The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Ekiti

  • History as Hubris

    History as Hubris

    (Looking back in amazement and amusement)

    With the electoral scalp of Ekiti still dripping blood from its infamous hunter’s bag, the PDP rigging guillotine is now turning its attention to Osun State. It may yet presage the end of the Fourth Republic. Osun state is the cosmopolitan jugular of the Yoruba nation. But as somebody famously observed of a Nigerian military despot, it does seem as if the rigging collective is not intelligent enough to know fear. The PDP is the modern equivalent of the Yoruba folklorist Ogboju Ode ninu Igbo Irunmole. (the brave hunter in the forest of mystery)

    Before our very eyes, Nigeria has become a forest of evil in which there is no paddy for jungle—as they say.  Yet one must marvel at the hubris of it all. As it was in the beginning so has it been at the end. Why is it that there is so much hubris in our history? Hubris, or pride and overweening self- regard , afflicts individuals, races, people, societies and nations. But it also seems to afflict certain historical epochs. Albert Einstein’s law of insanity—doing the same thing all over and expecting different results—seem to take over.

    As usual, the PDP political panzer division is led by renegade Yoruba children who do not care a hoot about the society and the nation as long as their personal ambition is fulfilled. It is not enough to say once again that they shall not pass. We need to ask far more fundamental questions. Is there something wrong and fundamentally rigged against rationality about the Yoruba leadership recruitment process, or is the Yoruba nationality gridlocked by fate to a fractious and eternally polarising political elite as decreed by Alafin Aole just before committing suicide?

    Ten years ago, on March 15, 2004, snooper laid the question bare to a distinguished audience of Yoruba elite and leading politicians at the inaugural Afenifere lecture. Why is it that each time the Yoruba nation achieves a significant degree of elite consensus and mass mobilization with grit and gruelling resolve, the wheels immediately begin to come off the armoured vehicle? The spoils of office and the politics of preferment and patronage begin to get in the way.

    As it was with Awolowo in 1962, 1979 and 1983, so it was with Abiola in 1993 and with Obasanjo’s doomed mainstream nonsense in 2003. Now in 2014 and with so many darts and poisoned arrows lobbing into Bourdillon, one is beginning to feel a sense of Déjà vu. Are the Yoruba too independent-minded for their own good, or too politically sophisticated to be locked into permanent romance and wedlock with a particular leadership formation?

    The old folks and usual suspects are restive again and anything might happen. As it is usually the case in Yoruba history, lucrative incentives from outside usually facilitate internal treachery. The Fulani conquest of their old empire was facilitated by internal perfidy. The ranking Yoruba warlord had become a law unto himself in a futile and ultimately suicidal bid for supremacy.

    According to Johnson, the fabled historian, even the fabled Prince Atiba, with an eye to his own future hegemony, deliberately allowed his flank to collapse in the decisive military confrontation. Now, conquest looms from another direction and mum is the word from those who are fixated on old battle formations. As they say in ancient Italian language, oggi a me, domani a te. (Today it is me, tomorrow it is you!)

    Sometimes, it is important to take a strategic gaze into the immediate past in order to unlock the dynamics of the immediate future. Ten years ago, when the issue of  endemic disunity among the Yoruba political elite was broached at that lecture at the Muson Centre in Lagos, there were at least three AD governors, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Aremo Olusegun Osoba and Otunba Niyi Adebayo, who bonded very well and were sworn to collective action.

    As at this moment, the trio of political musketeers have gone their different ways, and the falcon can no longer hear the falconer. One must shudder to imagine what would happen to the current ACN/APC governors in ten years time. Would they still be in the same political fold, or would they have been driven by political exigencies to bitter political enmity?

    Still looking at the ever widening Yoruba political gyre, it is useful to recall that ten years ago at the inaugural Afenifere lecture, the Publicity Secretary of the organization and one of the prime organisers of the lecture was none other than Prince Dayo Adeyeye. This very week, snooper looked on with ironic amusement as the same Ise Ekiti nobleman appeared before the senate nattily dressed and dandified  to be screened as a minister in the PDP government. Adeyeye, a former Assistant of Chief Olu Falae and two time senatorial candidate of AD/AC, left the fold as a result of the fallout of the gubernatorial dispute which led to the emergence of Kayode Fayemi as the flag bearer for Ekiti State.

    And there were others, particularly the stoic and decorous Dare Babarinsa, who left never to return. The three leading grenadiers of the current PDP onslaught on the Yoruba nation, Musliu Obanikoro, Iyiola Omisore and Jelili Adesiyan, all belonged at one time or the other to what is known as the progressive tendency. As it was at the beginning of the Action Group crisis, so it has been at the injury time of political football

    Given the current political configurations or reconfigurations as the case may be, and the ongoing deadly power struggle in the South West, one may not be surprised if Chief Olu Falae shows up at the coronation to wish his former boy a happy tenure, after all in politics the enemy of your enemy is a friend. It is all in the nature of these things.

    Last weekend in far way Santa Monica, yours sincerely was briskly roused from sleep at 2 A.M western coast time by a frantic call from Nigeria. It was from Wole Olanipekun, SAN, and one Nigeria’s leading legal luminaries. Wole is an outstanding Nigerian patriot and militant Yoruba nationalist with broad progressive tendencies. Like many of his Ekiti compatriots, he could also be brutally frank.

    It is a friendship that has lasted over forty years, dating back to our days together in the trenches against military dictatorship in Nigeria.  While Wole served as the Secretary General of the University of Lagos Student Union, yours sincerely was the elusive and mysterious chairman of the Unife Joint Action Committee with concurrent accreditation to four un-nameable campuses. We had met when snooper appeared at the Unilag campus as a non-executive member of the Ife students’ union executive which was then visiting.

    Wole’s beef was with how the fallout of the Fayose resurgence was being managed. He had obviously read this column. In his view, the Yoruba nation was poised at the edge of a precipice which has to be carefully managed to avert a calamitous endgame. Fayose was the proverbial fly perched precariously on the most sensitive part of the anatomy which requires considerable diplomatic exertion and engagement.

    With current developments in the old West, it is now even clearer that the Yoruba Question is an integral part of the National Question. There is no way out as long as everybody is boxed into this colonial cage of contraries. Despite the bold strides of its many outstanding and talented individuals to put Nigeria on the world map, it is obvious that Nigeria is dying from the kwashiorkor of failed leadership.

    The leadership lottery and the structural configuration of Nigeria are such that they will never allow the best and the brightest to step forward to rescue the nation. It is like going into competitive soccer with your tenth eleven. It is a hopeless mismatch. The lack of a visionary and integrative leadership and of a national consensus in critical areas of nation-building is telling, and it rears its head in profoundly ironic and totally unexpected ways..

    Political developments in Nigeria are often stranger than fiction, and they sometimes best the most imaginative efforts of the masters of magical realism. Had he been born a Nigerian, Gabriel Garcia Marquez would long have been driven out of business. Actual reality is so unrealistic that the budding novelist must not attempt to enter into any competition with it.

    Once again, the Nigerian nation is stumbling precariously on a steep political escarpment. The Yoruba nation is critically endangered. Huge conflagrations in Nigeria are usually preceded by civil war among the Yoruba political elite. Is history about to repeat itself? The next few weeks will answer that question. For the second time, and by popular demand, we bring you an article which took an early look at the fate of the post-colonial nation in West Africa. Written in 1961, it reads like the horoscope of disaster foretold.

  • Ekiti unleashes strange metaphysics

    Immediately the All Progressives Congress (APC) lost Ekiti State in the June 21 election in a fashion many have described as spectacular and unnerving, a strange spirit seems to have seized parts of the country, particularly the Southwest states. Now, everyone wants to copy Governor-elect Ayodele Fayose’s social mannerisms and re-enact his quaint political abracadabra. His victory is attributed to his distaste for intellectualism, his refusal to inflame and annoy the electorate with newfangled ideas about production and social relations, and his obvious fascination with what some analysts disdainfully call inferior taste.

    Consequently, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate in the August Osun governorship poll, Iyiola Omisore, whose reputation is as tattered as Mr Fayose’s, has adopted the latter’s idiosyncrasies in order to appeal to the rabble and the booboisie. He eats by the roadside, hops on commercial motorcycles, shares rural jokes with farmers, and winks at the common idiocies of voters whose coarseness would ordinarily have received short shrift from him. You must expect that in the 2015 elections, many Fayose goblins will be let loose on the country, complete with the devil’s metaphysics to hoodwink and mystify the electorate.

    Worse, the Southwest and nearby states are in frenzy to check the devil’s metaphysics from wafting into their states. Edo State is courting teachers, even romancing them, no matter their follies and foibles. Did they forge certificates and cut their official age, well, all is forgotten and forgiven. Should they even require the elixir of youth, the comrade governor would be glad to oblige them. What about quality of teachers and instruction? Why, in the face of vote herding, perish the heresy of quality control. Ekiti has taught a hard lesson on the vulgarisation of governance, and the lesson is well and truly learnt.

    Ogun is also giddy with excitement to please teachers and civil servants. So, too, is Osun. The Southwest is truly animated, its governors eager to dole out, if need be, more than half of their states’ recurrent budget to obviate real or imagined discontent. Visionaries will be driven out of town, so also all ambitious social engineers and self-anointed political innovators. The future is now, and the new political and democratic orthodoxy is the need for politicians to connect with their bases. Let the future take care of itself, and let the devil take the hindmost. But it won’t be long before the Southwest is intoxicated, its maudlin soul sated and entangled in the labyrinth of grassroots politics, the kind best exemplified by Messrs Adedibu, Adelabu, Fayose and Omisore, all of them past and present champions and magicians of the devil’s metaphysics.

  • Ekiti: Blues from a prodigal

    Erom Wole Soyinka, our own WS and bard, it was Blues for a Prodigal.  But from one of WS’s kindred spirits on the literary plane, Niyi Osundare, it is blues from a prodigal, in the aftermath of the Ekiti governorship election of June 21.

    Prof. Osundare, ace poet and literary teacher, may have been “rural-born and peasant-bred”, from his native Ikere-Ekiti.

    But by his take on the Ekiti election, at least from the winners’ perspective, he has become an instant prodigal — not if the old Peter Ayodele Fayose is alive and well, though the Ekiti governor-elect claims that Fayose the Terrible is dead; and a new Fayose the Reasonable is risen from those terrible ashes.

    However it stands, for Osundare, there might be no triumphant Return of the Native soon, to pun Thomas Hardy’s sixth published novel — and the reason is simple: his devastating poetic take on the Ekiti governorship election, in four stanzas, which he titled: “The People Voted Their Stomach — Blues For An Arrested Renaissance,” now trending on the social media, after release on Sahara reporters.

    The explosive opener:

    A-RICE, oh compatriots

    Your stomach’s call obey …

    Hold out your bowls for the golden grains

    Pawn your pride without delay

    Is there a more biting record of satirical poetry, of the Ekiti folk, by one of their own?

    “A-RICE, oh compatriots”, reminds you, doesn’t it, of Nigeria’s national anthem, “Arise, o  compatriots”?  And if “Nigeria’s call obey” becomes “Your stomach’s call obey”, what does that pun suggest?

    That Ekiti, the hardy land of honour, has at last fallen for the electoral corruption of Nigeria, a country of anything goes?  If so, what happens to its old ethos, under Obafemi Awolowo’s developmental politics, of honour or nothing?

    O, for more poetic lamentation!

    The Riceman is here, your lord and saviour

    Pawn your vote for his golden gift …

    The people voted their stomach

    And the dunghill usurped their future …

    Cunning Riceman with bags

    Full of tricks and daggers …

    His first coming left us all

    In ashes and fluttering rags …

    Brazen murders, strange disappearances:

    His hands drip with un-expiated crimes

    But he has an arsenal of cash and rice

    Both so vital in these degenerate times …

    And now the final lamentation, of a choice to proudly head back into the past?

    Too good for us, far too advanced

    The reigning King is too high above our rot …

    Too much bound to Excellence and Honour

    And a public garment without a blot …

    He expends state funds on the road to the Future

    He never paves the way to our bottomless stomach …

    Whoever doesn’t know in the eating world

    That the gut is a grand, demanding monarch …

    We asked for rice, he gave us Reason

    We asked for booty, he gave us the Book

    So we trooped all out to cast our lot

    For the side of the dark and loaded crook …

    Is this the lament of a fanciful, out-of-tune poet? Or the true anguish of an Ekiti patriot, struggling to retain his sanity when others have merrily and proudly lost theirs?

    Time will tell.

  • Lawmaker empowers the needy in Ekiti

    Lawmaker empowers the needy in Ekiti

    Relief and joy were thick in the air when a member of House of Representatives, Hon. Bamidele Faparusi took bold steps at helping poor members of his constituency say bye to deprivations and want.

    It was at Ode-Ekiti, headquarters of Gbonyin Local Government Area of Ekiti State when the All Progressives Congress (APC) empowered some of his constituents with vehicles, motorcycles, tricycles and other materials estimated at over N20 million.

    Most of the beneficiaries are from Gbonyin/Ekiti East/Emure Federal constituency, where Faparusi currently represents at the lower chamber of the National Assembly.

    He lamented that the long years of neglect caused the people by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)-led administrations had caused a lot of damage to the economy of the state,

    Faparusi said that the gesture, which is in tandem with Governor Kayode Fayemi-led administra-tion’s eight-point agenda on human capital development, was a sincere effort geared towards alleviating poverty among the people that had hitherto been neglected by previous administrations in the state.

    He said the programme would further complement infrastructural facilities like ICT centres, libraries and town halls that the governor had built in major towns like Omuo, Ilasa, Emure, Ode and other communities in the federal constituency.

    Faparusi explained that the beneficiaries were carefully selected in a manner that was bereft of political considerations, saying they include artisans, technicians, non-indigenes, community associations, vulnerable groups, students and other critical stakeholders in this constituency.”

    The lawmaker said APC is the only party that has a well-structured blueprint for human capital development.

    “Governor Fayemi has done creditably well through the implementation of social security for the elderly, urban renewal programme, huge investment on Ikogosi Warm Spring, renovation of all schools, laptop per student and teacher in schools and gender empowerment, among others.

    One of the beneficiaries, Mr Samuel Adeyemi, lauded Hon Faparusi for having offered effective representation since 2011 when he was elected.

    Adeyemi said: “The APC has robust rural development and intervention programmes. It is the only party that will make promises and stand by them. It has people-oriented programmes that can make lives better for the common men.”

  • Comments

    For Olatunji Dare

    Sir the Ekiti experience has once again proved that there is an invisible hand that rocks the cradle. the election was peaceful,free,fair and credible, typifying what would happen come 2015. From Bayo Ogunsanya

    Prof. I was one of those who got carried away by your analysis before the election. Honestly Governor Fayemi is too academic when it comes to governance. Fayose is a grass root politician who’ll rather dance in the street with the downtrodden than going tango in a secluded five star hotel. Fayemi distanced himself from the real voters and I think the APC should go back to the drawing board. From F. B. Tope, Osun

    Prof, I respectfully disagree with what you called The only problem in paragraph 7 of The Morning After. The main problem is that APC governors pamper after the whims of Tinubu rather than caring for the poor in society. We are certainly more than the elite and will trounce them  in every election now that our votes have started counting. Since I do not want Jonathan back in 2015, my counsel to APC us to stop burying their heads under the sand. So sorry for Ajimobi and Aregbe. From Bode Elemide.

    I read with interest your today’s column in The Nation. It only confirms the problem of political analysis in Nigeria part of which you already mentioned. Analysts should learn how to detach themselves from issues that they are directly affected. The best  political response is what Dr Fayemi has provided. Any other option will earn him more problems. Afterall, democracy is about people’s will. His case confirms the difference between skill and strategy and the fact that radicalism requires indepth knowledge of situational circumstances to flourish. Dr Fayemi, no doubt has the skills, he however lacks the strategy. I only hope that the APC camp will learn from the Ekiti experience. Every actor is important during any election. All hopes are not lost yet.  From Dr Adebayo Salami, Political Science Dept, OOU, Ago Iwoye.

    Your Editorials of today is neither here nor there nobody told you that an incumbent president can not be defeated not Jonathan nor P.D.P. Two lessons I learned from the election are that: (1) election is not won in the newspaper and noise making (2) the people know the best and what is good for them. Anonymous

    Ayo Fayose’s victory is an indication of being man of the people,who carries everybody along irrespective of what they are. How l wish this would happen in Abia State, where people choice will prevail in 20l5, rather than imposing someone on Abians.Fayose,congratulations. From Gordon Chika Nnorom,Umukabia,Abia State.

    Good day. There is no need to be apologetic about the Ekiti pre-analyses. They were all well informed and credible based on verifiable facts on ground. Ekiti is undergoing modernisation that ‘ll lead her into prosperity in the nearest future. Also, that Ekiti have a huge tribe of ‘sophisticated and discerning men and women is an undeniable fact. But, if in spite of these, they decided to vote for their stomach rather than their future, then, all we can say is  ‘goodluck’ to them. Regards. From Olu.

    Fayose’s triumphal re-emergence will for long remain a great mystery of Ekiti politics. When he disappeared from the scene in shame in 2006, many believed he would fade into obscurity and faintly remembered as one who blew up the unprecedented opportunity,brought so much pain and instability to Ekiti and, a huge reminder of the danger of uncultivated mind and undistinguished character in position of critical authority. How wrong we were! From J O Omotosho.

    Professor, do you really mean there was a proper election in Ekiti  on June 21? Whatever happened there, I strongly believe a new generation of real  leaders are being raised in the likes of Governors Fashola and Fayemi. No matter the darkness light will shine. Thanks. From Owen Browne

    Re-Ekiti: the morning after. Fayemi’s lost was caused by his policies of sanitation and moral standard which Ekiti people did not understand as a core value of democracy. From Wale Adedokun.

    Re Ekiti: The morning after. The sum total of what happened in Ekiti is only to confirm that we all now know that the people have been over-premiumed as per articulation. They are okay paperwise. To me, they are not as witty as assumed. Fayemi has made a statement and will everly walk tall. From Akinlayo. A . State of Osun.

    Dear Dare,do not be weary,you are not a failed analyst but a victim of reality. Remember that you cannot read a man’s mind from the constitution of his face. What is important thing is that the people have spoken through their votes, and the next important that Fayose should not disappoint their confidence. The rest is for time a history to vindicate. From Mmayienwata,Ekwulobia,Anambra State

    Mr Olatunji  you have played your part  well  only God will reward you. You are my man any day. Governor Fayemi should continue to thank Allah for protecting him to date if he had been killed during the rally, people will cry for  sometime and forget him. Please let him read Papa Awolowo’s book Voice of reason where he wrote that whatever happens to man in life happens to him for his own good. Thank you and God bless. Anonymous.

     

    For Gbenga Omotoso

    All of you should be ready to chase President Jonathan away now. President Jonathan is now a civilian dictator. Stopping sitting governors from moving freely in their states.This is unacceptable to us. More than two months now he couldn’t bring back our Chiboks girls. But is busy harassing and intimidating our performing governors in APC. President Jonathan is running the most fraudulent govt in the whole world. From Tayo Tola Agbaje, Garki, Abuja.

    Whoever said President Jonathan is a weak leader must be living in a fool paradise. When minister of State Defence was interviewed in Akure last week of his mission in the state, he simply said he was only there to carry out the president’s agenda.  The agenda of the president has been accomplished  by the minister. The president does not know the impilication of using mllitary to haunt a perceived opponent in democracy. From Hamza Ozi Momoh Apapa Lagos.

    Good talk Gbenga, very soon the chicken will come home to roost. Ekiti will soon realise their choice of “stomach infrastucture above genuine development. Anonymous

    Sir, you ought to write something on Sanusi Lamido Sanusi,who has now taken refuge in the Kano Emirate palace to perhaps escape justice,encouraged by some elements of the bench.When will Sanusi be arraigned? From Don Akagbusi, Ibadan.

    It is sad and unfortunate to state the  least, that those who did not join in the struggle for the cause of democracy are today benefiting from its fruits. They did not experience the pains and yet they are enjoying its benefit, they’ll do any-thing to hold grib to power and they’ll use every dirty tool to achieve their aims. The PDP and its administration is  more than ever before becoming desperately rude, the only option open to them is to adopt the strategy of   might and force i.e the use of soldiers, police etc under the control   of some undeserable elemends.it is of-course not surprising that the son of late Gen. Sani Abacha is freed of coruption charges, it is with a price,he is under bound to deliver Kano to President Jonathan in    2015. How he carry out this assignment is what we wait to see. From Peter Y. Oganto.

    Reading your satirical article captioned ‘The President’s men at work” and the political drama going on in Ekiti makes me want to cry for my beloved country and my question is ‘how did we get to this sorry state? For those who fought for the return of democracy, is this not a wasted sacrifice afteral? From fry-pan we finally find ourself in the real fire. Those ruling us as democrats are bunch of rogues and corrupt people headed by an equally inept leader. I am sad for Nigeria. Anonymous.

    Gbenga your -the president men at work, was an interesting piece. Whether you were being sarcastic or not is definitely a matter for another day. From gbenga

    Hello, Mr. Gbenga, l’m afraid, the situation that is beckoning to us now will be devastating and hazardous to this nation. It is like the President is looking for a way to split this nation. 26,000 policemen and 1,500 dogs in Ekiti. Truly a free and fair elections. Anonymous.

    Good day. Just read your yesterday’s stuff. Would this be the same Adesiyan who was said to have cried like a baby when confronted with the Bola Ige saga during his clearance in the Senate? As for Obanikoro, I think we should beg the United States to assist us with information on people who have had issues with the law in that country and are now holding public offices in Nigeria, because there are plenty of them. It is not as if one is surprised by the quality of people that populate the PDP. As they say: ‘birds of a feather flock together. That our country has fallen victim of this tribe of vampires is what we have to do something about. Enjoy your day. Regards.From Olu.

    The Ekiti election,its voting pattern and the election result all look so mysterious to me.Do we call it high scientific rigging,or was  Fayemi just systematically schemed out of office with the election only employed as a cover? It is quite inexplicable. Or, are they trying to tell us that Ekiti people have got a standard base or quality requirements needed for a political leader to merit their votes other than the leader being a pragmatic and performing one? Somebody somewhere should be able to tell Nigerians what actually happend in that election, that is if it was truly free and fair as commonly believed in various quarters. Many Nigerians, of truth, are simply confused. God have mercy. From Emmanuel Egwu.

    Gbenga your The Presidents men at work in, The Nation June 26 is most interesting to read, a superb satire. However the president’s men should do positive things to help him not negative things that hurt him at all levels. From Prof Tam David-West.

     

    For Tunji Adegboyega

    Show me your friend, as they say, and I will show you who you are. If President Jonathan truly wants to leave Nigeria better than he met it, the signs could have reflected in the type of appointments he makes as well as the quality of advice he takes and implements. I keep saying that he is a thorough-bred politician who knows how to ‘capture’ power but does not know what to do with it, apart from fighting the media, governors, lawmakers, protesters. It is regrettable that in a country like ours, the like of Jelili is a minister. From Ifeanyi O. Ifeanyichukwu, Abuja.

    Tunji, you are too much; ‘WAEC’ score 100%- Jelili will fail before it is nightfall (Amen). May your pen never run dry. Keep it up. Anonymous.

    Don’t rest your case; continue resting wallowing in the ignorance of your paid writing job. Go and ask, the best police IG was Adewusi and you made a good observation but you veered off the point by generalising him with many others in GEJ cabinet. All the same, which is better, Serubawon or Jelili? Anonymous

    Hello, Tunji in the spirit of Ramadan I comment on your article, “ Jelili’s metamorphosis”. You know when a less handsome man meets a beautiful lady, he promises heavenly but vague promises. We all saw Jelili weep at the ministerial screening at the senate and our conclusion then was that this man (Jelili) would be humble. The opposite is what we are seeing today. The other time he joined others in lambasting the Kano State governor over the emirship issue in the state, gagging the  press these days is becoming worse than in the military era. Well done, Tunji. From Abubakar Musa, Abuja.

    Good day, my brother. Your article in today’s (Sunday) paper focusing on Adesiyan was interesting as usual. Hoping that the publication of my earlier article will create more enlightenment on the dangerous characters the PDP has now unleashed on us in southwest Nigeria in the name of politics. From Engr Shoyebo.

    Don’t worry, it is a matter of time; someday he will leave office and face his people of the state over his ugly acts against ex-governor Isiaka Adeleke. If it was true that Omisore and Adesiyan beat up the former governor, he (Adesiyan) must have been power-drunk … The president should call him to order. If he believes he is a good boxer, we need him for the next Olympics. Meanwhile, NLNG’s gesture to six Nigerian universities is a welcome development. Other companies should emulate the good gesture. From Gordon Chika Nnorom, Umukabia, Abia State.

    Jelili Adesiyan is like a man who pretended to be a good man when ‘toasting’ a lady only to turn to something else after he has succeeded. .Those who accused him of having a hand in Bola Ige’s death would now say they were vindicated. A Ministry of Thuggery should be created for a’professional’ like him. Anonymous.

    You are being biased as regards your article on Adesiyan. In fact, one easily knew that you are in support of a particular party. Why on earth will you refer to a respectable Adewusi as having problem due to the 1979 elections? Articles like this only destabilise; try and be modest and not biased in your articles. Anonymous.

    ‘Jelili’s metamorphosis”, great piece. Anonymous.

    Nice one my powerful journalist. More grease to your elbow. The likes of Adesiyan should not be a leader not to talk of being a minister in this country. Anonymous

    Re: Jelili’s metamorphosis.Talonje ode aperin niwaju ode apaayan (who is an elephant hunter in the presence of a hunter who kills human beings) is too weighty a proverb, most especially when a dangerous event that was devastating occurred on December 23, 2101. Tongue is dangerous and also offers useful rewards. Happy Jelili is a pure Yoruba man and is advised to be cautious in his acts, deed and talks! And, on Re: Engineering: NLNG to the rescue. One hopes that all the specialised organisations would always, in good time, rally round all the needy institutions of learning, beginning with the primary through tertiary. NLNG is appreciated even though it contributed to the universities based on specialisation and on merit. I am happy my alma mater, Unilorin, was among, based on merit! Others in food, confectioneries, medicine/pharmacy and business management, among others, should follow suit. That is nothing more than corporate social responsibility which is exhibited worldwide. Again, kudos to the NLNG. From Lanre Oseni.

  • Ekiti 2014: A post mortem

    Ekiti 2014: A post mortem

    Eleven days on, it seems we haven’t done nearly enough of the post mortem on Ekiti gubernatorial polls, and certainly not least, the President Goodluck Jonathan’s ‘guided’, garrison democracy which formed a major part. Long after the incumbent Governor Kayode Fayemi of the APC conceded defeat to his opponent, Ayodele Fayose of the PDP, pundits of different shades and hue, would appear far from done with theorising on how the battle was won and lost. Just like a good friend from the Land of Honour tried, over the weekend, to ‘sell’ the so-called ‘Zimbabwe model’ now spreading like wild-fire, I confess that some of the emerging theories have opened vistas in political sociology that yours truly cannot claim to be schooled in, and hence thoroughly ill-equipped to even comment upon!

    The much that I can aver at this time is that the election appears to have validated the rather disturbing thesis that a passable electoral outcome should suffice to render the means – fair or foul – legitimate. I refer here to the build-up right up till the election day, particularly the widely reported cases of intimidation of APC’s Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State, and the grounding of the aircraft which would have ferried Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State to join his colleagues in the Ekiti State capital – all on the eve of the election.

    Taken together with the estimated 30,000 boots unleashed on the people in an election in which barely half a million actually voted, the nation is at once let into the into the inner sanctum of the Jonathan’s guided process. That is why I couldn’t agree more with The Nation’s columnist Gbogun Gboro when he described the exercise as ‘tainted’. I would in fact wager that it was worse given what I consider as the needless show of muscle by the security agencies. In this, the good people of Ekiti at least have a lot to be thankful for that no heads were broken by the invading army.

    All said and done, the people of Ekiti can reasonably claim to have made their choice. What remains ‘live’ is the debate as to how our compatriots from the Land of Honour could have fallen to the seduction of a supposedly morally-challenged individual over an incumbent generally credited with sterling performance.

    And if it counts for anything at all, the dominant thread appears to be that the people have resolved their preference for the democracy of the stomach as against development.

    To begin with, I do not want to be uncharitable as to join in the stomach infrastructure-trumps-good-governance chant. First, I consider the explanation not only reductionist, but one capable of undermining any real prospects of understanding of the other factors behind poor electoral showing of APC in the poll. Here, my main concern is whether the APC as a party is prepared to understand the message underlying the loss outside of that one-liner explanation of ‘stomach infrastructure’.

    This is where last week’s intervention by Governor Babatunde Fashola has become relevant particularly his rather interesting attempt to frame the dillemma in terms of stark choice between development and the seduction of populism.

    This was how the governor framed the dillemma: “Developmental work is difficult to initiate and to execute. And developmental work that brings on change which is what every election ask for, will also from time to time occasion debates and policy thrust. And which legitimately must be criticised… But it must be a very dangerous message to simply suggest that once you give people money then this is the way it will happen. It is frightening for me in a democracy”.

    He then asked: “Should we just be giving money and when people ask about security, we say that we have given you money, go and rent your own security? When people ask for healthcare, we say that you have collected money. Is that the model for development?”

    And finally: “But to simply suggest that All Progressives Congress (APC) states where a lot of development is taking place; the road to winning power and we want to keep power and I am not pretentious about that. We want to remain in power but to suggest to us that in the aftermath of this, that the way to do that is to give money, for me it is a very worrisome lesson to learn”.

    Let me start by saying that I find nothing fundamentally disagreeable with the premise of Governor Fashola’s dilemma. However, as attractive as it seems, it certainly would amount to a grave misunderstanding to frame the Ekiti issue within the narrow alley of development versus stomach infrastructure – even if one concedes that the latter indeed, played a good part in the election. This is where I find the spirited attempt to rub the matter of “wrong” choice on the voters as not only unhelpful but capable of breeding resentment for the party among the people.

    Perhaps, the fault lies as much with the media as it is with the Ekiti political elite which appear to have promoted the choice as one between the two. As one governor that has blazed the trail in matters of development – and who has since supplied a worthy template for other APC governors to follow – Fashola is probably entitled to be disappointed as many Nigerians, including yours truly, who believe that Governor Fayemi deserves a reward – and not a censure – for exemplary performance. But then, that is what democracy is all about – the right to be wrong!

    In the situation, what should be more paramount at this time is the understanding of what went wrong! Surely, by every account, the governor did well. Indeed, the general opinion is that his administration delivered real value for every kobo spent. Was it a case of governance leaving the electors behind? Was it one of alienation of the organs of the party? Or communication, as some appears to suggest? There is great merit in finding out.

    Hard as development is to define, it is even harder to achieve. Ask Lee Kuan Yew, the man credited with Singaporean miracle. If his country is pejoratively described as nanny state, it owes mostly part on the tough choices forced on them by Yew and co. Today, Ekiti, Edo or Lagos, the APC has demonstrated that it is both capable and willing to make the difficult choices needed to make a difference to the lives of Nigerians. That is what makes them different. And that is what gives hope.

    Rather than occasion despair, the Ekiti experience might actually be a blessing of sorts – an opportunity to take stock. If only for its sake and the sake of the nation in dire need of rescue, we can only hope that APC finds the language to communicate the message without compromising its mission.

  • APC’s Ekiti defeat

    APC’s Ekiti defeat

    No one can sensibly challenge the right and freedom of Ekiti people to vote into office whomsoever they like. Two Saturdays ago, they exercised that right effectively, admirably and remorselessly to enthrone their 2006 reject, Ayodele Fayose. The balloting – not the processes – was done freely, and it largely reflected the will of the people. Many nations and peoples have similarly and lawfully exercised the same right. Germany voted in Hitler in 1933, France first denounced and later embraced De Gaulle; and even more appositely, in 1945, Britain rejected their heroic war leader, Winston Churchill, who had just led them to victory in World War II. Moreover, more than 2000 years ago, Jews also rejected Jesus Christ and preferred that their Roman overlords release the criminal, Barabbas.

    In the June 21 poll, Ekiti took a good look at itself in the mirror and didn’t like what it saw. It saw in Kayode Fayemi, the incumbent governor, a reflection of themselves as aloof, inconsiderate, egotistical, elitist, cruel and sanctimonious. Promptly, Ekiti cut its nose to spite its face. I am persuaded they will rue the choice they have so cavalierly made, for they have shown neither the learning nor the strategic reasoning Ekiti needs to engage and project the finer values and virtues of the Southwest, values and virtues they were for a long time the palladium of. It turns out Ekiti is human after all.

    After its candidate in the just concluded Ekiti governorship poll gracefully and heroically conceded defeat, and was praised for the unusual gesture, the All Progressives Congress (APC) has unexpectedly announced its readiness to challenge the constitutional breaches that attended the election process. The party identified at least seven of those breaches. Nothing will of course come out of the court case. The petition will neither affect the poll result itself nor make a dent on the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) whose adrenaline in the Southwest is surging to a crescendo. Nor, it seems to me, can a court in the land be found to make any philosophical or nuanced constitutional pronouncements on the noticeable breaches. Rather than serve any useful purpose, therefore, the court case may prove futile, even dampen the value of the statesmanlike action of Governor Kayode Fayemi in conceding defeat, and distract from the more cogent discussions of Ekiti’s post-election future and the unsuitability of the PDP candidate in that election, Mr Fayose.

    There have been many analyses of what went wrong for the APC in the poll, most of them, save one or two, put squarely at the doorstep of Dr Fayemi. He probably accepts blame with the same aplomb with which he concedes defeat. Idiosyncratically aloof, too cerebral, inflexible, and insufferably apolitical are among the many faults attributed to him. In consequence, his transformation agenda for civil servants, teachers, local governments, and educational sector were said to have cost him thousands of votes and the election. When he conceded defeat and read his statement on television, he appeared shaken, as anyone who has just lost an election would be. But whether he regrets his policies, most of which have borne and are still bearing fruits, is hard to say. We couldn’t tell from his television address or from his melancholic look. He however claimed credit for redefining governance and setting a solid foundation for the state. He hopes posterity will judge him fairly and probably well.

    The APC will regard this defeat as a setback both for its political agenda in the Southwest and its national ambition to form the next government at the centre. Indeed, they may fear that the loss of Ekiti could trigger the loss of other APC states in the Southwest. Conversely, the PDP has begun to express the boundless enthusiasm that the winning of Ekiti may lead to the gaining of more states for the PDP in the region. They speak expressly of the vulnerability of Oyo, Osun, Ogun and even Lagos. Indeed, Information minister, Labaran Maku, PDP chieftain Buruji Kashamu, Governor-elect Mr Fayose, President Goodluck Jonathan himself, and other top PDP leaders indicated a few days after the election that the regaining of the Southwest was imminent. How they can hinge such gargantuan ambition on one election is difficult to tell, and especially without a concise programme, manifesto, ideology or even philosophical direction for the present and the future.

    Mr Fayose himself, it will be recalled, won the Ekiti election without articulating any programme. He had enough time to do so. That he chose not to present a programme is perhaps a function of his general paralysis and disinterestedness in intellectual exercises, and the plain fact that he is an impulsive and spontaneous politician who lacks both the discipline and the sagacity to form and conform to a systematic body of thoughts. He ran on the basis of appealing to the emotions of frustrated voters, voters long overrated by analysts and politicians alike. He deftly exploited their anger against Dr Fayemi who was accused of a disconnect between himself and the Ekiti people. If Dr Fayemi was accused of hiking school fees, then Mr Fayose, in his sophomoric dualism, would promise to slash them. If Dr Fayemi was accused of eating, then Mr Fayose would starve. If Dr Fayemi acquired knowledge, then Mr Fayose would acquire ignorance, literally and metaphorically. Dr Fayemi’s policy of industrialisation, said Mr Fayose incredulously to cheering Ekiti electorate, was a trap and a fallacy.

    Well, from October and for the next four years, Ekiti will be ruled by a man besotted to hunches, plebeian tastes and boyish and proletarian fantasies. After Mr Fayose was announced winner, there was some jubilation. But on the whole, Ekiti seemed transfixed and sobered by their fateful choice, for they know full well that having ordered the crucifixion of Dr Fayemi and asked for the release of Barabbas, the mortification that follows the betrayal of the irrefutable legacies of Ekiti’s proud and learned past is inevitable. The election of Mr Fayose twice in 11 years is already prompting hard discourses about the constituents of Ekiti persona and tradition. Even if they were angered and mystified by things too deep for them to comprehend, which things were enunciated by Dr Fayemi, was it a sufficient reason to embrace the proven tomfooleries of Mr Fayose? If, as Dr Jonathan said of the Ekiti, they had more professors per capita than any other state, could that professorial gravitas have failed to permeate the entire Ekiti society? These and other questions will be answered in the near future, for the state Mr Fayose so spectacularly misgoverned barely eight years ago has morphed so comprehensively under Dr Fayemi that the difference between the two gentlemen could become tragically stark.

    Overall, however, the value of the Ekiti election will be felt more by the chastened and chafing APC than even the exultant PDP. The PDP of course hopes that Ekiti will open the door dynamically rather than ideologically to the Southwest. Iyiola Omisore is loosely perambulating in Osun, naturally without a concise programme or vision. And seeing how Mr Fayose returned to office, the PDP is priming Adebayo Alao-Akala for a return to Oyo. He will rely on federal might and the conspiratorial actions of the Minister of State for Defence, Musiliu Obanikoro, and the Minister of Police Affairs, Jelili Adesiyan. It is the future replay of this conspiracy that the APC hopes to prevent by challenging the Ekiti election processes in court. In their first coming, the PDP had no programme or vision for the Southwest. They hope to enact a second coming on the same aversion to programmes, ideas and vision.

    The APC on the other hand needed the Ekiti defeat in order to prevent electoral disaster in 2015. Had they won, they would probably have smugly and blithely walked into a trap, if not total disaster, in 2015. Now, I think the party will be better able to gauge the quality and worth of the voters it hopes to convince to abandon their superstitions, prejudices, ignorance and sham reasoning. APC leaders must now look inwards to find the inner strength, resilience and intellectual subtlety needed to face what is certain to become a steamrolling, ungainly and coarse PDP. They must pay closer attention to how the states under their control are governed, find a balance between their vision and mission, and engineer a delicate equilibrium between leading and kowtowing to the electorate. Importantly too, they now more than ever need to reassess their programmes in order to convince themselves that the integrity of those programmes is worth defending, even at the risk of losing an election.

    There are moments when I hope that what transpired in Ekiti is that Dr Fayemi knowingly and stoically stuck to the integrity of his programmes even when he knew the pitfalls. But at other times, I fear that he was in fact politically naïve, a feeling underscored by his reported desperation to woo the electorate in the closing weeks of the campaign, when the signal of defeat had broken through his characteristic imperturbability.  If, however, he was appalled by the political behaviour of the Ekiti electorate; if he mocked and defied the offensive vacuity of his opponent; if he superiorly refused to engage in the demeaning ritual of seducing voters with the same kind of sorcery Fayose used, then he can in the truest Kiplingian sense say his costly defeat sneers at the cheap victory of his opponent, and that he had become a man in a sea of political and ideational dwarfs.

    It is also argued that Dr Fayemi lost as a result of the obtruding politics of Bola Ahmed Tinubu. This position was advanced on television and in newspapers a few days after APC’s Ekiti debacle. But the fact is that Dr Fayemi, knowing the people he governed, and sensing negative campaigns in Ondo and elsewhere, actually distanced himself from Asiwaju Tinubu. But neither his efforts nor that of Bourdillon – mythically so-called – has mitigated the campaigns. The truth is that there is nothing anyone in APC can say, and there is nothing Bourdillon can do, to erase the impression that Asiwaju Tinubu meddles in Southwest states. On the contrary, what APC leaders need to do is fine-tune their programmes, push the Southwest legislative houses closer to civic culture where Houses of Assembly stand up to their governors and offer the checks and balances the region has been famous for even before the signing of the English Magna Carta, and courageously and with equanimous firmness enact such developmental feats that those who now call for paradigm shifts will know that paradigms indeed shifted many years back.

    I have always indicated in this place my sympathies for the APC because I shudder to think what four more years of mediocrity and inaction by Dr Jonathan’s government could cause Nigeria. I would therefore advise APC leaders to approach the loss in Ekiti with the same fortitude great leaders faced setbacks. Let them convince themselves and their consciences that their programmes, their humanistic politics, and their vision for the country are impeccable. If they waver, their programmes could become diluted and diffused, and they would be unable to enjoy in the long run the approbation which only iconoclastic posterity can give.

    Dr Fayemi himself, notwithstanding his “insufficient politics”, has a great political future ahead. Mr Fayose, who is already thundering boyish vituperations and inflating himself with the vaulting ambition to eradicate APC from the Southwest, can be trusted to make Ekiti sorry to let Dr Fayemi go. And if some opinion leaders in the Southwest, many of them Dr Jonathan’s lapdogs, still see the rapprochement between Southwest politicians and Northern politicians as an unsustainable and unsuitable alliance because of the prejudices and bigotries of the past few decades, then they deserve our pity. If the APC stays the course and holds firm; and if they produce the right candidates for the defining elections of 2015, then notwithstanding the Ekiti setback, a new Nigeria could still emerge, perhaps against the run of play.

  • Ekiti election was a warning sign, says Oyegun

    The National Chairman of the All Progressive Congress (APC), Chief John Odie- Oyegun, has stated that the outcome of the Ekiti governorship election was a warning sign to the party.

    Oyegun, however, said the APC has also demonstrated the kind of politics it wants in the country.

    He spoke while addressing journalist at the Benin Airport during his visit to Edo State yesterday.

    At the state government house where he paid a courtesy visit on Governor Adams Oshiomhole, Oyegun urged the party leadership to work towards reconciliation of aggrieved members.

    He said Edo should be leading the example for other states to bring total harmony to the party.

    According to him: “We are in the eye of the storms. The whole world expects a lot from Edo. It is my hope that we are able to build the kind of movement others will be jealous of.

    “The process of total reconciliation within the party has commenced. The healing process is underway.”

    He praised Oshiomhole for the courage to be neutral when two persons from the state contested for the chairmanship position of the paper.

    The APC’s helmsman said he has tried to ameliorate issues that arose from the convention.

    Oshiomhole said the state would work with Chief Tom Ikimi, adding that people must be ready to make sacrifices for peace.

     

  • Ekiti as Kulaks Archipelago

    Ekiti as Kulaks Archipelago

    Remember to praise your enemy and to admire your tormentors.  This Orwellian admonition is not from 1984 or any work of fiction. It is from a cameo of contemporary Nigeria. When tormentors begin to commend the tormented for their patience and grace, when famous hooligans lavish praise on their victims for their exemplary civility and courtesy after a heavy beating, you can be sure that the manipulation of human emotions has reached its zenith.

    Aleksandr Solzhenitysn might have had contemporary Nigeria in mind when he wrote his great novel of tyranny, Gulag Archipelago. The novel is a tribute to the indomitability of the exceptional human spirit in the face of state terrorism at its most savage and sublime. In its roiling contradictions, its fertile and volatile political lunacies, contemporary Nigeria often recalls both pre-revolution and post revolution Russia.

    In the face of harsh repression, even the most exceptional spirit can suddenly collapse. Faced by pure terror, the greatest of human beings slander themselves and tell unbelievable lies against themselves. When Stalin hauled his intellectual superiors and more gifted rivals before the law for treason, they confessed to unimaginable crimes they had not committed and asked for forgiveness. To clinch matters for the terrorist state, they dismissed themselves as being unworthy of mercy and deserving of the most cruel treatment ever imaginable. It is the political equivalent of having an out of body experience. You view yourself with clinical severance, as if it was someone else.

    As a result of the frenetic pace of events and the programmed disruption of normal perception, the general disorientation of most Nigerians proceeds apace. Tormentors praise the tormented when they meekly submit to their own brutalization. The meek will surely inherit the earth if they continue to show meekness, they chorus . They will be remembered and honoured for their brand loyalty, they trumpet in alleluia. They are future leaders, they chant to the already enchanted.

    The ploy is to drum out the ethical horror of the crime in the universal refrain of giving peace a chance, thereby making it impossible for the few discerning ones to think out of the box. In the event, it is now impossible to make sense of what has just happened in Ekiti. Yet it is our business to make sense out of the senseless. Otherwise, there is no point in writing a column. Is this a major electoral shellacking of the APC and Kayode Fayemi’s much rhapsodised elitist developmental politics, as we are programmed to believe or an elaborate hoax as we are forbidden from thinking?

    Let us make a confession because there is no point playing a superman in these matters. For most of the week, Snooper himself has been too distressed and pole-axed to make any sense of the bewildering turn of events. One felt like a boxer so disoriented by punishment that he went and sat on the laps of his opponent. But this time around, it is the thief who has fled with the evidence that has returned to nail himself.

    When the congenitally ungallant praise others for their gallantry, something fishy is surely afoot. It is surely curious when the ranking members of the PDP, notoriously truculent and unsportsmanlike in defeat, begin to praise a Fayemi for his quick surrender and hasty capitulation to the PDP rigging leviathan.  Up till this moment, the same PDP buccaneers did not raise an eyebrow about Jonathan’s public refusal to congratulate the new Emir of Kano. Nor did they demur about his unsportsmanlike rectitude in congratulating the opposition  for successfully holding a national convention against all odds. The two examples are instances of bitter defeat for the PDP which its leadership have refused to graciously swallow. He who comes to gallantry in political sweepstakes must come with clean motives.

    While the PDP and its accomplices and collaborators in the corrupt sections of the Nigerian media were deliberately muddying the water in an attempt to obscure another major electoral crime against humanity, it was the electorally humbled Fayemi who was trying to provide a sane and sober rationalisation of what has just happened in the land of rugged hills. In what historians may judge a moment of painful clarity and clairvoyance, Fayemi described his defeat as owing to the emergence  of a new sociology of the Ekiti people.

    If the PDP power mongers actually understand the nuanced and sophisticated dimensions of this statement, it would have occurred to them that they rejoice too soon.  Fayemi himself might have been speaking tongue in cheek in a moment of tormenting despair. Known for their rural hardiness, their folksy heroism and abhorrence of foreign tyranny, the Ekiti people have always acted in unison when they set the template for political integrity and fidelity to a noble cause. The nature of Fayose’s resurgent ascendancy is so deeply polarising that it has set the Ekiti people against themselves.

    Irrespective of party affiliation, there is now a Maginot Line between the Ekiti business and educated elite on one hand and the peasant and emergent lumpen-proletariat class on the other. Fayose, a petit-bourgeois with crossover appeal to the lumpen and peasant subclasses, has once again positioned himself as a champion of both. The canons of political contention will be booming in Ekiti land for some time to come. The kiriji sound of canon-firing will not be coming from Igbajo this time around but from the Ekiti hills. If you cannot scale the hilly ascent in haste, then do not visit the land of birds and eggheads for some time to come.

    If this is truly a revolt of the masses, Ekiti has had it coming for quite a while. Long-rhapsodised and eulogised  as the land of the educationally over-achieving, Ekiti has been falling by the wayside for quite some time. It now boasts of one of the worst records in secondary school certificate examination. In addition, there had been a growing alienation among the youth as the education industry froze up sending thousands of educated but unemployable young people swelling the ranks of the gainfully unemployed.

    As for the peasants fabled for their political fidelity and integrity, it would appear that over the years, they have grown cynical and weary of succeeding governments that could not significantly improve their lot even as they worsen the plight and prospects of their children. In the event, they have reverted to the traditional Yoruba skepticism about millennial political expectations. It is now the politics of the belly or stomach infrastructure. In the absence of any overarching social constructs that significantly improves their lot,  what the bird eats is what the bird flies with.

    It is Ekiti as Kulaks Archipelago. Remember the kulaks? The kulaks were the upper-deck Russian peasant class. They were notorious for their bizarre fetishes, their superstitious idiocies—according to Marx— and above all their counter-revolutionary consciousness. Lenin waged  a violent and vicious war against them before he could succeed in collectivising their farms for the major agrarian  reforms necessary to launch  the new socialist republic on the path of agricultural self-sufficiency. Lenin killed off quite a lot of them . Stubborn and hardy, the kulaks could not understand why they should  give up their long-held feudal family holding for some new fangled experimentation in collective farming. They fought off Lenin with savage ferocity and the state response was equally savage. In the event what was supposed to be a revolution for the masses became a social laboratory for their clinical extermination.

    Peter Ayodele Fayose does not claim to be a revolutionary or intellectual. He wears his HND badge as if it is rare honour from the British Empire. His mind is uncluttered by books or learning. This gives him a ferocious focus with an eye on the main chance. Fayose is an  equal opportunity contrarian and rabble-rouser. If there is something initially endearing about his populist bravura, the opportunity cost would soon be found very prohibitive. Those who thought that they have used Fayose to unhorse the progressive tendency in Ekiti would soon find out that Fayose’s abiding animus is not against the progressive tendency as such but elite tendency as a whole.

    Irrespective of party affiliation, the much lionised Ekiti professoriate will have to run for cover. It is not going to be a battle against APC but a war against traditional power barons, including traditional rulers who must now look furtively over their shoulders, if the heavy duty beads permit . Snooper does not think that General Obasanjo would be in a hurry to visit soon so as to update himself on Fayose’s poultry farming. Poultry politics is not for poltroons. As for the Lagos boys who were collecting monthly tithes during Fayose’s first coming, they will discover to their peril that you cannot cross the same river twice. Fayose is a shrewd businessman who knows his real political IOUs.

    As this column never tires of propounding, rigging comes in three stages. There is rigging before the election, rigging on election date and rigging after the election.  By encouraging Opeyemi Bamidele to desert his political homestead, the PDP, through its political doppelganger the Labour Party, managed to simulate a riggable environment on Ekiti.

    By covertly simulating public discourse praising Fayemi for his gallantry, his urbane diffidence and statesmanlike capitulation to obvious electoral heist, the PDP has been trying to fake a public consensus in order to make what happened in Ekiti look like a flawless and transparent electoral subjugation. This is a classic instance of rigging after the election.

    But while the collateral damage to the progressive cause and consciousness is enormous and the setback for the regional integration agenda is substantial, the reversal is not fundamental. The reason is simple. Fayose is congenitally and constitutionally incapable sober rationality and nuanced political judgement. After all, a revolt is not a revolution. A revolution requires intellectual philosophers.

    Very soon, Ekiti will be embroiled in major political tumults and tempests. Whatever may be their current political ire, a love and respect for orderliness and sane hierarchy is wired into the political DNA of the average Ekiti person. After liberating them from Ibadan tyranny, Fabunmi asked for a crown and was promptly driven out of town. Very soon, they will be looking for philosopher-kings again. And the birds and bards of real freedom will sing on the Ekiti  hills once more.

     

  • Ekiti: Nigeria’s democracy on critical support 

    Ekiti: Nigeria’s democracy on critical support 

    Truth has indeed triumph (sic) in Ekiti. Shame on people who are paid to image launder for people with impeccable moral and intellectual credentials. The people have spoken. Period and shut up please”. That was the insulting and gloating text message sent to me by a reader who was reacting to my short take, last week, on the Ekiti polls titled ‘Ekiti: Truth Will Triumph’. I wrote, “As is now usual with Nigerian elections under President Goodluck Jonathan, the number of security agents will probably outnumber voters in today’s polls. On one hand is a candidate yet to clear himself of corruption and murder charges currently in court. He confronts an incumbent with impeccable moral and intellectual credentials. There is a candidate whose loftiest idea of government was to build poultry sheds. There is an incumbent with sterling performance in infrastructure provision and social service delivery. In between is a decent progressive who unfortunately finds himself on the wrong side of history. Ekiti is a land of honourable and valiant people. They can neither be deceived nor intimidated. We shall ultimately celebrate the triumph of truth”.

    Despite the outcome of the election, I take nothing back.

    Despite Governor-elect, Mr Ayodele Fayose’s purported victory, Dr. Kayode Fayemi maintains the moral and cerebral high ground. In the aftermath of the polls, Dr Fayemi is suddenly being accused of sundry sins. Significantly, no one has said that he ran a corrupt government or stole Ekiti State’s funds. Yet, even after he was pronounced elected as Governor, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) maintained that Mr Fayose is still being prosecuted for alleged multi-billion Naira fraud involved in his administration’s Integrated Poultry project. Indeed, he was impeached and disgraced out of office by his own political party for that alleged offence. It speaks volumes of our diseased democracy and contaminated politics that such a person could have been presented to the electorate by a political party and claimed a landslide victory. The triumph of this kind of tainted truth can only be ephemeral and transitory. As for my friend, Honourable Opeyemi Bamidele, it can certainly not give him enduring fulfilment that all he has been able to achieve is help play the spoiler and enthrone the same retrogressive forces he had fought all his life as a committed progressive.

    Fayemi has remained an icon and role model of grace, decorum and honour in what is supposed to be his moment of travail. The last has certainly not been heard of this unique intellectual, democrat even if misunderstood reformer in the country’s politics. After rain comes sunshine and after darkness the glorious dawn, the great Awo once intoned. So shall it be in Ekiti. I am amazed at how uncritically some of our most respected public analysts have accepted and celebrated the outcome of the Ekiti polls as truly reflecting the will of the people. Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN) of Lagos State is one of the few who has taken a deeply introspective and philosophical look at the implications of the Ekiti polls both for decent human behaviour and democratic sustainability. Too many of our public commentators have been surprisingly desensitised to the unacceptable level of militarisation of Ekiti before, during and after the election. This has now become a normal feature of Nigeria’s abnormal elections.

    A Commander-In-Chief and his military high command currently being humbled and hobbled by a rag tag Boko Haram force can dissipate scarce resources as well as the energy, passion and focus of the security agencies on the conduct of armed elections at a time when they acknowledge the country is at war. This is the height of irresponsibility. All of a sudden the armed forces and other security agencies have become politically hyperactive. Minister of State for Defence, Musiliu Obanikoro and his Police Affairs counterpart, Abdul-Jelil Adesiyan, are given free access to Ekiti State. They reportedly deploy professional security personnel for partisan purposes. Yet, the mobile police tear gas the convoy of the incumbent governor. An army captain threatens to shoot another governor and prevents him from campaigning for his party in Ekiti State. The aircraft of another of the party’s governors is grounded and his freedom of movement curtailed.  When security agents get used to defying constitutional political authority, the entire democratic process is endangered. It has happened in the past. Let us be careful. There is darkness visible. Nigeria’s democracy is on life support.

    It is of course not impossible that Mr Fayose won the election. But is the margin of that victory defensible? Is the scale of his purported triumph logically and rationally justifiable? Could Governor Fayemi have been so bad that even the people of his home town would vote against him? It has been argued that the Fayemi government was ‘disconnected’ from the people. Now, my question is this: What is the first level and basis of a government’s ‘connected-ness’ with the people? Is it not performance? Now, even Fayemi’s harshest critics concede that he performed. He built roads. He modernised schools. He built health care facilities. His education reforms led to marked improvements in Ekiti State student’s performance in internal and external examinations. His health policies led to a reduction in maternal and child mortality rates. He is accused of not sharing public funds to the people (stomach infrastructure). But his government had the first comprehensive social security scheme for the elderly in the country. So the majority of those elder citizens and their relatives in all local governments voted against him? He is said to have been too elitist and distant from the people. Yet, he held Town Hall meetings in virtually all communities in the state to gauge the feelings of the people. His government introduced the first community participation in the budgetary process in the country. That way it was the priority projects identified by the various communities that were reflected in the budget and implemented.

    I am not saying Fayemi is a Saint. Let he who has no sin cast the first stone. It is most probable that even though he meant well, he did not communicate his government’s policies and strategies effectively enough. Post- election analysis also indicates that his administration alienated and did not empower his own party foot soldiers enough. Those are lessons for the future. But I insist that these factors cannot explain the margin by which he purportedly lost the election. Perhaps the unkindest cut has been from my favourite columnist, Ishaq Moddibo Kawu, of The Vanguard who cited Asiwaju Tinubu’s alleged overbearing influence as being responsible for the APC’s loss of Ekiti. While respecting Asiwaju as his leader, Fayemi tactfully and cleverly kept him at a distance from his administration in Ekiti. I can authoritatively say that Tinubu did not have a single nominee in Fayemi’s cabinet. Fayemi wisely cultivated local leaders like Otunba Niyi Adebayo and Chief Afe Babalola so that Ekiti people would not see him as being dictated to from Bourdillon. Indeed, the failure or reluctance of Tinubu and the other party leaders to rein in the governors and enforce party discipline for fear of being tagged overbearing has led to alienation between the governments and the party in many APC states that must be urgently addressed.

    For now, I congratulate Mr Ayodele Fayose on his victory. He sounds much wiser and more mature now. If he has learnt the appropriate lessons from his first outing, Ekiti will be the better for it. Ultimately, unorganised spontaneity, cynical populism and energetic mindlessness cannot be the basis of sound and progressive governance.