The euphoria that lathered his inauguration as governor a second time was overwhelming. Governor Ayo Fayose and the voters who put him in office after about eight years in the wilderness will expect that the euphoria will last, especially with the divine spin they put on October 16, the date he was impeached in 2006 and the date of his inauguration in 2014. He won by his earthy humour and disposition; he will expect that both qualities should suffice to keep him in office for the next four years, notwithstanding his glaring weaknesses as a policymaker and undisguised failings as a person. But there is no doubt he is riding high and magnificently on the crest of huge popularity accentuated by the surprisingly intense dislike the Ekiti electorate nurse towards the former governor, Kayode Fayemi.
Mr Fayose was right to suggest during his inauguration that the more his opponents attacked him, the more popular he became. He attributed that popularity to his bucolic outlook, his simplicity and openness, his unpretentious cuisine, his unctuous embrace of alternative medicine, in short, his anti-modernist proclivities. He punctuated his speech with clear indications that pedestrianism would be the locus of his government. His speech was appalling and uninspiring, but the inauguration crowd whooped for more pearls from their new philosopher-king. Most of his critics regard him as unschooled and uncultured, but even by his own galling standards, his shocking inability to read his own speech was truly baffling. He struggled through every sentence and laboured painfully to enunciate words and concepts that seemed a pale above the ordinary, but the stadium where he was inaugurated erupted every time he delivered a futile and jocose wisecrack with his characteristic deadpan.
If he could hardly read a simple speech in a state that prides itself as the Fountain of Knowledge, where every family is said to have produced either a graduate or a PhD holder, if not a professor, he at least instinctively knew how to inflame the booboisie with unmatched extemporaneousness. Indeed, he exposed himself badly and did injury to his person by sticking to a prepared speech. He did much better with off-the-cuff statements, for those crazy asides, those stirringly sweet nothings roused his audience to a frenzy. Had Dr Fayemi stuck to his urbaneness, that insufferable quality that was blamed for his disconnection from the electorate, and attended the inauguration, as he should in a civilised society, he would probably have been mobbed, if not physically by the inflamed mob, at least figuratively by Mr Fayose’s withering and merciless putdowns.
Ekiti’s brand new governor, as the PDP national chairman described Mr Fayose, extended his right hand of fellowship to the state Chief Judge and the media: to the former because he knew in his heart that his assault on the judiciary some two weeks before his inauguration was unprecedented and unforgivable no matter the subterfuge read into it, and the latter because, like President Goodluck Jonathan, he chafes at their relentless criticisms. His speech did not give indication what he intends to do with the judiciary other than promise futilely to make it the best, but what he did to it before his inauguration is telling enough to constrain that arm of government from practicing juridical Puritanism and adventurism. But his speech did indicate that he felt resentment towards the unsparing media, especially that section that needles him constantly, and would prefer that they were exterminated should the chance offer itself.
There is absolutely no doubt in anyone’s mind, except perhaps his inauguration audience, that his style and person hark back to the Idi Amin era, where opponents are castrated and the media completely shackled. Mr Fayose will try to muscle the judiciary now and again, and will instigate the Ekiti booboisie against that section of the media he loathes. This newspaper, sources say, is number one on his list of enemies. But while we can from the distance lampoon Mr Fayose and spurn his blandishments, and are even prepared to defy him should he cause a total boycott of this paper in his budding fiefdom, it is not clear what quinine the eminent justices in Ekiti would be made to swallow in the coming months and years, especially seeing how he intimidated and humiliated them before his inauguration. Nor is it clear just how the Chief Judge, whose task is to guard and promote the independence of the judiciary in the state, will walk the tightrope in a government he knows at bottom to be dedicated wholly to the amenities and facilities of the street. Ekiti protests its right to elect whomever it wishes, no matter how unworthy, but we must also defend our right not to decay to the level circumstances and politics have pushed that intransigent and transfixed state.
Dr Fayemi must have offended Ekiti so deeply that the electorate canonised Mr Fayose right from the inauguration stadium. The complete repudiation of Dr Fayemi’s cultured ways and the total embrace of Mr Fayose’s rusticity either signify the polarisation of the Ekiti society between the elite and the plebeians or reflect a gradual and insidious decay of that society. Not only did the governor act coarsely before his coronation, he also spoke like a roughneck during the ceremony, and in addition self-deprecatingly. What is more, he bluffed and blustered, and while he half-heartedly offered peace, even attributing that magnanimity to divine inspiration, he left no one in doubt he preferred war. He ridiculed his predecessors, sullied the throne he had just mounted, displayed shocking ignorance, and prepared the ground for the projection of brawn rather than brain. He understands that any day and any time, the artisans and road transport unions that rally heedlessly to his cause pack a better and bigger punch than the state’s snooty elite. He knows where to throw in his lot. For the next four years, the mob will rule Ekiti, and the hearts of the judicious will grieve.
Before his electoral triumph, Mr Fayose was careful not to alarm the electorate with high-sounding programmes. At his inauguration, he was even more careful not to sound loftier than necessary. He offered Ekiti a mundane five-point programme, obviously nothing to fire the imagination, and nothing properly describable as visionary. He feels it is safe to be tentative and conservative. But I really think he merely offered what is within his competence, intellectually and physically. He was breathless as he read his speech, and seems to be driven more by his own imagination (which he made poetic reference to) than his body can endure, but he appeared supremely confident of his ability to inspire the people to accomplish anything within the framework of his private, distorted and unflattering philosophy.
In retrospect, I think Dr Fayemi got his priorities and timelines wrong. Let him not insist he has not learnt lessons from his defeat. He misjudged the Ekiti electorate to be wise and enlightened and futuristic. But like their brethren in the Southwest, they are not. They are as susceptible to bribes as they are vulnerable to misinformation. Before the election, Mr Fayose’s team portrayed Dr Fayemi and the All Progressives Congress (APC) as working for Bola Ahmed Tinubu in Lagos, a spuriousness sold by Ondo State under Governor Olusegun Mimiko, and regurgitated by Bode George and other mischievous Southwest elements who either deliberately or ignorantly confuse inspiring a region to achieve greatness with exploiting a region for private ends. Mr Fayose repeated that spuriousness in his inaugural speech, asserting that the resources of Ekiti would under him be dedicated to developing Ekiti. Now, for all anyone cares, Southwest integration is all but dead. Most south-westerners never really understood it, and their governors approached it with exasperating gingerliness. With the mundane Mr Fayose in the saddle and the staid and underperforming Dr Mimiko genuflecting before Dr Jonathan in Abuja, I can see no future for Southwest integration.
Femi Falana, lawyer, activist and humanist hinted after the attacks on Ekiti courts that some Ekiti elites might go into exile. I wonder what went through his mind as he listened to Mr Fayose deliver his inauguration speech, a speech in which he gave indication he would give no quarter to his opponents. More, I wonder how Afe Babalola, lawyer, educationist, philanthropist and eminent Ekiti son felt as he watched Mr Fayose showcase his unenviable and unstatesmanlike skills at inflaming passions.
I am persuaded that Mr Fayose will grant no quarter to writers like me, and I intend to pay him the same compliment. Under the plebeians and Mr Fayose their champion, Ekiti will of course gradually unravel. We will be there to document the tragic regression. Mr Fayose sees divine hand in his return to office, attributes his resilience to his wife’s prophetic gifts, boasts of the unusualness of his return, which he says is unprecedented anywhere, and considers the coincidence of his exit and return dates as spiritually significant . Absolute piffle. As a student of history, I am sensible and pragmatic enough to know that Hitler couldn’t have taken office without divine help, as he himself indicated when his enemies tried to assassinate him. Nor could King Saul of Israel, Stalin of Russia and a host of other dictators have taken office without heaven’s involvement.
Having elected Mr Fayose into office against the wishes of his critics and to the dismay and grief of the polished and cultured, Ekiti will stick to that questionable decision and even try to ennoble it. They will regard our criticisms, no matter how altruistic, as an assault on their democratic rights, and they will be prepared to violently defend their incomprehensible choice and inveigh against Lagos APC leaders for showing them up for who they are. I am persuaded that with Spartan equanimity, Ekiti will live with its choice, even if it cost them their civilization and reputation. Good. But we will also report that historical inevitability. So help us God.
