In November, 2014, I posted an article titled, Our Governor Has Gone Mad Again, on my Facebook wall. The title was inspired by Ola Rotimi’s classic, Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again, which central character was Col. Ladele, an impulsive, irrational soldier turned politician.
The article generated much interest from my former colleagues, many of whom were pro-Ekiti State Governor, Ayo Fayose, back then at the University of Ife . Thanks to Fayoseites(as I now call them) as I received the bashing of my life with some even calling me unprintable names.
From all their reactions to the article, two things became clear in their defence of the Governor.
Fayose’s supporters say it to high heavens that he is a man of the people; loved by the people and because of his infamous Stomach Infrastructure, the people can die for him!
This argument only reminds me of the central character in Chinua Achebe’s The Man of the People, Chief Nanga. The Chief is a classic example of a corrupt, selfish and opportunistic politician who characterised the First Republic and those who have read the novel knew how the Chief ended.
The basic thrust of Stomach Infrastructure is that life starts and ends in the stomach. Hence, the people must be hungry or be made to be. If not, how can one explain a state where workers are owed for up to four months salaries, and the same workers will protest against the impeachment of their employer (the Governor) if not for the Stomach Infrastructure?
Still under this infamous scheme, Ekiti is treated like a conquered territory and its people as hungry refugees who must stay on queue like war-ravaged children just to collect some cups of rice that will last them a day or weeks at most! How then is this different from theAmala and Ewedu politics of the late Chief Lamidi Adedibu back then in Ibadan? Truly Fayose is a man of the people!
The second thing I could make of Fayose’s supporters is their belief that his victory is “the beauty of democracy.” These people boast loudly as they describe his victory in the June 26, 2014 gubernatorial election as an act of love from the Ekiti people. I also held this opinion initially until a tape revealed how the election was “scientifically rigged.” Not that I agreed that the election was conducted properly, but as a Psychologist, I could not provide any justification for the voting patterns in the state to confirm that result. The rest is now history!
Let us forget about the election for now as the Supreme Court has since put all the doubts about it to rest. The Yorubas have a saying: Ara ija leyin wa meaning Biting is part of the game. Invariably, rigging is part of the election. The caveat being the strict obedience to the 11thCommandment: “Thou shall not get caught!”
One is therefore left to wonder how the same democratic process (election) that threw up legends like Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Margaret Thatcher can also be the same that gave birth to elements like Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. One is also left at sea as to how Africa can, on the one hand throw up giants like Julius Nyerere(Tanzania) and still at the same time nurture Robert Mugabe (Zimbabwe) even though both operated under a one-party system!
More mysterious to me still is the fact that a system that produced giants like Kayode Fayemi, a renowned academic, astute administrator and strategist and a perfect gentle man on one hand can still produce someone in the likes of Fayose! And we boldly call this same system a democracy?
Still on the gubernatorial election, Fayose made everyone believe that he is now “Born again.” Some fell for his new trick, but for those of us who know, a leopard does not change its spots. Almost immediately after his election, he returned to his vomit. He declared war on several fronts, first on the Judiciary. He physically attacked a Judge who was presiding on the case of his eligibility to contest the election. Crisis started, the courts were closed, and the State never knew peace ever since. Recall that he was impeached in 2006 and, by law, he is not expected to hold any public office for ten years.
He launched another round of attacks again this time on the Legislature. It took seven members out of the 26-member state House of Assembly to approve Fayose’s list of Commissioners and “impeach” its speaker, Dr. Adewale Omirin, under the protection of the Nigerian Police! In parenthesis, 7 out of 26 does not even constitute the Constitutional requirement of one-third to form a quorum. Only Fayose and his loyal supporters can explain the new formula that makes 7 out of 26 to equal one third!
It would have been all right if Fayose remained a local embarrassment. He took his cause too far when he sponsored a front page advertorial in several Nigerian dailies which was calculated at discrediting the All Progressives Congress(APC) presidential candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari, where he listed the General with one of the former Nigerian Heads of State who died in office just because of the General’s age, 72. It took the maturity of Nigerian political leaders particularly those of Northern extraction, for the matter not to degenerate to fracas.
Need we add that his party, Peoples Democratic Party(PDP), which he thought he was doing a favour with the advert, quickly distanced itself from the advert and Fayose was left on his own. Even his family rejected him for bringing their name to disrepute. Despite all these, he insisted he had no apology embarrassing himself, his state, his people , his family and even his mother. If this is not madness, then I don’t know the meaning of the word!
I haven’t heard from my old colleagues at Ife for a while now to know if they have changed their opinions about Fayose. I was only recently informed that one of them, now openly criticise him since the March 28 presidential election which Buhari won. If this is true, then I take it as a vindication of my earlier stand in my article, Our Governor Has Gone Mad Again.
It is only recently that Fayose hurriedly rushed to the court to save him from impeachment by the Ekiti lawmakers. I smiled because the English have a saying that the way up is the way down. If Fayose can run to the court,( the same court whose Judge he slapped, harassed and intimidated before he became Governor) to save him, then wonders shall never end. This movie will be a long one. His latest actions confirm my long-held opinion on Fayose as an embodiment of contradictions, mediocrity and thuggery. This is the Fayose I know!
***Olalekan Waheed ADIGUN is a writer, philosopher, politician, academic, dramatist, poet, psychologist, political strategist and researcher.
Tel: +2348136502040, +2347081901080
Email: [email protected]
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