Let me state inter alia, that everything written here is my personal opinion and after that, anybody willing to draw conclusions can conveniently do that at his own convenience. More importantly anyway, I have scant concern for other people’s conclusions.
The background to this is that the governor of Ekiti State, Mr Ayodele Fayose has never hidden his desire for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to continue in power before the 2015 general election deemed it otherwise, but he campaigned vigorously for the election. One fact was that he won the state for the PDP, although it did not matter in the end.
He has since become the most potent critic of the current administration in the country. Unfortunately, many Nigerians are divided about his criticisms of the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led government, particularly its president, Muhammadu Buhari and his style of governance.
I am of the belief that the governor is making sense and his criticisms are worth the salt in every ramification. I am one of those who don’t care who rules us, whether Hausa, Yoruba or Igbo; what I appreciate is good governance. And this is what I believe is the kernel of Fayose’s arguments.
One thing that is certain today is that the APC has not served us what it promised during the electioneering period; rather what we are seeing today is a complete deviation from all that were promised which made many voters to root for them. This is where those who have not seen the wisdom in Fayose’s criticisms missed the point.
Most of the voters who opted for an APC government would have had a rethink were they to know that what they would get today are promises of a better tomorrow when their today is mired in hunger and poverty. It is not a joke that the average Nigerian is faced with a bleak today than it was yesterday. The suffering in the land is monumental to the extent that many cannot afford to feed their families any longer. What would those people think about ‘please be patient with us’ singsong of this administration?
In any case, it is my fervent belief that nothing concrete may come from all the ‘waiting for the Godot’ being bandied about by the leadership of the ruling party, many of whom are anyway immune from the hardship being unleashed on the masses. The government is unleashing various policies that seem to target the soul of the masses and some people are still saying we must be patient. It is clear that the fuel increase will make a mess of whatever result the government expects to get from all these policies that have pauperised the better part of Nigerians who are daily facing rising cost of living.
One would then wonder why the government of the day is intolerant of simple criticism from somebody who knows what it means to confront poverty at its rawest form as being experienced in the country today with no end in sight. If the government is not intolerant, then why is it hell-bent on bringing down the governor for his criticisms of the administration? My belief is that no governor or simply put, nobody in government, whether today or in past who can lay claim to being totally clean and then the question would be, why Fayose alone? I think he should be left alone if the central government is not witch-hunting him for daring to say the minds of millions of Nigerians.
I have never heard the man speak before but I was not surprised at his articulate disposition when he was a guest on the programme of a radio station based in Ibadan, recently. As I drove from my house to the office on that day, I noticed that many people were glued to their radio sets and a lone voice was blaring out. The rapt attention a lot of people paid to the programme aroused my curiousity and I turned on my car radio to also listen. All the way to my office, it was as if a messiah had come to town with the way the people listened to him. It was the subject of discussions in many circles for days to come. The truth is that the man had spoken the minds of millions of Nigerians who are at the receiving end of the hardship being inflicted on them in the name of CHANGE.
Adewumi sent this piece from Ibadan.