thinking of its political consequences affected Olusola in the town.
Olukere’s followers and sympathisers who believed that the governor victimised him dumped the son of the soil and mobilised for Fayemi on election day. The APC flag bearer got more votes in Odo Oja, Oke Osun, Oke’kere and Afao Quarters.
Had Olusola secured bloc votes from Ikere, the result of the governorship poll would have been a different story all together.
Unity in apc and absence of post-primary crisis
Thirty three aspirants showed interest in the APC governorship ticket. There were fears that the party would implode.
Although the first primary held on May 5 ended in a fiasco when violence reared its ugly head, the repeat primary held on May 12 amidst tight security was successful and produced a result acceptable to the aspirants.
Fayemi’s deft move in visiting the co-contestants few hours after the primary was conducted was a masterstroke that prevented the party from being plunged into chaos.
The governor-elect also set up a Candidate Advisory Committee, which incorporates all the aspirants and senior party leaders were gestures of their inclusion in the governorship project.
Two of the candidates, Mr. Opeyemi Bamidele and Mr. Bamidele Faparusi, served as Director General and Deputy Director-General of the Fayemi Campaign Council respectively.
The efforts of APC national leaders President Buhari, former National Chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun; National Leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu; former Interim National Chairman, Chief Adebisi Akande- saved the party from being consumed by a post-primary crisis.
The President’s gesture of inviting the aspirants to a dinner at Aso Rock Villa with the national leaders disarmed any of the contenders that may be planning to work against Fayemi’s victory.
It is on record that no aspirant left the APC after the primary; they were united behind Fayemi to achieve victory for their party and followed him to many parts of the state to campaign.
This helped Fayemi to concentrate on campaign with peaked with the flag off and final mega rallies attended by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo and President Buhari respectively.
Federal Government’s support for apc
The APC and its candidate, Fayemi, enjoyed the backing of the Federal Government in terms of deployment of manpower, resources and materials.
Buhari alluded to this at the dinner with the aspirants when he promised to give maximum support to the party’s candidate.
During the valedictory Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting held in honour of Fayemi when he was leaving the cabinet as Minister of Mines and Steel Development, the President promised to attend the governor-elect’s swearing-in in October.
Fayemi’s governorship project was backed by fellow ministers, heads of federal agencies, governors and National Assembly members elected on the APC platform.
All of them worked together to ensure victory for their man and it is on record that Oshiomhole leveraged on his experience as a labour leader to meet labour unions in Ekiti governors met with their indigenes and this worked to an extent in Fayemi’s favour.
Alleged anti-people policies
Fayose executed some policies perceived to be harsh, which set him against some stakeholders. One of the perceived anti-people policies of the Fayose was the imposition of higher taxes without due consultation with those to be affected. The taxes affected shop owners, market women, butchers, lorry and tipper owners, hoteliers.
The most controversial of the taxes is the N1,000 education levy imposed on each pupil in private and public secondary schools in a state that enjoyed free education under the last administration.
Owners of vehicles parked in unauthorised places paid N10,000 to recover their vehicles which residents perceived as too exorbitant.
The second round of demolition of houses to give way for the urban renewal project of the Fayose administration sparked a big controversy in Ado-Ekiti. It displaced thousands of residents.
Fayose also had a face-off with petrol dealers when some suspected thugs vandalised their filling stations in the heat of disagreement with their union.
The development led to a three-week strike by fuel dealers, which imposed hardship on residents many of whom travelled to neighbouring states to buy the commodity.
Many private companies and corporate organisations, including Guaranty Trust Bank and Coca Cola were forced to close shop over perceived harsh policies with many Ekiti indigenes working there losing their jobs.
Neglect of rural areas
PDP lost large chunk of votes in the rural areas because most of the communities did not feel the impact of Fayose’s government.
Fayose concentrated development projects to Ado and Ikere to a large extent and eight other big towns unlike Fayemi who spread development projects to the remotest parts of the state during his tenure.
This explained why he (Fayemi) garnered much votes in the grassroots than Olusola.
