Since the conclusion of the polls, the political battle has shifted to the election petition tribunal. There, the candidate of the PDP in the election, Professor Kolapo Olubunmi Olusola, is challenging the result declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), which conferred victory on Dr Fayemi. While the legal battle is brewing, the state is also counting the days to the inauguration of Dr Fayemi.
On another level, the politics of 2019 is also gathering momentum in the state. With the governorship election done with, the attention has shifted to those who would work with Fayemi as members of the state’s House of Assembly; members of the House of Representatives and the Senate. The state is indeed in a waiting mode and brimming with political and sundry events.
As part of the activities heralding the new administration, the governor-elect, Dr Fayemi, on July 25th, inaugurated a transition committee, which was saddled with the responsibility of setting an agenda for the incoming administration. Fayemi, while inaugurating the Governorship Transition Committee, charged members to “exhibit spirit of patriotism by being painstaking in scrutinising the financial dealings of the present government and come up with how best to approach the policies for the benefit of Ekiti people.”
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The committee members had set out to work immediately after their inauguration because from the July 25, they were given up to August 24 to submit an interim report. And the group led by Senator Olu Adetumbi is expected to submit its final report on September 7. Fayemi had said the primary aim of the committee was, among other things to liaise with the out-going administration for a smooth handover on October 16.
Part of the committee’s duties was also to interface with the outgoing state government and dialogue with other interest groups on how the Fayemi government can hit the ground running when inaugurated on October 16.
However, midway into their work, the members of the committee cried out that the state government was not cooperating with them in their work. “The state government is not cooperating with us at all. By now, we expected that there should have been a transition committee set up by the outgoing administration to have an interface with our own committee,” a member of the John Kayode Fayemi (JKF) group lamented.
The source who didn’t want to be named, said all efforts, all entreaties to the government to cooperate with the incoming administration was rebuffed and there is little the transition could do about that other than unilaterally carry out their job to the best of their ability. It was also gathered that JKF transition committee took a stand that it would not dwell on the non-cooperation of the state government and also decided that the committee would not raise issues about this.
The government, however, in reaction, viewed the entire gamut of “transition committee” differently. When government was presented with the accusation of non-cooperation with the Governorship Transition Committee, set up by the governor-elect, it raised some observations. The state Commissioner for Information, Youth and Sports, Mr. Lanre Ogunsuyi, asked “please, is the ‘transition committee’ a constitutional requirement or just a tradition? It is just a tradition.”
Ogunsuyi further in his questions said “was it the same in 2014?” and added that “I remember sharing it on a social media platform four years ago that the outgoing government then refused to cooperate with us. I think the idea is that we should put it up as a constitutional provision.”
Reacting further, Ogunsuyi said: “When we make it a constitutional provision, we will have a clearly spelt out duties so that they would not just be nebulous. I say this because at the end of the day, you find out that these people don’t really know what to do too, such that they can say ‘we have finished the assignment’. If it’s a constitutional provision, then we will be clear on both sides [on] the responsibilities to [carry out].
“But when it is not a clearly spelt-out constitutional provision as regards number, roles, timeline and so on, it’s nebulous. You don’t set up your own 40 days early and then hurry me to set up my own. Government is still running. There are still jobs to be done, bills to be paid and several other daily duties and responsibilities of government to the citizenry.
“There’s also the issue of acrimony after elections. Things we needn’t say to each other had been said, things we needn’t publish about each other had been published, and then there’s also the issue of post-election contentions, the issues that come with it such as the legal tussles. So, the transition might be for the outgoing person, who feels he won the election, like he is conceding that he lost the election. I think those are the issues.”
Meanwhile, while the brickbats are ongoing, it has become clear from the response of Ogunsuyi that the central issue in the transition committee ‘dog fight’ is the election. While it appears that the PDP which lost, feels that a transition committee might mean a concession of the election it is contesting in court, the winner APC feels that there’s no stopping the victory it recorded at the polls, and the impending take-over of government in the state. Thus not a few stakeholders in the state view the hide and seek by both camps in the transition game as battle of wits.
The various stakeholders in the state have one idea or the other to share and they also have their expectations in both the outgoing and incoming administrations. The incoming administration, also at the inauguration of its transition committee, demanded that the outgoing government should concentrate on the payment of backlog of salaries it is owing the workers.
The coming administration also raised allegations of “secret plan by Governor Ayodele Fayose to sell Ekiti State property.” A statement by Fayemi’s media aide, Yinka Oyebode, alleged that one of the alleged properties was in Akure, the Ondo State capital, while the other is the market constructed by Fayose. Beyond the allegation that Fayose was selling the market, Fayemi also called on people not to have any dealing with the state government on the new market.
But in reaction, Fayose said the governor-elect “is wasting his time.”
“I’m still the governor of the state till October 15 legitimately. He should wait for his time. I was elected for a four-year term and the term expires in about six weeks’ time. I will function till the last day of my administration and my departure.
“Let him come and do whatever he likes when he comes. That’s his tenure, and the record will be in his name, not my name. I built the market and I’m allocating it. In some places, people sell markets off-plan, without putting one block on the foundation. However, the people will have legal backing to protect themselves. Maybe they want to come and give it to their cronies; that may be why they are concerned. As for me, I will do my legitimate job until the last day of my departure.”
While all the ding-dong is on, the people still expect good governance. The people want good governance whether it is from the proponents or the opponents.
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