Looking at what has happened in Ekiti State recently, one sees glaringly a perfect case of fast decaying political leadership and stunted democratic rule in the last 19 years, which has done palpable collateral damage in the name of mass impoverishment of the people, besieged by hyper-inflationary trend, acute joblessness, haunting illiteracy etc. A terrible scenario where poverty has been used as a weapon of mass intimidation and browbeating mechanism; a satanic tool that was used to hold the people of Ekiti down perpetually to the ditch, which enabled Fayose and Fayemi to have their ways when they offered them pittance in the form of financial inducements during last election. It is heart-wrenching to recollect that Ayo Fayose still owes the workers in Ekiti State salaries running into nine months! Why would poverty not have won in such a political terrain?
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he build up to the July 14, 2018 Governorship Election in Ekiti State, as expected in many quarters witnessed a lot of dramatic twists and turns. The dramatic displays were carefully initiated, planned and executed by the frontline political gladiators within the two dominant parties who targeted the ordinary people of Ekiti State and incredibly exploited their vulnerability to the fullest as political pawns.
To put it frankly, the battle for the soul of Ekiti State was between two desperate men who had been historically bruised and injured by the political circumstances of the state for some years now.
Two men who entertained the Ekiti electorate, nay Nigerian audience by spewing their bile uncontrollably, howled and backed like abandoned hungry dogs. Fayose and Fayemi ranted and threw tantrums like children whose lollipops had been seized and licked by a thieving bully.
They were absolutely ready to use the people of Ekiti as bait and fish, to manipulate them for their selfish political gains. They succeeded, but poverty won the race for one of them- Kayode Fayemi!
We saw the intrigues that came to play during and after the All Progressives Congress Governorship (APC) Governorship primary in Ekiti State, where the manipulation was taken to the zenith as aspirants tried frantically to outdo each other in the name of financial inducements of accredited delegates for the exercise.
That the APC Governorship primary was initially postponed in Ekiti State before it eventually sailed through was as a result of tension, bloodshed, fracas and acrimony generated within the party by aspirants who threw decorum to the gutters because they wanted to ride roughshod over the accredited delegates with the heavy contents of their bulging pockets.
When Dr. (Comrade) John Kayode Fayemi, former Governor of Ekiti State and immediate past Minister for Solid Mineral Development in the APC-led Federal Government eventually emerged again as the flag bearer for the July 14th Ekiti Governorship Election over other formidable aspirants like Segun Oni and Niyi Adebayo, it was the alleged millions of dollars that were ferried into the campaign boat that did the magic.
We must never forget in a hurry that Comrade Kayode Fayemi entered the race like a wounded lion because of the utter humiliation that the sitting Governor, Ayo Fayose meted out to him during the 2014 Governorship Election when he (Fayemi) was the governor of that state. That was why nothing was giving to chance as the Kayode Fayemi Campaign Organization prepared for ‘war,’ so to say.
Ayo Fayose equally entered the race for the July 14 Ekiti State Governorship Election, using his Deputy Governor, as the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), by conjuring up and unleashing every available political brick stones and trick within the PDP and beyond, and constituted them into a weapon of mass terror, intimidation and appeal.
Given his political antecedents in the state that took him to what could be called the valley of the shadow of death before he used unorthodox political masturbations to disengage Dr. Kayode Fayemi from office in 2014, Fayose staked everything to install his anointed successor (Professor Kolapo Ishola without success.
A brief dossier on Fayemi and Fayose will greatly illuminate this narrative here!
Ex- Governor Kayode Fayemi, now Ekiti Governor-Elect, a front line, veteran pro-democracy and human rights activist succeeded in dethroning the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate (Segun Oni) in Ekiti, in one of the most traumatic and keenly contested governorship elections in Nigeria, in October 2010.
As Governor of Ekiti State, Fayemi no doubt piloted the affairs of the state to the best of his ability. But towards the 2014 Governorship Election, profound issues of fundamental/developmental importance (including stomach infrastructure) stared at the ordinary people in the face unblinkingly.
Kayode Fayemi became the second Comrade in the political firmament in Nigeria to be elected the number one citizen of a state, after Comrade Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State. Dr. Fayemi brought sophistication to bear on his administrative policies, which alienated the mass of the people.
Comrade Fayemi’s greatest undoing was not taking the masses of Ekiti State as a priority which contributed massively to his rejection at the polls on June 21 2014 during the Ekiti State Governorship Election.
His shocking defeat at the polls in spite of his passionate approach to the development of Ekiti State has crystallized the debate that a successful politician in the Nigerian context must be on the same page with the mass of the people if he must remain perpetually in contention for political relevance.
Governor Ayo Fayose, who had succeeded to grab the nomination ticket of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in Ekiti State, was seen as a man most unlikely to succeed Fayemi, given the political permutations by some arm-chair analysts who had not studied his enviable nay intimidating political track record.
But those who had not forgotten how Governor Ayo Fayose cleverly put an end to the reign of Otunba Niyi Adebayo in 2003, knew the political worth of the founder of the ‘spotless’ group of companies.
Unknowingly, to most political commentators, Ayo Fayose had carefully and doggedly cemented his passionate desires with the people of Ekiti State during the governorship campaigns that took him to the nooks and crannies in 2014.
The backlog of unpaid salaries owed by the Kayode Fayemi’s government and some other critical reasons that bedeviled the APC regime became a huge instant electoral benefit for Ayo Fayose. Till the wee hours of July 14, 2018, the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ekiti State never recovered from the stunning defeat of ex-Governor Fayemi!
The re-emergence of Governor Ayo Fayose was the greatest electoral upsets then. Naturally, a willing asset who had paid his dues individually and magnificently in the political currents within the PDP in Ekiti State, Peter (the rock) Ayodele Fayose; an extraordinary political activist, who won the hearts of the people earlier in 2001 by virtue of his earth-shaking philanthropic campaigns became a candidate to beat for the Ekiti State Governorship Election in 2003.
On May 29th, 2003, Ayo Fayose was sworn- in as Governor of Ekiti State, his indomitable will had triumphed over the political heavy weights in Alliance for Democracy (AD) in the state and his detractors within the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Ayo Fayose, who had helped ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo to secure Ekiti State for the PDP in 2003, unfortunately became a victim of his (Obasanjo’s) political warfare. The ex-Military Dictator-turned post- June 12, 1993 Democratic President chose to chase him (Fayose) out of office on October 16, 2006, using a presidential sledge hammer to accomplish the task for selfish parochial reasons.
But in what looked like the act of divine providence, by October 16, 2014, Ayo Fayose had risen from the humiliating ashes of defeat to be sworn in again as the Executive Governor of Ekiti State to the chagrin of his detractors.
By his stunning defeat of two incumbent Governors in Otunba Niyi Adebayo and Comrade (Dr.) Kayode Fayemi in Ekiti State, Fayose became the first man ever in this democratic dispensation since 1999, to sack two sitting Governors. Governor Ayo Fayose possessed an indomitable political will indeed since 2003 before that incredible record was shattered on July 14th, 2018! What an irony of fate.
Looking at what has happened in Ekiti State recently, one see glaringly a perfect case of fast decaying political leadership and stunted democratic rule in the last 19 years, which has done palpable collateral damage in the name of mass impoverishment of the people, besieged by hyperinflationary trend, acute joblessness, haunting illiteracy etc.
A terrible scenario where poverty has been used as a weapon of mass intimidation and browbeating mechanism; a satanic tool that was used to hold the people of Ekiti down perpetually to the ditch, which enabled Fayose and Fayemi to have their ways when they offered them pittance in the form of financial inducements during last election.
It is heart-wrenching to recollect that Ayo Fayose still owes the workers in Ekiti State salaries running into nine months!
Why would poverty not have won in such a political terrain? Therefore, there is no making mistake about this fact. The actual winner of the July 14, 2018 Ekiti State Governorship Election is not Kayode Fayemi, neither is the APC as a party, but poverty, excruciating poverty for that matter!
The road to 2019 general elections affords the authorities the wonderful opportunity to allow the people of Nigeria to access the electronic voting system which has been approved by the National Assembly, so that a measure of decency will be brought to bear in the process of electing the representatives of the people at the various strata of governance.
If this singular innovation is introduced, poverty shall no longer have a crucial say in who becomes victorious on election days in our nascent democratic order!
