The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Fayose

  • That Fayose’s poisonous advert

    SIR: Ayodele Fayose is a character that appears to defy social norms. Defying social norms is not a problem because it encourages debate and promotes engagement with issues as they develop. There is no rule that says somebody is right because you align with public opinion or with the views of the majority. When people defy social norms, they go against what the ‘majority’ sees as right or wrong. This is perception which may be jaundiced. Hence, a deviant is one who does something or engages in a habit condemned by the majority as unwholesome. It is against this background that the likes of Governor Fayose can facilitate social change (violent or peaceful) through their utterances and symbolic representations such as what has been called ‘death-wish advert’ published on the front page of national newspapers against the All Progressive Congress Presidential candidate, General Muhammad Buhari.

    Fayose did not do anything unusual from what most of us do. The advert is only a reflection of what we all do in our religious spaces. The subtle difference in Fayose’s advert is that whereas we pray for the death of our enemies in churches, the enemies are anonymous and mostly unmentioned. That Fayose chose to go to the press with overt pictorial evidence of the perceived political enemy that ‘should die’ is callous, wicked and totally insensitive.

    Now if Governor Fayose is not sufficiently knowledgeable to appreciate the sensitivity of his message at this time in the history of Nigeria when issues of religion, ethnicity, sectionalism and power become hotly debated, what about his advisers? He who walks with the wise grows wise but a companion of fools suffers harm (Proverbs 13:20).

    What is the essence of having special advisers on media and public communications who cannot advise their principal rightly? It may not be their fault. The Governor may not be listening to them or they are just yes-men advisers. Whichever way, negligence is condemnable. And if the special advisers were just interested in keeping their jobs, what is the role of the media in ensuring social order? Social responsibility dictates that the press should censor items likely to cause disaffection. I expected the advert clearing house of the newspapers to consider the unintended consequences of using the advert on the peace and unity of the country. Front page colour advert is huge money and tempting but everything should not be about money.

    The foolishness of the advertorial is that it has given the ‘enemy’ of Fayose more popularity and sympathy like the type President Goodluck Jonathan enjoyed during the last elections. At that time, the cabal tossed him around, silenced him until the people rose up and fought for him. It was his persecution that shot him to electoral victory not because people thought he could deliver anything called ‘dividends of democracy’. Again why is age 72 a problem to Fayose? In the same Bible which he quoted in his advert, Moses led the Israelites until he was 120 years!

    Indeed if former President Umar Yar’ Adua did not die, would Fayose have had the opportunity of supporting Jonathan today? The likes of Murtala Mohammed, Sani Abacha, and Musa Yardua came to intervene in the affairs of Nigeria. No man should undermine their contributions. They served us to usher in social change.

    Let Fayose know that death is no history. It is a reality. It is a social fact.  It is a debt which we all owe.. The serial death advert is poisonous, destroying the very fabric that binds us together as a country. People like Fayose have their own children secured somewhere and expose others to death due to their unguarded utterances. Let all those placing hate adverts and making hate comments be warned! Nigerians will not allow the selfishness of ‘polithiefcians’ and their cronies bring death upon them. That is why a change that will end the reign of deaths and hopelessness in Nigeria is desired. The death-wish advert may be a propeller towards that change.

     

    • Oludayo Tade, PhD

    Department of Sociology,

    University of Ibadan.

  • Is Ekiti not embarrassed by Fayose?

    Is Ekiti not embarrassed by Fayose?

    Last week, Governor Ayo Fayose of Ekiti State authored perhaps the most offensive newspaper front page advert ever, wherein he asserted with all the sham religiosity his dark heart could muster that Muhammadu Buhari, presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), would die in office if elected. Three former Nigerian leaders, all from the Northwest, had died in office, he wrote ominously. And because Gen Buhari is from the same Northwest, and is 72 years old, he could not avoid the same fate, reasoned Mr Fayose in the advert published by two newspapers. Nigerians were tired of state burials, he indicated with feigned altruism. Though the uproar the advert generated was intense, Mr Fayose has predictably stuck to his guns, insisting he would never apologise for his hysteria.

    Given the kind of leadership the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has been saddled with in the past few years, the party is unlikely to show any serious remorse over the advert. In fact, President Goodluck Jonathan’s campaign organisation spokesman, the capricious Femi Fani-Kayode, merely distanced the PDP presidential candidate from the advert, suggesting that the content was strictly Mr Fayose’s, and that neither the PDP nor Dr Jonathan was responsible for the advert. The Ekiti governor, he volunteered, was a man he and the PDP had great regard for, lest anyone should think Mr Fayose had become hated in the party for his strident views.

    If the PDP, Jonathan Campaign Organisation and Dr Jonathan himself refuse to clearly and openly denounce the advert, and have in many ways produced tonnes of equally distasteful adverts against their main opponent in the February presidential poll, what of Ekiti itself? Are they not embarrassed by Mr Fayose’s sulphuric language and odious logic? They voted him into office, and have consistently resisted any suggestion, especially by the APC, that they acknowledge their mistake. But are they still sure they acted sensibly? They were almost of one accord in last June’s governorship poll when they wilfully threw away the baby with the bathwater, in effect asking for the biblical Barabbas to be released unto them and Jesus to be crucified. Are they sure they got their theology right? They wanted to punish former governor Kayode Fayemi for errors they could not forgive, even though their copious education should have led them to the Spartan forbearance necessary to withstand the blandishments and the engaging rusticity, populism and superficial egalitarianism that a Fayose governorship deceptively foreshadows. Do Ekiti voters still trust their sociology principles?

    No one knows how Ekiti people now feel about their governor, his provincial appeal, brashness, foul language, errant logic and wholesale subversion of the law and constitution. Perhaps, having taken the spontaneous decision to enthrone a man so opposed to civilized living and so crudely enamoured of tyrannical politics, Ekiti feels compelled to live with their choice. Perhaps they resent being told ‘We told you so,’ or being ridiculed for marching backwards on a bad road. Until they come out in large numbers to denounce the dangerous atavism of their governor, we may never know exactly what they think of their governor as a person, and what they think of his statements and policies. But as for the rest of Nigeria, and in particular, the Southwest, everyone is embarrassed on behalf of Ekiti.

    Ekiti, it must be reiterated, reserves the right to elect any party and any man of their choice into any elective office available. They have the right to cavort among a wide range of political parties, and to even denounce progressivism and embrace conservatism. The choice may seem disagreeable to many people, but the beauty of democracy is the right to be serious or sentimental, wise or foolish, and rash or temperate, as long as the choices are made lawfully. Pursuant to the freedom to choose, perhaps, is also the right of a people to build and elevate their civilization in faithfulness to their history, or to destroy their civilization because of one provocation or the other and in contempt of their proud history. One choice, sometimes, is all it takes for a people to perish — one careless war; one careless policy; one careless turn down the road. A society has a responsibility to keep its wits, for the decisions of today must take cognisance of the past, the present and the future. It is not clear that last June Ekiti made its choice carefully. The reasons are many.

    Apart from the distasteful advert wishing a President Buhari dead, Mr Fayose had right from inauguration exposed himself to the rest of Nigeria as lawless and foolish. Ekiti may have resented many of Dr Fayemi’s policies and style, but they at least squirmed and groaned under a sensible governor they could introduce to the rest of Nigeria and the world. Under Mr Fayose, they are living their fantasies of frolicking in Government House swimming pool, resting momentarily and dreamily on exotic government beds, and  savouring Fayose’s gourmet handouts. But whether style or substance, only the hardiest of Ekiti proletariat would proudly introduce Mr Fayose as his governor, let alone his leader and embodiment of Ekiti values and worldview.

    Ekiti has no excuse not to understand whom they were voting for in last year’s poll. He never hid his ribaldries, nor tried even faintly to disguise his caustic tongue. His language is coarse and offensive, and his manners, which hark back to the Stone Age, underscore his indulgent medieval theology that constantly seeks to justify and explain his every action in divine terms. Thus the muscling of the judiciary, which he exposed to a systematic and orchestrated brutalisation and intimidation shortly after his inauguration, was justifiable because he feared the APC wanted to subvert the people’s will. He was not uncomfortable with getting seven lawmakers to approve his cabinet list, pass state budget, and give hasty assent to half-baked and disingenuous bills.

    Many analysts have suggested that Mr Fayose is keener than anyone else, including Dr Jonathan’s most ardent aides, in getting the president re-elected since his stay in Ekiti Government House, which still rests on shaky judicial ground, could become even more tenuous under a Buhari presidency. The analysts are right. But what fully explains Mr Fayose’s lack of restraint and effortless resort to inanities is his natural and abiding inclination to wallow in the cesspool. His style is his life, and his life is not the modern kind Nigerians and Ekiti are used to. There is no reflection in him, and in him all the vices often on display in beer parlours and street fights cohere exquisitely. Such a man does not need reasons to be offensive; he is naturally and instinctively offensive.

    If Ekiti is embarrassed by their governor’s atrocious behaviour, they have not quite shown it. The rest of Nigeria, except diehard PDP supporters, groan in pain at his excessive and constant execrableness.  Ekiti, it seems to the judicious, will vote Gen Buhari, for they, like their kinsmen in the Southwest, are tired of PDP’s tomfooleries in Aso Villa. It is indeed inconceivable that any scaremongering could stop them from repudiating Dr Jonathan, or dissuade them from voting their kinsman, Yemi Osinbajo, who is on the Buhari ticket. Mr Fayose’s desperation is thus unlikely to bear any fruit. But his excesses will continue until they reach a crescendo, where the quietly mortified Ekiti, hitherto anxious to justify their rash electoral behaviour of last June, will rise in fiery indignation, damn the consequences of being ridiculed by their regional and national compatriots, and throw out a man whose political monstrosities all of literature is incapable of depicting even in fiction.

  • Fayose led thugs to attack me, says Ekiti APC candidate

    Fayose led thugs to attack me, says Ekiti APC candidate

    The All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate for Ekiti Central senatorial district, Mr. Gbenga Olofin, has accused Governor Ayo Fayose of personally leading thugs to attack him during a campaign rally in Igede-Ekiti in Irepodun/Ifelodun Local Government Area on Friday. Olofin, according to a statement by his media aide, Femi Awojobi, alleged that Fayose personally supervised the tearing and destruction of his posters and billboards in Igede and other towns in the local government area.

    Fayose and Olofin hail from the same Irepodun/Ifelodun Local Government Area. While the APC senatorial candidate is from Igede, Fayose is from Afao. Olofin alleged that thugs in the convoy of the governor were armed with dangerous weapons like axes, cutlasses and guns and  were conveyed in Hilux vans which carried Ekiti registration numbers. According to him, the thugs wore masks; ransacked shops and homes at Igede and Iyin and attacked some residents with machetes in the daylight. Many shops, according to him, were looted by the hoodlums.

    The APC senatorial flag bearer revealed that the attacks took place between 2.00 pm and 2.30 pm, saying several gunshots fired by the thugs sent residents scampering to safety. Olofin said it was providence that saved him from being killed by the thugs and urged security agencies to be alive to their responsibilities to prevent loss of lives and property. He revealed that he had called the Commissioner of Police and the Director of the Department of State Services (DSS) to inform them of the attack.

    While urging his supporters to be steadfast, Olofin urged them not to be intimidated, saying the people of the state have made up their minds to vote APC at next month’s general elections. But the PDP State Secretary, Dr. Tope Aluko, accused Olofin of raising, false alarm to gain underserved attention. He described the claim of Olofin as “lies from the pit of hell coming from a candidate frustrated by his rejection by the electorate”.

    Aluko challenged Olofin to produce evidence to substantiate his claim, saying Fayose who hails from council area cannot be leading thugs to attack the people that voted him into office. The PDP scribe advised Olofin to look inwards and scrutinise his followers in search of the hoodlums that carried out the attack, saying members of the ruling party are law-abiding and would not be involved in any act of violence.

     

  • Fayose signs budget passed by seven PDP lawmakers into law

    Ekiti State Governor Ayo Fayose on Friday signed into law the 2015 Budget passed by seven Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) members of the House of Assembly.

    Fayose also signed three other bills into law, one of which was the Ekiti State Peace Corps (Repeal) Law which scraps the grassroots security outfit established by the Dr. Kayode Fayemi administration.

    The remaining laws which received Fayose’s assent are the Ekiti State Change of Official Logo (Amendment) 2014 and Grant of Pensions (Amendment) 2014.

    The governor had on December 15 presented a budget of N80.774 billion to the seven PDP lawmakers who jerked up the budget to N80.9 billion which was endorsed by the state chief executive.

    The PDP faction carried out the act in the absence of 19 All Progressives Congress (APC) lawmakers who maintain that the embattled Speaker, Dr. Adewale Omirin remains the head of the legislature and not factional Speaker Dele Olugbemi.

    Speaking after giving his assent to the bills, Fayose explained that the 2015 Budget focuses on civil servants, education, citizens’ empowerment, health and overall development of the state.

    He said the peace corps was scrapped because the motive for its establishment by the outgone administration was suspicious.

    Fayose added that the grant of pension law was amended to give pension to former governors and their deputies saying ex-leaders like Chief Segun Oni and other who served in that capacities are now beneficiaries.

  • Fayose’s denigration of Yar’Adua’s memory

    SIR: It would be unusual for President Jimmy Carter to make an unkind remark about President John F. Kennedy : they both were members of the Democratic Party. What might be offbeat is to hear a president mention in a feature interview that another president from the opposite camp is his best friend. Carter so described Gerald Ford even though both were of different political camps.

    Real statesmen rise above petty-mindedness, they conquer self, consider the feelings of other people and desist from demeaning the dead.

    Whilst it is in order for the electorate to worry about a presidential candidate’s (and other office-seekers) state of health and mental well-being to direct the wearisome day-to-day affairs of state, it is improper, and ill-advised to have statesmen make derisive statements about the health of these contenders in a discourteous  manner to score cheap political point, in this case, the fitness of  Buhari to run for office as credited to the Governor of Ekiti State, Ayodele Fayose to the “effect that General Muhammadu Buhari does not enjoy good health.”

    Worse yet, mischievous, if a passing reference is made to a deceased statesman, particularly with the comparison between, the late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and General Buhari.

    This linkage calls for concern: Nigerians do not speak ill of the dead especially if that person was a good leader.

    The late president who by the way belonged  to the same party as Fayose (PDP), was his national leader and should be celebrated, not otherwise. The late President was not arrogant, overly-humble, nationalistic in his views, never, religiously opinionated. Yar’Adua was prudent enough to understand his ally and political rivals, he reasoned with several, saw situations with them and, not about them, and negotiated an armistice that saw the end of militancy because he understood what most leaders do not know: situational awareness.

    Great countries are celebrated because of the power of collaboration; he was wise enough to know that all people, of differing faith matter. He embraced alliance, the same way most middle-eastern countries do with western industrialists leading to their vibrant economies, one imagines how unfledged these countries would have been without western involvement despite their insularly partisan religious orientation.

    He was never weak and refused to be despoiled by the frills of power and was ready at a point to submit his office to the opposition if it became clear that his ascendancy to the office was rigged in. He almost turned Nigeria into Ghana where incumbents lose elections.

    He was not known to scapegoat the opposition and tried to disrobe some people duplicitously robed by the establishment.

    Under him, there were shadowy (faceless) cabals who tried to hijack his presidency, but they remained just that: faceless because they lacked guts. But in our day, we have assemblages gutsy enough not to wear veils, who have chosen to daringly make scathing pronouncements promoting ill-will.

    Umaru Musa Yar’Adua had a directorial belief which made him a man of exceptional sterling quality, “I think people should know that you derive the greatest satisfaction from serving others, rather than serving yourself, I would want more and more Nigerians to define themselves also in this light of service to the nation and service to humanity,” he said.

    It is incumbent upon the PDP to polish the image of Yar’Adua by carrying out his programmes perceptively the same way Lyndon Baines Johnson did after the assassination of President J.F Kennedy.

    Could the governor of Ekiti State show democratic-sportsmanship by not joining issues with the dead?

     

    • Simon Abah.

    Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

  •  Fayose death wish for Buhari

    Recently, the Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose placed an advert on the front page of The Punch suggesting that the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Muhammadu Buhari, will die in office if elected president.

    The advert, which has the pictures of Murtala Muhammed, Sani Abacha, and Umaru Yar’Adua – past Nigerian leaders who died in office was accompanied by excerpt from the Bible book of Deuteronomy 30 verse 19.

    ”Nigerians be warned! Nigeria…I have set before thee life and death. Therefore, choose life that both thee, and thy seed may live,” it said, suggesting that General Buhari represents death, while his rival, President Goodluck Jonathan represents life. The advert put a huge question mark over the picture of General Buhari, which was placed beside the pictures of the late leaders. The advert then asked its readers: “Will you allow history to repeat itself? Enough of State burials.”

    It is crystal clear that Fayose and his cohorts are not only desperate, they are playing God by professing death for somebody on account of age and election. Fayose’ divisive advert is enough to plunge the country into political cum ethnic crisis, especially at this critical period when the polls are gathering momentum. If not, why was the advert placed on a day that President Jonathan was in Sokoto State for campaign rally? It may not be out of place to infer that the move was part of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) strategy to see if the forthcoming polls would be scuttled or postponed as result of induced violence or provocation of the North.

    But the North and the APC’s reaction to it have shown that they are more sagacious politically than President Jonathan and his PDP cohorts. Fayose and the PDP have forgotten that there is no correlation between age and death because sickness and death knows no age or tribe. Even if the likes of Sani Abacha, Murtala Mohammed, and Umaru Yar’Adua died in office as presidents of the country at different times, why would Fayose single out deceased former presidents of the country from the North in the advert? Have Fayose and the PDP forgotten that General JTU Aguiyi Ironsi from Abia State, like Murtala Muhammed, was killed while in office as Head of State? Or is it, as stated by the Buhari Campaign Organisation, that the PDP and its agents are planning to kill Buhari if he wins the election?

    Just like Fayose, every Nigerian has antecedents, and we know ourselves well. It is often said that leopard can never change her colour. A pig will ever remain so no matter how many times you bathe it. Claiming change of character in old age is a ruse; one cannot learn using left hand in old age.

    In PDP and the Presidency are many characters like Fayose who believe they know better than Nigerians. Unfortunately for them, Nigerians know them well as accidental and opportunistic leaders. One of the presidential aides recently declared that wat is better for the country to disintegrate, instead of APC winning the presidential election! Those behind the retinue of advertorials for President Jonathan’s re-election in print and electronic media are greatest beneficiaries of subsidy, aviation and power sector scams. They have used the money to form different support groups for President Jonathan’s re-election. Two of them that symbolized fraud and corruption before Jonathan’s government were from South-east zone. They lack character and integrity, but these are President’s friends who are driving his campaign with the country’s looted fund. These are people being celebrated in the Presidency today where corruption, sycophancy and mediocrity are being adored, celebrated, and encouraged.

    With this calibre of people hobnobbing with President Jonathan, Nigerians were not surprised at Fayose’s action. In the coming days, many more of such provocative, insensitive and divisive adverts, actions or comments will emanate from the president’s camp, because they have no useful message to give Nigerians. Fayose’s advert has also shown that those who claimed to be working for President Jonathan’s re-election are indirectly working against it, by doing more damage to his image.

    Again by the advert content, Fayose has agreed that Buhari will win the election, except that he wishes that he will die in office like Abacha, Muhammed and Yar Adua. What a daft and preposterous thinking by those who call themselves leaders! Recall that some of the President’s cohorts have been comparing him with great world leaders like late Dr. Nelson Mandela, US President Barack Obama and others without showing the correlation between Jonathan’s personality and that of these great world leaders. Unlike people like Fayose and other supporters of Jonathan’s re-election, the issue at stake now is not about age or death, it is about leadership, antecedents, performance and the future of the country. Besides, God is the creator and controller of the universe and not a mere mortal. Politicians must draw a parallel line between God and politics of hatred, because of its consequences. The holy writ says: “But anyone who hates a brother or sister is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness. They do not know where they are going, because the darkness has blinded them.”

     

    • Olayinka, a cleric wrote from Ikeja, Lagos.

  • Fayose’s tirade against the north

    The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) is gradually evolving as a party with desperate antics. This, without equivocation, is a consequence of the emergence of the first real opposition to a sitting federal government in the nation’s history. The All Progressives Congress (APC) has made this possible through the tenacity of purpose of its leaders. With palpitating defeat staring PDP and President Goodluck Jonathan in the face, the party will stop at nothing, including descending to the abyss of everything immoral, to pass across messages of hatred and destruction up its sleeves. The PDP is doing this through its avalanche of flamborines of which Ayodele Fayose, governor of Ekiti State is topmost of those with high nuisance value.

    Fayose is known for everything but decency and he was at the apogee of his nuisance when early this week, he published an advertisement in the newspapers depicting nothing but pathological hatred for the northern part and, serious contempt for human life. To the political loose canon from Ekiti, he was playing politics of Jonathan’s re-election, but to millions of Nigerians and the world, that advert was just a reflection of the best that the PDP comprising people like Fayose and clueless Jonathan can offer Nigerians, Ekiti and other parts where their ilk exist.

    In the controversial advert titled: ‘Nigerians: Be Warned! Life and Death,’ published on the front pages of some national dailies including surprisingly, the revered Punch, he displayed pictures of late Nigerian leaders of northern extraction who died in office including Generals Murtala Muhammad, Sani Abacha and President Umaru Yar’Adua. He ended his mischievous list of pictures with that of the APC presidential candidate in the upcoming February 14, 2015 presidential election, General Buhari with a question mark and his age; and an additional highlighted message: “enough of state burials.”

    By this last statement, he, a mere mortal, is playing God by undoubtedly portraying the north as being incapable of producing leaders that can outlive their tenure in power. To now put up an innuendo that Buhari may suffer same fate on ground of age if voted into power by Nigerians that are currently yearning for his leadership is not only obnoxious but also satanic – sadistic politics taken too far. Empirical evidence the world over has shown that the age a man gets to power is no sole determinant of how long he will live. An example will suffice here: Nelson Mandela (1908-2013) became South-Africa’s president on May10, 1994 at a ripe age and left power voluntarily on June14, 1999 and lived for years after before dying at age 95 on December 5, 2013. Apart from getting to leadership positions, if the 2014 World Health Statistics report published by the World Health Organisation (WHO) that put Nigerians’ life expectancy at 54 years is anything to go by, then someone like Fayose and even the president could be questionably said to be nearing their graves and should not be elected into office ab initio.

    Fayose has not shown penitence over this inhuman gaffe as demonstrated through a statement he issued through his Chief Press Secretary that he has no apology for the controversial advertisement published on Monday. He is still warning Nigerians of the consequence of electing Buhari as the nation’s president, not on espoused principles and salient issues of national significance but on petty plank of age and unfounded health challenge.

    This column is not unmindful of the usual antics and propaganda of an electoral season like this but will definitely not subscribe to the reprehensive antics displayed by Fayose in his paid adverts on the APC’s presidential candidate. The cacophony of disapproval from the public which greeted the publication is a reflection of the consideration of the advert as being thoughtless from a man and a party that cannot be considered less. By that act, Fayose has amplified his tactless as a man lacking in consideration for others. People like Fayose are thriving because the PDP in 16 years of misrule of Nigeria have merely succeeded in breeding people of questionable character that have sadly become politically ingrained as gleaming beasts.

    The PDP campaign mouth organ has made a tepid rejection of the advertisement even while at the same time describing, in wild epithets, Fayose’s puffed-up deluding status in the ruling party and Ekiti state where he governs. What an offensive way of approbation and reprobation at the same time in the party’s laborious but futile bid of extricating itself from the condemnable act due to the deafening backlash it has garnered in public space. Even the presidency has not come out publicly to denounce such an odious advertisement placed with Ekiti tax payers’ money by Fayose with the sole aim of better positioning the president in his re-election bid. All reasonable Ekiti indigenes, anywhere in the world, should come out and condemn, like millions of other Nigerians have done, the Fayose advertisement against Buhari that has put the state’s name, once again, on the world map for the wrong reason.

    That thoughtless advertisement with no respect for human life or dignity should be treated as a message from one of the president’s staunchest overzealous henchmen. The people of the north should get the message inherent as meant to denigrate its respected hegemony. The voters from this region should deploy their votes come February 14 to push President Jonathan out of power. The reality of the day is that Nigerians are fed up with PDP, especially Jonathan’s eggregious misrule and are really itching for CHANGE. This publicly nauseating advertisement is just because the ruling party, the president and his rotweillers cannot fathom the cyclonic demand for real change, courtesy of the APC. Now, they have taken, albeit unsuccessfully, refuge under the demand for Buhari’s original certificates. When they realised that bait would not deter the people from sticking with Buhari, they have changed tactics, cooking up phantom health issues on the man in the process.

    Fayose is a notorious politician who has found himself in power for the second time simply because of the majesty of democracy that saw Ekiti people vote out Kayode Fayemi for whatever disagreement they had with his leadership style. The same Ekiti democratic wave is brewing across the country against President Jonathan and a million Fayoses cannot stop Nigerians from all the geo-political zones that are fed up with Jonathan from voting PDP and his presidential candidate out on February 14. That is the issue that the Fayose advertisement has further pushed to the fore -The need to guarantee APC’s promised change in the coming general elections.

  • Rivers cleric to Fayose: apologise to Buhari

    Rivers cleric to Fayose: apologise to Buhari

    Former Chairman of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) in Rivers State, Apostle Eugene Ogu yesterday urged Ekiti State Governor Ayo Fayose to apologise to the All Progressives Congress Presidential candidate, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari.

    Apostle Ogu, who was reacting to the controversial advertorial sponsored by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governor in two major newspapers on Monday, said the unguarded utterances of the governor showed that: “Nigerians have allowed men without character, who do not have grace and who have no respect for human beings to rule over us.”

    The man of God said Fayose must “ask Buhari and God for forgiveness”, warning: “If he doesn’t, he would not get to the age of Buhari.”

    The respected preacher said the PDP and other members of the society should not just dissociate themselves from the errant governor, but must suspend him, stressing that his action portrayed him as an enemy of humanity.

    “Such utterance is a disgrace to the office of a governor in Nigeria and if a man at his level could fan the embers of wickedness against a man that is hale, that means he has a plan or plot to assassinate him; or how is he so sure that Buhari is going to die in the office?

    “It is so shameful and disgraceful; if he was a member of my church he would be suspended and I urge Nigerians to dissociate themselves from such utterances because only God knows when a man will live and when he will die.

    “If people of this level in office that youths should look up to are making these kinds of careless statements, what kind of future are we leaving for our children? Youths should dissociate from these kinds of people; they are a disgrace to youths. Such people should not be associated with; they can carry consequences that people will share from.

    “PDP should not just distance itself by making advert, but he should be suspended to dissociate itself from such irresponsible, shameless and animalistic statement. It is animalistic; Ekiti people should be ashamed that such a character is their governor.”

    Apostle Ogu regretted that a governor of a state blessed with some of the best minds, academicians and honourable men in Nigerian society would denigrate his office to score cheap political point. He said it was more sorely considering that the Yoruba people are known for grace, style and decorum.

    He slammed the leadership of the Nigerian Army for allegedly turning the respected force “into an arm of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP)-led Federal Government in the certificate saga of Gen Muhammadu Buhari.”

    The apostle said the double-speak by the military hierarchy on the unending saga not only portray the army as a lackey of the Federal Government, but also explain why there had been so many conflicting reports on the fight against Boko Haram and the Chibok girls imbroglio.

    “The false information we have received from the army during the Boko Haram saga, which include the recovery of Chibok children immediately after their abduction, the ceasefire they claimed to have obtained with Boko Haram that the Chibok girls would soon return. Also that they had killed Shekau (the Islamic sect leader) and other information can now be decoded through how they are embarrassing and shaming the army and the nation.

    “The most shameful aspect of it is the denial of having received a copy of Buhari certificate; this has not only brought them to public scorn, but has the capacity of tarnishing its image and turning them all as politicians who have joined PDP.

    “Had it been that they had kept quiet and waited to be asked by court of law, it would have been understandable;  but coming out at this time to tell Nigeria this nonsense,  it is an indirect means of joining the PDP campaign train against Buhari.

    “I am shocked and compelled to ask the army, what certificate did he produce to join the army?

     “Are they indirectly telling us that the Nigerian Army is full of fraudulent people? Their utterance is blasphemous to the army.”

  • Fayose: The medium, not the message

    Fayose: The medium, not the message

    Even before Ayo Fayose’s puerile and morbid advert, it was disaster waiting to happen. And that disaster was not the message but the medium: the medium that exposes itself to ridicule, for the sake of lucre.

    Shit money no dey smell, goes the cynical Nigerian saying in the streets.  But this was one of those cases that it really does!  Still, the Fayose coarse, crude and ghoulish thinking was not the first.

    To recap, Fayose, the supposed Excellency that nevertheless rules Ekiti with the vulgarity of a motor park tout, let go a shocking advert, that exposes an alarming thinking process — a well and truly heart of darkness that calls for an urgent shrink.

    He suggested that since some previous Nigerian military heads of state and an elected president, who came from the Northwest died, in office, he wondered what would happen to Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, should he triumph on February 14.  Still, isn’t Second Republic President Shehu Shagari from the Northwest?  Is he not alive?

    By Fayose’s morbid illogic, that was his brilliant way of pitching votes for President Goodluck Jonathan!  Only a Fayose could proudly boast of such base thinking!

    The outrage was instant; and virtually the whole of Nigeria’s population recoiled in outrage — the whole of Nigeria, except Fayose and his ilk.  What is more?  The enfant terrible of Ekiti politics declared he had no apologies!  Indeed, it’s real fun watching a lunatic display.  But whoever prays his child is the looney stealing the show in the market square?

    Still, Fayose’s mis-advert was only the latest in the mercantilist gifting of media space (for hefty lucre, of course) to advertisers. In contemporary newspaper parlance in Nigeria, it is called “wrap-around”.

    The malady started with some corporate players, baiting the cash-parched media with naked cash, to part with media spaces in the most unlikely of spaces.  The banks pioneered this practice, followed by telecoms, and others.

    But the first real shock came with the third term agenda by former President Olusegun Obasanjo or, in any case as he claimed in his latest memoirs, My Watch, his associates who he knew were behind the third term move, but did not stop them.

    A nation that had sheer revulsion for that self-serving gambit woke up one morning to see an audacious pro-third term advert, “wrapped-around” the front and back pages of a prominent national newspaper, with the newspaper’s masthead even giving it some tacit support!

    Then, all hell broke loose. Such was the resentment against that newspaper that the market negatively reacted, causing other newspapers to be wary of such “subversive” adverts.

    Still, that blew over — and now, it is Fayose’s with its ghoulish content and demented temper.  How could any newspaper worth its editorial sanity lend its corporate face to such advertising lunacy?

    But the logic: if in strict principle, you make your front page available for any advert when you know news ought to be there, how can you in all good conscience lament that a Fayose has virtually plastered your face with rotten eggs?

    Newspaper players had better take an industry stand on such ads, before another Fayose blights them with another crudity!

  • When Fayose and PDP play God

    SIR: When I was growing up, my father, a frontline educationist, narrated a lot of masterpiece stories that I am yet to forget. Once upon a time, he told us in one of the ancient tales of an African king who ruled powerfully over his land, he wielded his power beyond imagination and had the ultimate decision on who will stay in the land or leave his territory. He even projected who has the right to live or die. Eventually,  he prophesised that all his subordinates and aides would die before him. But unfortunately he died in his sleep the same night and left all his aides, subordinates and every member of his kingdom behind. This is how fate can choose to position itself, as no one has control over death and life miseries.

    Looking at the advertorial on the cover pages of two of the Nigerian national dailies on Monday, January 19, I was quick to remember not just my father, but also his parables where the one narrated above readily came to mind.

    The advertorial sponsored by the Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose depicted a situation where everyone that has ruled Nigeria from the North-western part of the country died while in office. The advertorial went further to warn Nigerian to choose between ‘Life and Death’, with a Bible verse to corroborate the statement!

    In fact, not few Nigerians have condemned the advert, but that has not addressed the question of who exactly owns life or power to live in Nigeria. Is it the Almighty God, the ruling PDP or by extension, the sponsor of the advert- the ever over-exuberant Governor Fayose?

    To the best of my understanding, the power to live or die eternally rest with God. Most importantly, in Yoruba land, the part of the country where Ayo Fayose hails from forbids anyone to wish his fellow man death. It then becomes not only unconventional but also very outrageous for anyone to think about death for a political stakeholder at this critical period of our political history.

    I waited eagerly for 24 hours for the ruling party to dissociate itself from the advertorial, so it can really confirm a bit of trust some Nigerians still have in the sensibility of the ruling party, but alas! It never happened.  The bottom-line is that Nigeria as well as Nigerians do not deserve the kind of politicking the nation is witnessing right now. The logic has moved beyond being friendly to a contest of hatred, acrimony and bitterness. This is no way a pointer to a free and fair election devoid of pre, intra and post elections chaos, violence and controversy.

    It is a good thing that the principal contenders signed a peace pact with the electoral body, to ensure a violence-free election, but the fact still remains that principal actors, leading political parties and their supporters cum sympathisers must eschew any form of utterance and position that will instigate the people to result to violent action or create issues that will promote irresolvable controversies.

    While the media should be wary of becoming an unsuspecting tool in the hands of every mischievous politician, the major political parties must as a matter of urgency call its people to order, encourage a level-play field for every contestant where peace and justice can reign.

     

    • Adesina Adetola

    Ikotun, Lagos