The Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP’s) reaction to the Edo governorship election, when compared to its bluff and bluster, before the 2015 presidential election results were announced, reminds Hardball of the William Wordsworth’s remarkable poetic quip: the child is the father of the man.
Before the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) announced the result, which declared Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, the All Progressives Congress’ (APC’s) candidate as winner, Femi Fani-Kayode, the Goodluck Jonathan chief electoral spokesperson, had sworn, in his own glib way, that President Jonathan had triumphed.
He even warned, sending a chill through the spine of the unwary, that his party would not tolerate being robbed of its hard won victory!
However, by the time the results were out, it became nothing but empty gas, only a Fani-Kayode could muster.
Roll forward the clock to more than a year later, and the PDP would appear back to the same trick — empty bluster.
Only that a new Fani-Kayode appears to emerge on the horizon — and he is no Olisa Metuh, now funereally quiet, who patented the PDP line of reporting local political developments to the “international community”, another line Edo losing candidate, Osagie Ize-Iyamu, appeared to ad-lib, when he claimed he was reporting the alleged INEC-APC electoral shenanigans to the American consul!
The new Fani-Kayode, in this game of empty bluff, would appear Dayo Adeyeye, a prince of Ise-Ekiti, once-upon-a-time progressive, but latter-day neophyte of PDP’s peculiar ideology, that turns conservatism into outright reaction.
As Fani-Kayode did in 2015, Dayo Adeyeye was hollering and growling and belching claims, alleging his party had won 55 per cent of the vote, and warning INEC not to dare change the result.
Perhaps Adeyeye was right? The official results didn’t seem to agree. But still, you never know: the PDP still has the option of challenging the results in court.
If it prevails, Adeyeye would have been justified. The PDP case would then be that of someone who tells a lie all of the time, but cannot be believed even if, at this instant, he is telling the truth.
But if it is empty bluff for the umpteenth time? Well, no one would be surprised!
Still, what has Wordsworth’s “the child is the father of the man” got to do with all these? Ah that!
Simple. Adeyeye, by date of birth, is older than Fani-Kayode. Indeed, before his new political company, he was a pillar of the progressive forces — indeed, one of their brightest, one of their proudest, one of their most credible.
But in his new company? Fani-Kayode is clear master, which is okay. What, however, is not okay is following the Fani-Kayode trajectory of passionate baiting, based on colourful and emotive conjectures, but nevertheless based on near-zero facts.
That unflattering path — with the show he put up at the Edo polls — is what Adeyeye appears to be towing. It’s no business of Hardball though, for every citizen, nay every politician, has a right to chart his or her own distinctive course.
But as an unfazed Awoist in the non-progressive camp, Adeyeye himself must know: the Fani way is the Biblical wide and merry road that leads nowhere but ruin and perdition — at least credibilitywise.
Adeyeye would, therefore, do well to watch his utterances, even in the heat of politics. Being ideologically neophytic need not result in loss of personal credibility in the public space.
There is life, after all, beyond politics.
