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Tag: Ekiti

  • Ekiti: Out of self-peonage

    On July 14, Ekiti snapped out of self-peonage.  From their odyssey, you could see the grim trap — and shame — of electoral folly; and the putative release — and joy — of electoral wisdom.

    Ekiti Kete are living proof of the severe beauty of democracy.  Choice is never wrong.  But you enjoy your wisdom, or endure your folly.

    But before you clobber the Ekiti masses, held captive by Ayo Fayose’s subversive “ponmo” aka  ”stomach infrastructure”, the big rod is for the Ekiti elite progressives, whose umpteenth fissuring birthed Fayose’s Stone Age demagoguery.

    From the results, Dayo Adeyeye’s Ise-Orun glorious vote haul cancelled out homeboy, Kolapo Olusola’s handsome lead in Ikere-Ekiti.

    Had Adeyeye not fallen out with Fayose, pleading grand betrayal, Olusola, other things being equal, could have coasted home to victory; and Fayose’s hegemony of shame continued.

    Yet, Adeyeye himself had no business with the political conservatives.  He stormed off, in a huff, over Kayode Fayemi, as Action Congress (AC) gubernatorial candidate, in 2007.

    Adeyeye’s, therefore, is a grim metaphor, for how South West progressives self-dissipate to swell the conservative ranks, to retard the region.

    From the Action Group (AG) blowout in the 1st Republic (1960-1966) and the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) crisis of the 2nd Republic (1979-1983), to the Olusegun Obasanjo reactionary South West “capture” of 2003, it’s a Sisyphean curse of self-dissipation, with catastrophic consequences.

    Remember Sisyphus in Greek mythology?  He was the one eternally condemned to rolling a stone up the hill.  But no sooner had the stone reached the top than it would roll back, for Sisyphus to restart his harsh chore!

    That has been the South West progressives’ gather-and-scatter tale.   They would work hard; quarrel even harder; self-dissipate and hand over power to the conservatives, to duly shatter, what they had built.

    That happened in post-Bisi Akande Osun.  It was utter paralysis during the Olagunsoye Oyinlola years (2003-2010), before the current Rauf Aregbesola restoration, bordering on renaissance (2010-2018).

    In Oyo, those years were just chaos.  Obasanjo’s political garrison commander, Lamidi Adedibu — not Governor Rashidi Ladoja — held sway.  Aside from partisan terror, Adedibu’s thugs levied war on the populace, with the Police looking elsewhere.

    Even in Ogun, where Otunba Gbenga Daniel flirted with conservative progressivism, the latter years of the self-christened Ogidi Omo collapsed under hideous crimes and sundry insecurity.

    Though current governor, Ibikunle Amosun, is at best a progressive centrist, contrasted to an Aregbesola, a progressive radical, there is a huge difference between Amosun and OGD, in quantum and quality of infrastructure delivery.

    This just confirms the potency of progressive peer-influence in the West, with the more interior states, taking positive cues from coastal Lagos, blessed with the gubernatorial continuum of Bola Tinubu, Babatunde Fashola and Akinwunmi Ambode, blazing a golden developmental trail.

    That positive peer influence would appear to have galvanized Oyo, under Abiola Ajimobi, another progressive centrist, to urgent renewal; with its huge and stellar infrastructure delivery and enhanced security, after the antediluvian tenure of Adebayo Alao-Akala, under “Alaafin Molete” Adedibu’s amala-and-abula politics.

    Which, in a way, makes this Fayemi Ekiti triumph, over the Fayose plague, all the more exciting, with the prospect of Ekiti rejoining the developmental train.

    Still, like the Greek Sisyphus, Fayemi is condemned to clearing Fayose’s debris (the months of salary backlogs, for starters), instead of picking up from where he left off four years ago.

    But let no one, four years hence in 2022, come bickering again over unconsummated pre-election deals, driving bitter partisans to fresh re-alignments, across ideological lines, that most times short-change the people.

    Fayemi, both in the vortex of such past allegations and clear victim of their blowouts (witness Fayose’s stupendous triumph in 2014), has the singular duty and honour to ensure such don’t repeat themselves.

    And Adeyeye too, after 11 years, must have realized you don’t look pretty by cutting your nose to spite your face, as he makes a triumphal return to his progressive habitat.

    Still, the South West progressives must learn to fix their intra-party politicking, and make jockeying for nomination just, fair and equitable.  Otherwise, a travesty like Fayose would always be a heartbeat away.

    Fayose! That has got to be the most damning blight on Yoruba civilization in recent history — empty, brash, boastful, uncouth, rude and crude: an unfazed believer, if ever there was one, in the ultimate triumph of evil over good!

    In 2014, he heralded his come-back, with fierce thugs in tow, by sacking a sitting court in Ado Ekiti.

    Four years later, he is exiting power by seizing state radio to announce fake election results! What outlawry!  What (un)gubernatorial banditry!

    But then, since the apple never really falls far away from its mother tree, Fayose’s power nativity could only but bear a monstrous offspring.

    Fayose first came, in 2003, with Obasanjo’s desperation to “capture” the West, after Obasanjo’s ringing rejection of 1999.

    Even after that collapsed in shame, the intrigue that yoked political father and son tearing them apart, he clawed back in 2014, under another desperado, Jonathan, essaying yet another West “capture”; after returning evil for the Yoruba support, in his 2011 presidential win.

    Jonathan was another Obasanjo creation.  Like Fayose, he fell out with his godfather.  Incidentally, Fayose has been a blight on Ekiti, just as Jonathan was a blight on Nigeria.

    Besides, Fayose marks the last of Obasanjo’s failed era — Olagunsoye Oyinlola (Osun), Rashidi Ladoja and Adebayo Alao-Akala (Oyo), Gbenga Daniel (Ogun) and the late Olusegun Agagu (Ondo).  Fayose (Ekiti) is clearly the worst of the lot: neither intellect nor comportment; just plain demagoguery!

    If the other Yoruba states have cause to rationalize these others, for some admirable traits — Agagu was a brilliant mind; and Oyinlola, like Alao-Akala, is an avuncular and personable soul — the Ekiti have no business tolerating Fayose’s starkness twice!  Happily, all that is in the past now!

    Notwithstanding Obasanjo, responsible for all this debacle, is apoplectic; and on another deceptive power-racketeering, en route to 2019!  He must think most Nigerians ardent fools!

    Still, Fayemi as governor, should imbibe better people skills and emotional intelligence, the two crucial fields Fayose has milked, in his soulless people deceit.

    Brilliance and erudition need not be a dissonance in governance.  They are key to driving developmental policy, as Fayemi excellently proved during his first coming.

    But people skills yoke the people to you, even during the hardest and most trying of times.

    Brilliance as hubris was Fayemi’s spectacular failure the last time round. This second coming provides excellent opportunity to correct those grave flaws.

  • Ekiti: The mo(u)rning after

    Today, Hardball “pilfers” from Professor Olatunji Dare’s column on the Ekiti gubernatorial election, which he called “Ekiti: the morning after”.  That was on July 17, when victory was still fresh; and defeat was so stark.  Bitter-sweet, that’s how life rolls!

    But a week later, both defeat and victory are seeping in, and that morning, of golden rays for the victors, and hanging clouds for the losers, could well be assuming some heavy hues  — and in both camps too.

    Hence, a Hardball pun: “Ekiti: the mo(u)rning after!

    Perhaps to symbolise new mourning for Governor Ayodele Fayose, the self-acclaimed “irunmole to nje jollof rice” (the demon that devours and savours jollof rice), who nevertheless failed to instal his side-kick, Prof. Kolapo Olusola, his deputy as his successor as he had bragged, it’s yet mo(u)rning — that pun again — on humility day.

    From the Oshoko camp, it’s been jeremiad all round.  Once boisterous, the Oshoko has since been eating crow — not the delicious jollof rice, in the best spirit of stomach infrastructure, buried under ponmo, shaki, edo, fuku and allied orisirisi, the incomparable innards of the Yoruba “mama-put” — when he went visiting the Ewi, the paramount ruler of the state capital, Ado-Ekiti, clad in black.  Might the outgoing governor be mourning?

    The one who hitherto would thunder and literarily dare the Kabiyesi to controvert him was fully prostrate, his six-foot frame long.  And he wouldn’t get up until the Kabiyesi said so — Kabiyesi oooooooooo!

    And the gubernatorial complaints came in torrents: security agencies had barricaded Government House, security helicopters were hovering over in the skies, and his gubernatorial humiliation was complete.  The Ewi promptly promised to help do “something”.

    Well, it’s hard to believe whatever Fayose claims.  Having cried wolf too many times when there was none, it’s very difficult to believe whatever gambit he rustles up again.  Still, if the allegations are true, the federal authorities should ease off.  For all his empty brinkmanship, Fayose is still Ekiti governor.  Even if everyone finds it difficult to respect his person, folks should respect the Ekiti electorate that put him there; and are enduring his gubernatorial tomfoolery.

    But the mourning after is not limited to the Fayose camp alone.  After the giddiness of victory, there is some sobriety, if not outright mourning, creeping in on the Fayemi camp.

    For starters, Fayemi would have to clear salary backlogs, a problem not his creation at his first coming exit, despite Fayose, as governor-elect, wilfully causing a one-month delay, because he threatened the banks, who balked from their arrangement with the Ekiti government.

    Aside from salaries, the Ikogosi question is dire metaphor for Fayose’s wilful retardation, in just four short years.  Not only is the Ikogosi resort decrepit again, Gossy bottled spring water, a public-private sector investment in the warm springs, has vanished — again in four short years!  And that with the budding bubbling rural economy that came with it.

    That would take the mourning to the early months of the Fayemi gubernatorial encore, when the workers bay for unpaid salary logs, literarily putting a gun to Fayemi’s head!  But they should “chill” — as they say, with the street lingo.

    The Ekiti debacle requires a serious, sober and collective effort.  The first few months would be tetchy.  But if Ekiti must reclaim their future, after voting for the past four years ago, they must be reasonable partners, not bristling and squealing aliens, in the salvage mission.

  • Ekiti: A precursor to 2019

    After much pertinacious ballyhoo, conquistadorial rodomontade and political saber-rattling by the outgoing governor of Ekiti State, Ayodele Fayose of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that he had his imprimatur audaciously stamped in the sun, evidencing his allodial ownership to the land title of Ekiti, the outcome of the July 14 governorship election had shattered the false claim and opened a new vista in the surefooted political evolution that is set to redefine the state now and in futuro.

    Fayose’s goebbelian irritabilities, innuendoes and direct assaults on the All Progressives Congress (APC), President Muhammadu Buhari and the security agencies all in a bid to psyche himself up and manipulate public perception about his popularity and invincibility in the governorship politics of Ekiti State have come to naught  in the face of the facts and election figures that were summative of the essential mandate by the people that tilted the pendulum of victory and legitimacy in favour of Dr. Kayode Fayemi.

    Fayemi, who was governor in the state from October 16, 2010 to October 16, 2014, now has a better title, following his victory in the weekend’s governorship election. There is an emphatic change of ownership and with that change comes a new orientation in terms of the sublime and pragmatic socio-political and economic interactions and appreciation of the place of leadership in keeping fidelity to the social contract that has been forged with the elements of APC’s robust manifestoes on which Fayemi’s electioneering was anchored.

    The era of Fayose’s peculiar political gambadoism that questions the cosmopolitan and enlightened spirit of Ekiti and its intelligentsia is fast approaching a euphoric terminus.  All of us in the APC are in a celebratory mood that on October 16, Fayose would be hoisted in his own petard and the process of exorcising Ekiti of his negative politics and influence will begin in earnest. That is one task that holds a great promise for Ekiti under the watch of the urbane, unassuming and affable Fayemi.

    But beyond the demystification of Fayose and the dislodgement of PDP in Ekiti is the domino effect of this political risorgimento on the national reputation and acceptability of the APC brand by Nigerians.  The APC has come under existential attacks by the opposition elements who have hurled all manner of propaganda to de-market it ahead of the 2019 general elections.  In their desperate and diabolical schema, they have continued to portray the APC and President Buhari as incompetent in the enormous task of cleansing the Augean stables of corruption which they had inflicted on the nation in their 16 years of clueless and rapacious government.

    As Buhari continues to put his nose to the grindstone, the PDP-led oppositions and other retrogressive centrifugal and centripetal forces that are uncomfortable with the administration’s anti-corruption war and moves to correct the age-long appropriation of our commonwealth by a few powerful individuals have unconscionably and consistently sponsored killings in parts of the country in order to discredit the government. That has been the original sin of Buhari: his commitment to take back our country from the vice-like grips or strangleholds of those that have privatized it.

    Understandably, the anti-Buhari elements have committed themselves to obfuscate the gradual but consistent progress towards good governance and integrity in government.  Except for mischief makers, there is a national consensus that the level of rot inherited by Buhari is monumentally abysmal. It is such that it can overwhelm a revolutionary approach to governance.  The necessity to systematically deal with the contending and problematic issues has, in fact, put a strain on a government that is eager to deliver.

    The matter becomes more difficult in a situation where the president, as the poster child of the anti-corruption war, appears to be the only one that is committed to the war in terms of his antecedents, pedigrees, credible verbal exhortations and even body language.  This has been globally acknowledged. Recently, he was conferred with the honour of anti-corruption champion on the continent of Africa by the African Union (AU). On the corruption issue, Buhari is on top of his game with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) under the watch of Ibrahim Magu doing a yeoman job.  On the other governance issues like the economy and security which the oppositions take delight to criticise, the president has entrusted qualified individuals to superintend them and he is providing the requisite leadership gravitas. He is disposed to retool and re-kit his administrative infrastructure as time goes on for better efficient service delivery. That is the essence of government and governance.

    For close to four years, Buhari has been working persistently and steadfastly at rebuilding a better and greater Nigeria from the ruins of 16 years that he inherited from the PDP. It will be unfair to expect him to clear the age-long mess in a jiffy.  It does not work that way. He has to conscientiously work at it.  That explains the series of executive orders he has signed to bolster administrative actions that would conduce to good governance. With the direction that he is headed clearly defined as the president and head of the executive, it will be salutary to get the buy-in of the legislature and the judiciary, the two other arms that make up the federal government. Once cooperation and synergy are emplaced, the federal government will be home and dry.

    Indeed, judging by the much the Buhari administration has achieved in so short a time, I am inclined to believe that another four years in the saddle will enable much more progress.  The president will be able to build more physical and administrative infrastructure including institutions that will preserve official mores rather than the characteristic predilection of building individuals. It is in the above context that the president’s decision to seek re-election in 2019 is in apple-pie order: to continue the good work.

    It is heartwarming that leaders and members of the ruling party, working in concert with Nigerians, are pushing the apt narrative that a second term in office for Buhari is an opportunity to provide elixir for all of our nation’s fundamental turpitude and putrescence. To realise Buhari’s re-election in pragmatic terms, a vast majority of Nigerians would have to enlist in the campaign to dismantle all manner of shared prejudices, primordial sentiments and fault lines that the opposition elements and those who are determined to truncate his good work have mounted on the trajectory to 2019 victory.

    Overall, their diabolic and odious agendas are headed for the political seppuku. Happily, the victory of the APC in Ekiti, under the national chairmanship of Comrade Adams Oshiomhiole, is both a precursor and fillip to the president’s surefooted march to a win in the scheduled February 16, 2019 presidential election.  The outcome of the governorship election is a clear statement that the APC is an acceptable national political brand. This is expected to be reconfirmed in the forthcoming Osun governorship election. Meantime, Fayemi’s victory over Fayose’s candidate, Professor Olusola Kolapo, in the poll is a clear pointer to the string of APC’s successes in elections between now and in the scheduled 2019 general election.

     

    • Honourable Obahiagbon, former member of the House of Representatives, writes from Benin.      

     

  • Sweet and stale palm-wine from Ekiti

    Fresh palm-wine is sweet. When the foaming and frothing stuff is cooled by Harmattan, nothing can be more appealing to the drinking palate. But stale palm-wine is more potent and potentially far more destabilising. Nature converts the sugar into more alcohol which heads straight for the seat of reason. The Yoruba have a proverb which captures the mystery. Pounded yam, even when it is twenty years old, can also burn with severity.

    Ekiti, the land of rolling hills, rugged mountains, wonderful topography and equally wonderful people is also the land of palm-wine and pounded yam. It is the forest of a thousand professors  where brave hunters (Ogboju Ode) prevail and predominate. The place had been in the news of late, but for the wrong kind of reason. How one had wished that it is for the academic exploits of its children, or the famed industriousness of its native people that Ekiti has been in the news.

    The state gubernatorial election has now come again. But not so the controversies that erupted shortly before and immediately after the election. The sight of a weeping governor, floored by fistic adversity and drooling like a baby, is a new low in the demystification of democracy in Nigeria. Each day brings new revelations. Where one had expected a clear victory for progressive forces, however badly disunited, it has been an electoral cliff hanger. Where one had expected a departure from old electoral norms, it has been a consecration of impunity and electoral infamy. Old pounded yam can be very scalding indeed.

    Let us now cut quickly to the chase. This is a matter of utmost importance to the Ekiti people, the Yoruba nationality and the Nigerian nation. It is a matter beyond the contending gladiators of the moment. How this matter shapes up will determine the democratic destiny of the nation and the relevance and suitability of our current democratic model to the extant historical consciousness of our people.

    It will now be hypocritical and dishonourable to aver otherwise. Kayode Fayemi was not the automatic candidate of this columnist as far as the APC flag bearer in the last Ekiti State election was concerned. It was not that one had any candidate of choice in the matter. But one felt that it would have been better and healthier for the party, and in the greater interest of the people and the nation if the slate had been wiped clean and the board cleared of the mutually antagonistic debris both within and outside of the party.

    That way it would have been easier to forge a new beginning based on elite consensus in the state and the commonality of poverty among the people. At a point, it seemed as if the party local leadership was groping and intuiting its way towards the idea of a consensus candidate before federal force majeure took over the proceedings.

    It is not easy to have a sense of equanimity over being electorally humbled and humiliated in one’s domain as a sitting governor. This is more so when it was then discovered that the electoral advantage was procured through substantial fraud and chicanery. Right from the beginning, the Fayemi campaign was projected as a grudge match with the governor-elect himself famously being quoted as saying that Fayose would be caged on Election Day. Looming in the background was an unforgiving presidency very much embarrassed not to say embittered by Fayose’s endless taunts and often ill-bred tirades.

    The grudge match has now produced a grudge mandate with the whole state badly polarized and bitterly divided. Never in the history of Nigeria has a homogeneous sub-national people been this fractured and factionalised. Fayemi and the Ekiti elite have their work cut out for them. Ranged against the enlightened educated class and the outraged salariate that made Fayemi’s return possible are a grumpy section of the elite fired by reverse nationalism, casual riffraff on the fringe of society and the vast homophobic underclass spawned by unemployment and the de-industrialization of the state.

    Whether one likes him or not, Fayose has shown himself to be a man of extraordinary political dexterity; a consummate conman and ham actor given to boisterous theatrics and relentless rabblerousing. A robber baron himself without any qualms or scruples, the Afao-Ekiti born politician has managed to reinvent himself as a champion of the masses even as he contributed to their plight and pervasive poverty.

    It is this combination of gifted charlatan and social shaman which makes Fayose a particularly dangerous customer. He has also managed to tap into a deep well of elite resentment and frustration with the unfortunate anti-restructuring stance and seeming sectionalist bias of the federal authorities.

    The old ACN had perfected a strategy of containing him by trying to keep him inside while pissing outside rather than leaving him outside to piss inside. But this strategy was bungled by the politically short-sighted in the wake of the ACN fusing into APC. Eventually the bad boy returned to give his tormentors a good run for their money.

    Those who care should also note that within the larger restructionist lobby of the South West, Fayose, whatever his antecedents, remains a Yoruba notable. Indeed if he were to surface at an Afenifere gathering with his electoral conqueror, it is obvious that it is the rogue populist who will be wildly lionized ahead of the triumphant victor.

    What this suggests is that the Yoruba Question, like the National Question, is too deep and fundamental to be resolved by mere elections. Desperate political competition for desperately scarce resources is not amenable to electoral resolutions.  No matter what happens to the current arrow head in the next three months, the Fayose tendency will continue to rear its head in Ekiti politics for a long time to come until the root cause is tackled, and comprehensively too.

    Geography also matters in this business. Landlocked and hemmed in by a rugged mountainous terrain, Ekiti had for long endured and enjoyed the bucolic bliss of an isolated agrarian community surviving a on subsistence farming, its principal assets being a passion for western education and the celebrated pristine integrity of its denizens passed on from generation to generation and buoyed by the stirring tradition of heroic resistance to tyranny.

    But for industries to thrive and survive, there must be fiscal empowerment of the populace and massive infrastructural development which remain the remit of a visionary state and patriotic political class. Without this, the only industry that can thrive is the industry of degraded and degrading politics in which pauperized voters are offered money to surrender their electoral suzerainty. The peonization of democracy requires extreme poverty to flourish.

    It should be obvious that what Ekiti people require to spring the trap of electoral peonage is nothing short of a New Deal;  a comprehensive blueprint for economic emancipation and the emasculation of pervasive poverty. Compare this forlorn fate with the geographical luck of their aristocratic neighbours to the south, the Ondo people, whose centuries-old access to the sea and its riches has allowed them to invest their wealth in the economic emancipation of their people.

    It has now become economically imperative that Ekiti nation must break loose from its geographical isolation . A massive drive to open it to the outside world must be the priority of its elite in cooperation with the government. For starters, there ought to be a railway loop that connects the state with the Lagos-Port-Harcourt line or the Lagos-Abuja track. The Omuo-Kabba ; Ado-Ikare; Ado-Aramoko; Ado-Omu-aran via Ifaki and Ado-Akure via Ikerre gateways ought to receive immediate attention either through eventual dualization or fastidious  rehabilitation.

    There is opportunity in every crisis. The sweetness of the APC victory in Ekiti state lies in the fact that for the first time since the First Republic all the core states of the old West have now come under one political umbrella. This is a unique opportunity to drive regional economic integration and a comprehensive economic blueprint which is specific to the needs and aspirations of the region.

    In the Second Republic under the leadership of Obafemi Awolowo and the surviving stalwarts of progressive governance there was an umbrella union of LOOBO states which drove regional cooperation and integration despite the unitary constitution bequeathed by the departed military administration.

    But with all energies currently concentrated on the deadly power struggle at the centre, it is hard to see how this can become a reality. Indeed with the current anti-restructuring and counter-devolution mantra of the federal authorities, such ideologies of regionalism are likely to be viewed as politically suspect and surplus to electoral requirements. This is more so since the APC victory is federally inspired and driven by an obsession with unitarist centralization and conformity with statist principles.

    The west may well be in more political trouble than it has ever bargained for.  Rather than coming together to pursue the agenda of regional integration, what we are likely to witness is a relentless subversion and deliberate undermining of regional authority by state viceroys who are more beholden to central authority than to any regional leader. They may choose to humour them from time to time, but that is as far as it will go unless the regional leadership chooses to press its luck.

    If this lack of synergy were to be the case, the ensuing regional discontent coupled with the fallout of the herdsmen imbroglio may just be enough to tip unitary federalism into terminal crisis in Nigeria. As usual with their earlier history, it is always at the point when the Yoruba people think they have achieved the greatest feat of integration that the sparks of disintegration begin to fly. Ancient pounded yam can burn the palms indeed. But let that not debar the good people of Ekiti from enjoying their pounded yam and palm wine this fine morning.

     

  • Ekiti: A post-mortem

    THE July 14 governorship poll in Ekiti State is instructive for its general transparency and the open frankness with which it announces and promotes the electorate’s base instincts. Neither the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) nor the All Progressives Congress (APC) denied buying votes on a massive scale. The Ekiti voters themselves happily sold their votes. The vote sellers may be overpriced, as many men of conscience now think, and the buyers themselves quite cynical and indulgent, but two Saturdays ago, Nigerians saw how a people and their politicians reinforced the appalling mockery politics in these parts has become. It is pointless trying to determine who outbid the other, or whether there is merit in Governor Ayo Fayose’s complaints of election-rigging, or whether the APC would have lost if they had not prostituted votes. What is important is that Kayode Fayemi of the APC secured a second term after a four-year hiatus, and the PDP’s Kolapo Olusola, who was reduced to a silhouette by the daunting and overwhelming presence of Mr Fayose in the race, lost by a narrow and dignified margin.

    No one should dwell too much on how the votes were priced in Ekiti. Let the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the security agencies, if they can divorce themselves from their slavish subordination to the government, find a way to check that distortionary menace. If he likes too, and if he can find the depth and vision required, let the president look for novel and non-partisan ways to deal buying and selling of votes a death blow. Like Kano State which has a penchant for changing parties in their governorship elections and defending their votes, Ekiti may be approaching a truly democratic community. The Ekiti journey to a civic culture is undoubtedly flawed and unprincipled, and the electorate somewhat destitute of character and depth, but they have admirably and co-incidentally manifested the right democratic characteristics of reserving the right and independence to change their governments.

    In 2014, they threw out Dr Fayemi, even though he worked hard and innovatively for the state. Ekiti lives on the old glory of having the highest number of professors per capita in Nigeria. Today, with as many poorly educated young people as other states, the state matches the rest of the country ignorance for ignorance, and in the process manages to make their peculiar brand of ignorance even sexy. Long regarded as eminent scions of educated egg heads, it was strange indeed that Ekiti people in 2014 complained about what they described as Dr Fayemi’s inaccessible elitism and insufferable snobbishness. As a result the state, emboldened by federal rigging machines, angrily repudiated him and his politics, and embraced Mr Fayose whom many have characterised as hysterical and incompetent. What the electorate embraced in 2014 was of course not competence, as they acknowledged, nor did they imply that they even thought of it or desired it. It was enough that Mr Fayose had the endearing common touch that they panted for, and that he possessed a truly bohemian nature that gave them hope that their own nothingness was irreproachable. After all, he genuinely took steps and cobbled together pell-mell policies that transformed their defeatism into triumph, and their commonness into royalty. They were satisfied with his earthiness and jocosity, not to say his false religiosity, and were indeed eager to shame Dr Fayemi’s urbanity that appeared to mock their provincial coarseness.

    But four years later, after having had their fill of the filth and unpredictability that hallmarked Mr Fayose’s government, Ekiti’s adventurous electorate chose to immerse themselves in the splendour of their choice and independence. They must be saluted, even though in procuring a new identity for themselves, they managed to split that identity, a sort of bipolarity that speaks more to their confusion and true psychological state than to their contrition and conversion. More than a quarter of a million of them refused to collect their PVCs. Of the about 667,000 who did, some 56 percent of them voted. On the surface, this figure is a little better than the national average that sees less than half of the constantly grumbling electorate taking the trouble to vote. However, in concrete terms, of the over 900,000 people who registered to vote, some 41.12 percent voted. And of the about three million people populating Ekiti, only 12.52 percent took the decision two Saturdays ago to determine who should rule them and who should not.

    The figures, sadly, take a much darker hue when viewed closely. It is true that the APC has been less exultant about their victory than they should, not just because they also participated in the buying of votes, and even outflanked and outpunched the PDP, but because, the sensible people that they are, their number crunching reveals to them why clearly they must be subdued in their celebrations. Of the registered voters, only 21.62 percent endorsed Dr Fayemi, and taken as a percentage of the total population of the state, only 6.58 percent affirmed the APC legitimacy. But Dr Fayemi clearly won, regardless of Mr Fayose’s histrionics. In 2014, he conceded defeat, even though he groaned later as if he regretted that salutary step. It is not his fault that Mr Fayose has been peevish in judging the outcome of the July 14 poll. Dr Fayemi deserves his victory, but he must be worried by how it was procured, the slim margin of his victory, and the almost infinitesimally small percentage that victory constitutes out of the state’s population and registered voters.

    Much more than anything else, the slim margin of Dr Fayemi’s victory must tell him that he had a narrow escape. He has been advised by many analysts and top political leaders to view his slim victory as an indication of the polarisation existing in Ekiti, and why, unlike President Muhammadu Buhari, he must work assiduously to heal the wounds of the election and run an inclusive government. Dr Fayemi must imagine what would have been the electoral fate of the APC if Mr Fayose had not owed salaries, and had in addition to his populism and defiance entranced the people with widely dispersed projects. It is surprising that Professor Olusola got as many votes as he did. In fact, it remains at the level of conjectures whether the eminent and urbane professor would not have performed better than he did at the poll had the obtruding Mr Fayose not framed the election as a battle between himself and Dr Fayemi.

    It is unlikely that this is the kind of victory Dr Fayemi craved for, one that is so slim that both victory and defeat appear indistinguishable, a victory that depended unwholesomely on cash and intimidation, and one in which the appeal to pre- and post-2014 records went largely unheeded. The APC would have loved to beat the PDP by more than 50,000 or even 100,000 votes. Instead, a little over 19,000 votes separated the combatants. Dr Fayemi would have loved the election to be framed in terms of ideas and possibly ideologies. These also didn’t happen. The reasons are clear: the state has not escaped the decay, poverty and decline buffeting the county, and the ruling party at the centre has not been clearly as innovative as many hoped when they voted for the party in 2015. With the APC unable to stanch the flow of blood in many parts of the country, and with the Abuja government reluctant to inspire itself, let alone the people, there was no spectacular reason to ditch the PDP in Ekiti, scorn Mr Fayose’s abominable tactics, and imagine that electing Dr Fayemi would attract any synergy between Abuja and Ekiti, especially when Abuja seems to many states as completely alienated from reality.

    If Dr Fayemi is to make a success of his second term and be acknowledged and rewarded for his works, he will have to really run an inclusive government, and make his government approachable without sinking to Mr Fayose’s disgusting and counterproductive populism. He will have to think in terms of the long run, embrace genuinely democratic principles in his interaction and relationship with the opposition and the legislature; in short, rise above his discomfort with the opposition both within and outside his party, and the pedestrianism and intolerance that hobbled Mr Fayose’s government. Together with Governors Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun and Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo, he has postured and sometimes schemed as President Buhari’s countervailing powers in the Southwest, a factor that led Mr Fayose to paint him as the president’s errand boy and supporter of herdsmen ranches. He is of course entitled to support the president like any other Nigerian, but he must find accommodation with the Yoruba cognoscenti, and sustain, promote and even polish the Yoruba worldview.

    It is not clear to what extent Dr Fayemi will succeed in this regard. This is the first time the Southwest will really be playing the second fiddle at the centre, especially to a mercurial if rather unyielding leader. For a region long accustomed to the politics of opposition, this is testing not only their forbearance, culture and worldview, it is also distorting their progressive identity. There is nothing wrong in playing number one or playing second fiddle, but the eagerness and subservience with which some of the governors have immersed themselves in their new role has triggered needless wrangles and competition between them and the dominant powers in their region. There are no templates to follow, not even the Olusegun Obasanjo presidency. And President Buhari and his kitchen cabinet have felt the need to counterbalance the Southwest political elite by subtly supporting conflicting caucuses and interest groups which unite around his person rather than around his ideas, or groups and individuals who unite around their pet animosities rather than around lofty ideals. Dr Fayemi and other governors like him will have to find a balance between those competing worldviews, as indeed Mr Fayose appeared to have found in his second term, and recognise that reaching accommodation with President Buhari does not invariably mean invoking regicidal tendencies.

    The APC may feel subdued by the kind of victory it procured on July 14, but it need not feel abased by it. Mr Fayose opened the gates of hell himself without possessing either the talent to stoke the inferno nor the stamina to outlast and outpace the opposition. Had the APC failed to respond in kind to the monetary incendiary thrown by the PDP, no one knows what the outcome would have been. That culture of monetised politics will not die overnight, not with the state of the economy, and not with the paralysis and insularity in Abuja. It will take time, assuming there is a conscious plan by the federal government to uproot and banish that suffocating and entrenched culture. It is also unlikely that Dr Fayemi, flowing from his loss in 2014, will imagine that he can trust the electorate to vote right simply because the governor has done well, or that in four years he could create and enforce a template that would enable Ekiti to play the right kind of politics and vote in line with the highest ideals of a civic culture. Wishes are not horses.

    President Buhari’s spokesmen have spoken glowingly of the APC victory in Ekiti. They can bask in that glory for as long as they wish. And they must feel a sense of relief, especially against the background of the coalitions being formed to thwart the ruling party’s expectations in the 2019 elections, that their plans are still on course. On the one hand is a scorched but not exterminated PDP, and on the other hand are Dr Obasanjo and a host of journeymen and political panjadrums, all of them nursing multiple grudges, and all arrayed in battle for the big day. It helps Abuja to have Ekiti in the APC. After all, Mr Fayose swayed Ekiti to the PDP in the 2015 presidential poll. And this must be why all the APC bigwigs in the Southwest rallied to Dr Fayemi’s cause, believing as they do that the worst of APC, should that be the impression, will always be better electorally than the best of PDP. They know instinctively that regardless of the outcome of the 2019 elections, it helps the Southwest worldview to sustain and consolidate the progressive cause as represented, no matter how minimally, by the APC.

    The president’s spokesmen can extrapolate all they want about the significance of the APC victory in Ekiti, and project its significance for the president’s election chances in 2019. But at bottom, it is a victory the Southwest APC leaders, as fractious and factionalised as they are, will hope will help nurture the region’s political culture and economic development far beyond 2019. Dr Fayemi understands those needs, and in his first term promoted that regional developmental agenda far better and more intellectually than Mr Fayose did in his second term. Even though the present quality of the Southwest governors has not been as inspiring as it used to be or as the region wants, the APC victory in Ekiti may help to revive the regional aspirations expected to lift the region from poverty into a showpiece.

    Mr Fayose may have projected a bold and irreverent kind of politics at a time of dangerous national schisms and parochialism, perhaps Prof Olusola would have presented a different and beguiling kind of politics and style of governance, and for many, Segun Oni might have been the needed cross between offensive populism and detached elitism, but the reality after the July 14 vote is that the state must now look to the future with Dr Fayemi. He probably understands democracy more than most of today’s governors do, and by his exposure knows the magnificent role development plays in the life of a people. If he can find the discipline to practice what he knows, walk the tightrope between the needs of the region and the distant and sometimes convoluted politics of Abuja, and moderate his proclivity for intrigues and short-term gains, he might yet build a great legacy and propel himself to higher grounds.

     

    Palladium’s leave was interrupted for this post-mortem. He resumes his vacation

     

  • Ekiti: Why we won and they lost

    Yes we, meaning the party, APC, its governorship candidate, Dr John Kayode Fayemi, and I.  There is a sense in which I can claim such inclusivity because, God bless him, I was privileged to be a member of that small,  select group of very trusted individuals  Dr Fayemi, the  governor -elect, gave the business of interrogating everything about  whether or not he should run in the 2018 governorship election having made up his mind not to be carried away by the deluge of  appeals urging him to run if only to show that he was coasting home to victory in the Ekiti governorship election of 2014 before then President Goodluck Jonathan told his Chief of Army Staff , his Ijaw compatriot, General  Kenneth Minimah, that he Jonathan,  rather than Dr Ayo Fayose, was the PDP candidate for the election and, therefore under strict orders, to have him declared the winner.

    The rest is history.

    Since then, whether in Abuja, Lagos or Isan-Ekiti, at  marathon, all night meetings, it became our business to clinically examine  every issue as if success depended solely on it, and never considering anything irrelevant, no matter how seemingly minuscule. For me, therefore, Dr Fayemi’s victory in the election of Saturday, 14 July, 2018, did not come as a surprise. However, no matter the amount of planning, we were in no doubt, whatever, that success depended solely on the grace of the Almighty God for it is not for nothing that the Holy Writ says in 1Corinthians 3: 6: “I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.”

    His grace was at play throughout the campaign. Given the mostly atavistic manner in which politics is played in Nigeria, and, in particular, Ekiti politicians, more often than not, fighting to the death over the flimsiest of issues, no prophet could have predicted the peace that descended on the party once a  candidate emerged. That not a single APC governorship aspirant defected to another party must be credited to the maturity of the aspirants, but more importantly, to the proactive mediator y role of the party’s Southwest leaders. Here our appreciation must go to the wise triumph rate of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Chief Bisi Akande and Otunba Niyi Adebayo.

    In contradistinction to the peace in the APC, a spirit of error entered Governor Ayo Fayose; a spirit fuelled by excessive arrogance which led him to treat other party leaders like trash, even asking those disgruntled over his choice of the dour Professor Eleka to quit. It was an egregious mistake which marked the final collapse of PDP in Ekiti as nearly everybody the party could rely on to win election in the state promptly left, leaving only the shrewd Senator Olujimi who is obviously waiting to inherit whatever remains of post-Fayose PDP in Ekiti.

    No politician, least of them a tactical one like Ayo Fayose, should ever have committed such unpardonable mistake, whatever his confidence level. The result was devastating as the defectors worked their hearts out to prove him wrong. And what a bounty they brought Fayemi. With his 5700+ votes in Ise-Orun local government, Prince Dayo Adeyeye made mince meat of Ikere -Ekiti where Eleka comes from and which Fayose has relied on for massive votes. The same thing went for the likes of Senators Rasaki in Ado-Ekiti and Arise in the Oye local government area. Ditto the other senior PDP chieftains who defected to the APC.  Prince  Dayo Adeyeye and  Cyril Fasuyi ensured that  the party’s candidate won in areas  that were traditionally PDP’s. And this was one area where Governor Fayose failed miserably in his policy choices. Of Ekiti’s 131 towns, and with an eye on the towns’ huge population, he had chosen to develop only two, namely, Ikere, and Ado -Ekiti. In Ikere- Ekiti, the spirit of error would lead him to take on the Olukere, who he saw to jail. With the huge portion of the town owing allegiance to the Olukere, the bottom was immediately knocked off his calculations and his professor candidate, despite the over 3000 non Ekiti indigenes he took to Aafin, Okeruku, Agbado Oyo and other  polling units,  still came a cropper. Hon Niyi Afuye had to confront him at the police station when he was begging that those arrested should not be made to write their statements. Fayose’s Ado-Ekiti calculations also floundered after Fayemi had tactically chosen the highly impactful Chief Bisi Egbeyemi as his deputy. This was, however, in addition to several other factors: the unpaid many months salaries of civil servants who reside mostly in the state capital and the additional insult of N3000 credited to their bank accounts to induce them to vote PDP and the huge votes of the Ebiras who had been wired for maximum performance by the ebullient Kogi State governor, who went from one Ebira settlement to another on his way from Kogi State. Thus collapsed Oshoko’s simple minded calculation erected on developing only two out of 131 Ekiti towns.

    However, by far the greatest contributory factor to Fayemi’s victory was his performance at his first coming, 2010 – 14, when the entire state became, literally, a construction site with his government leaving developmental impact on all Ekiti towns without exception. There was tremendous infrastructural development, school enrolment  was a whopping 98% but Ekiti has since regressed to the lowest in the Southwest – no thanks to school children being made to pay tax – while life expectancy during  his time was the highest in Nigeria; indeed, far above the national average. Teachers’ salaries was increased thrice,  just like he was the first in the entire Southwest to pay rural and core subjects allowances to teachers, each being 20%  of basic salary. And he owed not a single month’s salary except for October 2014 when the incoming Governor Fayose blighted his arrangement with the banks. His greatest impact was, however, in how he impacted all Ekiti communities. Everywhere we went on the recent campaign; it was always the first thing the Obas thanked the governor-elect for. “You built this palace”, they would begin but, end up, in every case, by adding that so and so uncompleted project when you left, remains exactly where you left it, asking him to come back quickly to complete it. Nothing could have been more gratifying than seeing the crowd, in every town jubilantly confirming what the Oba had said in private and turning it to panegyrics in honour of the candidate.

    As my readers must have noticed, I used these pages in the weeks immediately before the election to draw Ekiti peoples’ attention to all that Governor Fayemi did for our respective communities at his first coming and I cannot be more fulfilled than seeing them reward him with their votes. I can assure them that the man who, for the first time ever in Nigeria, initiated monthly stipends for the elderly, a programme which, as  director of policy in the Buhari 2015 campaign he took to the centre, and has since been adopted by the federal government, will be most unrelenting in further reducing poverty in Ekiti.

    I sat out the last one week with the candidate as he met different stakeholder groups. And you would not but pity Ekiti in the past three and a half years. From NULGE, to NUPENG whose representatives informed the candidate that of a total of 115 petrol stations in Ado -Ekiti only 50 now dispense fuel, to pensioners owed about ten months salaries, and from EKSU students who had been granted neither bursary nor scholarship in the past four years but must now cough out N107,000 as acceptance fee, to parents who now have to pay tax on infants in nursery/primary schools.

    This was how Governor Fayose accounted for no less than 25% of Fayemi’s victory through the insensitivity that characterised his administration and which saw companies like coca cola, GT bank and more, gave Ekiti a wide berth, as international best practices forbade the curious payments they were being asked to make. Another factor that killed off any hope of Eleka winning is the Ekiti debts. Governor Fayose’s narrative that Fayemi ran the state into debts would have remained sacrosanct with an increasingly unreflecting Ekiti society had the Debt Management Office (DMO), not fortuitously (?) released states’ debt profile which recorded Ekiti’s debt as N18B at Fayemi’s exit in 2014. That has since become a bulging N117B. Under Governor Fayose who claims he did not borrow a dime. “Let my opponents know that the elections are not won by propaganda,” he says. “If they are sure of what they are saying (that he borrowed N56B), let them tell us the bank that gave the loan and also produce the papers leading to the transactions.”

    So who is lying, the Debt Management Office or Governor Fayose?

     

  • Ekiti: Fayose’s loyalists desert govt house

    Success, they say, has many fathers while failure is an orphan.

    That seems to be the scenario at Government House, Ado-Ekiti, where the crowd of friends and associates of the outgoing Ekiti State governor, Ayodele Fayose, who used to besiege the place on a daily basis are thinning out by the day.

    Fayose’s bid to install his own successor failed in the governorship election that took place in the state last Saturday as his deputy and anointed candidate, Prof. Kolapo Olusola, who flew the flag of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) was defeated the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and former governor of the state, Dr. Kayode Fayemi.

    Although Fayose was not a candidate in the election, political observers believe he was the bigger loser as Olusola was merely his protege and he (Fayose) had boasted that it was a test of strength between him one hand and APC and President Muhammadu Buhari on the other hand.

    A source at the Government House in Ado-Ekiti told our reporter that Governor Fayose  was gradually coming to terms with the reality of his imminent exit from his exalted office.

    The source, however, said the decision of many Fayose’s supporters and loyalists who used to throng the Government House on a daily basis might not necessarily be because the governor’s candidate failed in the election.

    “You know that the governor is having a lot of problems with security agents. I think the people are staying away because of that and not because he lost the election.” the source said.

    She, however, admitted that the last time the governor’s loyalists trooped to the seat of power was on July 13, a day to the governorship election when they came to collect election money.

    She noted that the defeat they suffered at the poll must have dampened their morale as much as it the governor’s.

    It had taken Fayose about three days to find his voice after the poll. And when he finally spoke, it was at the palace of the Ewi of Ado-Ekiti, Oba Rufus Adejugbe, with whom he had a verbal confrontation in March over the urban renewal programme of the Fayose government, which necessitated the demolition of buildings in the state capital.

    Fayose, who had trekked to the palace without the full compliment of his security aides as they were yet to be restored after they were withdrawn about 48 hours to the election, told the Ewi of his ordeal 72 hours after his party lost the governorship poll.

    This time, it was a sober Fayose who waited patiently at the palace until the Ewi emerged from his inner chambers to attend to him.

    Upon the Ewi’s appearance, Fayose prostrated in a show of maximum respect for the Oba and also remained on the floor until the Ewi told him to get up and have his seat.

    In an emotion laden voice, Fayose urged the monarch to help him appeal to the federal authorities to stop alleged siege to his official residence.

    Fayose said: “I have come to officially tell your sir, as the paramount ruler of Ado-Ekiti, the state capital, that the Government House was invaded by the police.

    “Over 400 of our (party) members are being detained as we speak now.

    “After the poll on Saturday, my wife was prevented from entering the Government House for about 45 minutes.

    “Since last Wednesday, security agents had laid siege to the Government House and were subjecting people to untold hardship coming in or going out.

    “The poll has come and gone, irrespective of what we went through. The Constitution says I am still the governor till October 16 this year.

    “Our state radio and television stations have been shut down, and there has been no means of getting across to our people.

    “It was only this morning that security agents at the entrance of the Government House were withdrawn.

    “If we have been robbed, I still have a right to life and my family has a right to life too.

    “The man that won has three units of the police protecting him. All my security men have been withdrawn since last Wednesday. I am only left with just a few.

    “Harassing me is not in the interest of democracy. People must intervene before things go out of hand.

    “I don’t know why we should be in this situation in 2018.”

  • Ekiti CJ pardons 44 inmates

    The Ekiti Chief Judge, Justice Ayo Daramola, on Thursday granted pardon to 44 inmates of the Ado-Ekiti Federal Prisons.

    Daramola freed the inmates when he led other judges, magistrates, police prosecutors, lawyers and other court officials on a visit to the prison.

    308 inmates have their cases reviewed.

    Among those released were four inmates for lack of case files to prosecute their cases, five awaiting trial inmates, who were all released on bail, one granted bail, while 34 inmates were released unconditionally.

    The chief judge commended the prison officials for maintaining a clean environment as well as taking good care of the inmates.

    He also commended the effort of Director of Public Prosecution (DPP), the police, lawyers and other stakeholders for their contributions in justice administration.

  • Ekiti: Question marks on democracy

    The Ekiti State governorship elections recently concluded, won and lost, not only ushers a new governor into the Government House on October 15, but raises salient questions on Nigeria’s democratic path so far uninterrupted since 1999. Interestingly, the newly elected governor, Kayode Fayemi will be returning to the Ayoba villa, the posh government house built towards the end of his first tenure reportedly for N3.3billion, but largely unused by his successor,  out- going governor, Ayodele Fayose. It seems on reflection, that fate might have been keeping the mansion for Fayemi ‘unspoilt’ by Fayose.

    However, this fatalistic inference is not the focus of this discourse. Rather I wish to raise alarm over emerging threats to democracy caused by the crises of transitional power politics. This has thrown up questions on the sanctity and   implementability of democratic principles and practices, reopening debate on democracy as the best form of government in Nigeria.

    Several incidences that occurred before and on the governorship election day in Ekiti, last weekend, raised these posers.  As widely reported, there was open and brazen monetary inducement of voters by agents of the two leading parties- All Progressive Congress (APC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who were in a do or die competition to outbid each other. Vote casting for a preferred candidate, the stoic democratic process, which signifies the beauty of democracy, became a political bazaar for the highest bidder last weekend. Democracy was taken to the cleaners as Nigerian politicians extended their corrupt practices to the polling booth.

    There was alleged intimidation of opponents by security officers controlled by the federal government bringing reminiscences of the 1983 elections when the then Inspector General of Police, late Sunday Adewusi effectively used the security apparatus to cow, intimidate, harass, and subdue opposition parties against re-election bid of incumbent President Shehu Shagari.  The police-tisation of the Ekiti elections, though plausible to maintain law and order, seems to be an authoritative overkill of the opposition forces, and the outgoing governor of the opposition party, the PDP, leveraged on this to create a political-hood script. More importantly, such coercive use of state power will further fuel the debate on the necessity of a state police.

    Of course, typical occurrences in Nigerian elections were not lacking in the Ekiti governorship vote. This includes ballot snatching, alleged tampering with results sheets, and reported impartiality of electoral officers. There is no hiding place for evil these days as the social media including its tools- smart and unsmart phones – are helping citizens to break news like instant coffee.  The two leading parties-APC and PDP are said to be guilty of these malfeasance, though the former is facing more heat as its candidate was declared winner.

    Several years ago, at an international conference, I listened by the side line to an informal discussion among several Nigerian federal legislators, attending the conference. They were either unaware or not bothered about my presence in their midst when one of them said to his colleagues: ’Who among us can boost that he truly won his election, free and fair? The truth is that we all rigged our elections’. The federal legislator went further to say that it is impossible to win an election in Nigeria without rigging, a fact that seems to have replayed itself in the Ekiti elections where the two leading parties threw to the winds the dictum: there is honour among thieves. To my amazement, none of the federal legislators contested the statement.

    The question on the lips of observers since last weekend election in Ekiti : Is this democracy or moneycracy?

    Democracy  is believed to be the best form of government because it promotes the rule of law,  fundamental rights of citizens, legitimacy of government, peaceful and orderly civilian transition, decision making by three arms of government creating checks and balances, credible, free, and fair elections based in universal suffrage,  and a free and unfettered press.

    These salient pillars of democracy are under threat as the 2018 Ekiti election shows and 2019 general elections approaches. The recent cash-for-votes scenario is redefining Nigeria’s presidential democracy to nairacracy.

    This brings us back to the question marks on democracy which this write up wishes to raise: Are ideals democracy practicable in Nigeria or the developing world? Is true democracy possible in Nigeria where estimated 60 million, about 30% are illiterates and can easily be swayed by emotions rather than logic, by sentiments rather than issues? Is western democracy in its finest form feasible in Nigeria where about 69% live below the poverty line earning less than $1 (N360), and a cash-for-vote manna of N4000 on election day, becomes a lifeline and a miracle?

    Will American presidential democracy work well in Nigeria where the police is centrally controlled by the president and the Inspector General of Police reports to him, whereas in United States, where this model was copied, the police is not centrally controlled but fragmented and organised into national, state, and local levels? Will presidential democracy with its opulence and grandeur work in a country where  almost 20% of the population  are unemployed with  no social benefits? Finally, will democracy work in Nigeria where the minimum wage is less that $50 per month (whereas it is $7.25 -$11 per hour in America); and such the supposed almighty Permanent Voters Card (PVC) becomes noting more than a meal ticket on election day?

    Perhaps the question we should ask is not whether democracy is best form of government or not, but rather what other form of democracy could move Nigeria forward if presidential democracy seems to be failing. Methinks it is time we consider other options such as non-partisan democracy where independent candidates are elected into public offices periodically through universal suffrage and secret ballot without reference to any partisan party, one party democracy eliminating stiff competition for state capture, workers democracy whereby representatives of formal and informal working class elect public leaders at local, state, or national levels, Christian or Islamic democracy allowing several constituents of Nigeria to be governed according to religions inclinations, or democratic socialism – a decentralised governance system promoting social ownership of the means of production and workers led government.

    Do we tinker with the form of government or the type of democracy? This question will find its way to the restructuring agenda as the Nigerian electorate continue to monetize their PVCs and elections in Nigeria and hence fail the democratic test.

     

    • Babalobi writes from Lagos.

  • Ekiti: Morning after and 2019

    In the postulations of George Bernard Shaw, “An election is a moral horror, as bad as a battle except for the blood; a mud bath for every soul concerned in it.”

    Since 2014, the people of Ekiti had carried an unwanted appellation of ‘wakkie and die’ only reserved for the most gluttonous humans. They were perceived by many as a people whose destiny was traded at the sight of a bowl of pottage. The term ‘stomach infrastructure’ – as trumpeted by the governor, Ayo Fayose – could hardly be divorced from Ekiti whenever and wherever politicking in the Nigerian context was been discussed.

    Four years down the lane, the Ekiti-kete appeared to have redeemed themselves by not only displaying an applauding sense of maturity beyond political adolescence, but also shed the toga of dogmatism and bias often associated with electioneering in Nigeria, nay Africa. The declaration, by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), that Kayode Fayemi, candidate of the All Progressives Congress, won the July 14, gubernatorial election, is no doubt a plus for the voting population in Ekiti who – by the results – have distinguished themselves as harbouring no unchecked eternal political loyalty to a particular personality, or a party. Nonetheless, the question of ideological distinction persists still.

    Although not with a landslide, Fayemi – in defeating Kolapo Olusola, the anointed candidate of his arch political adversary, Fayose – may have bought himself a rosy side of history. Recall that, in the aftermath of his loss at the polls in 2014, the Isan-Ekiti born technocrat had (under a heavy cloud of doubt) agreed to ‘concede’ to the wish of the people, without the usual macabre dance to the election petition tribunal by politicians. Fayemi’s eventual conquest (so it now seems) can only be likened to the proverbial revenge meal which has been served his antagonist(s) very chilled.

    However, while the drums are rolled out and teeth gnashing continues, depending on which side of the divides one falls, it is pertinent for Nigerians to interrogate some of the thorny issues which emanated from the recent electoral bout in the Fountain of Knowledge, without losing sight of the fast-approaching 2019 general elections.

    To begin with, the unabated apathy among the electorates, once again, reared its ugly head in Ekiti last Saturday. By INEC’s records, only 403,451 voted during the exercise out of the registered 909, 585 eligible voters, representing an uninspiring average turnout. There must be a diagnosis of the reasons why Nigerians see their PVC as a mere souvenir, deciding to disenfranchise themselves during elections. Before Ekiti, same was the experience in the previous governorship election conducted by INEC in Anambra State in November 2017 where only 448,771 voters exercised their civil right out of the 2.2million who made it onto the voters’ register.

    Another cause of concern, as noticed in Ekiti, is vote-buying and financial inducement by the political class. To many observers of the exercise, the open commercialization of votes, almost across board, has once again brought to the fore, the unquenchable and infectious level of desperation for power by politicians. An obviously pained Governor Fayose, having being alerted of happenings on the day, simply described the scenario as a “charade” and “national shame”. Allegations abound that what happened in Ekiti, on Saturday, was a classical case of who could ‘out-rig’ the others; a reminiscence of similar events four years earlier. Again, the argument surfaces about how the political class has, over the years, deliberately fine-tuned poverty into a readymade tool used in remote-controlling the disadvantaged masses.

    And now to security, the media became inundated with reports of incidence of thuggery before and during the polls in Ekiti despite the deployment of over 30 thousand security personnel, just for that quadrennial exercise. Allegations of active complicity and compromise by some security officials in ballot box snatching, especially in remote localities, by hoodlums also made it to the social media, even as the hierarchy of the police expectedly denied knowledge of such occurrences. One is therefore pushed to inquire: what is the essence of having people practically locked in their houses by security agents on election days if some urchins are still allowed to do the ill-biddings of their political paymasters?

    The embrace of modernization comes with lots of responsibilities which should be constantly put to checks, if humanity would be rescued from activating the self-destruct button. One aspect of civilization that falls into this category is the eruption and usage of new (social) media, most importantly its deployment in critical situations. On Saturday, the heavy hammer of the electronic media regulator, the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), fell on both the TV and Radio outfits of the Ekiti State Broadcasting Service allegedly for allowing Governor Fayose use his platforms to announce Prof. Kolapo as winner of the election, in a clear “…breach of the Electoral Act and the Broadcasting Code on Political Broadcast”.

    However, hundreds of individuals and groups went unpunished despite the unforgivable nuisance they constitute on the blogosphere where they manufacture conjectures and assumptions unfoundedly throughout the day. Going into 2019, it must be realized that the unregulated usage of social media platforms for sensitive occasions (like unauthorized announcement of election results and outright dissemination of falsehood) remains among the biggest threats to our democracy.

    In the end, the outcome of the gubernatorial contest in Ekiti may be a pointer to the possibility of how 2019 may pawn out. Although feelers from the media suggest that Nigerians are frustrated by the failure of the APC federal administration to fulfil many of its promises before becoming Aso-Rock landlords in May 2015. Nonetheless, the dramatic ending to the PDP reign in Ekiti is a potent shot that the real voters may not have totally forgiven the umbrella party for its profligacy while in charge. And it looks like the 2019 elections would still be a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea for the Nigerian electors.

     

    • Ajala, a freelance journalist, writes via ajalatravel07@gmail.com