Guber polls: Pay-back time in Ekiti

WITH the party primaries in Ekiti having come and gone and the parties having submitted the names of their candidates and their running mates to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), what remains now is for vigorous campaigns to start in earnest and straight down to Election Day on Saturday, July 14th, 2018. Many of the heavyweights in the Ekiti political circle are not strangers to one another. In fact, their paths and trajectories have criss-crossed multiple times – allies today but foes tomorrow and vice-versa.

Incumbent Governor Peter Ayodele Fayose was one of the beneficiaries of the then President Olusegun Obasanjo political tsunami that outwitted, outsmarted and uprooted the then Alliance for Democracy (AD) governors from the South-West in 2003. The lone survivor was the then Lagos State governor, Senator Bola Tinubu, while the losers included Otunba Niyi Adebayo of Ekiti state. Otunba Adebayo was the incumbent that Fayose unseated to make his first coming as governor in 2003. It is doubtful if Adebayo has forgiven Fayose and Obasanjo for that. Although both Adebayo and Fayose are said to be buddies at the social level, they do not appear to see eye-to-eye politically.

When the senior Adebayo (General Robert Adeyinka Adebayo, erstwhile Military Governor of the Western State) died last year, Fayose was the “Baba Isinku” or chief mourner, not only because he is the governor of the Adebayos home state but also because he was able to strike a good relationship with the retired two-star general to such an extent that even the junior Adebayo called Fayose “Omo Baba” or Baba’s son. Fayose bent over backward to give Gen. Adebayo a befitting burial, pulling no stops and personally supervising arrangements to make sure that all details were in place and that everything went well. He has also not denied Otunba Adebayo his entitlements as a former governor of the state. One good turn, as they say, deserves another, but which will Otunba take to heart more: Is it the defeat of 2003 or the good turns subsequently of Fayose?

When the father-son relationship between Obasanjo and Fayose turned sour and the former ran the latter out of town in October 2006, Chief Segun Oni/PDP was the major beneficiary as he was elected governor after the six-month tenure of General Idowu Olurin as Sole Administrator came to an end. Dr John Kayode Fayemi, the AC/ACN candidate, contested the outcome of that election in the law court. Election re-run after re-run were ordered by the court in an effort to break a vicious gridlock never before witnessed in the country; although INEC complied by organising fresh elections in the disputed Ido-Osi Local Government Area of the state, the logjam became more intractable with each re-run until the Court of Appeal eventually sacked Segun Oni and declared Fayemi the duly elected governor of the state. While the tussle between Oni and Fayemi raged, Fayose took sides with Fayemi to avenge the perceived injustice done to him by Obasanjo/Oni/PDP.

On assumption of office, Fayemi took the unprecedented steps of trying to obliterate Oni’s tenure from the record books as well as from the memory of Ekiti people. He decreed that Oni never ruled the state; removed his portraits from all public places; and refused to pay his entitlements. Once in power, Fayemi also reneged on all the promises he had made to Fayose to enlist his support in the battle against Oni/PDP. In fact, the story is told of how Otunba Adebayo met Fayose waiting to see Gov. Fayemi and walked him (Fayose) out of the governor’s office, with the stern warning he must never be seen anywhere near the precincts.

But as Providence will have it, Fayose trounced Fayemi in 2014 to return for his second stint as governor on October 14th, 2016. On assumption of office, he restored Segun Oni’s portraits to their rightful place, accorded him his dignity, rights, and privileges as a former governor of the state. In the interim, however, Oni had left PDP for APC and is today in the same party with his erstwhile sworn foe, Fayemi. Both contested penultimate week’s APC governorship primaries, which Fayemi won, with Oni coming a distant second. Oni has had cause subsequently to warn that he would quit APC if the Fayemi’s group failed to treat himself and his supporters with some respect. Fayemi’s supporters were said to have taunted Oni and his supporters after they lost the APC primaries to Fayemi. Now, who will Oni support on July 14th? Will he remain faithful to his avowed deference to party supremacy and support Fayemi or will he remember all he has suffered in the hands of Fayemi and Fayose’s coming to the rescue and support Fayose’s candidate, Prof. Kolapo Olusola Eleka?

After his initial tit-for-tat with PDP, Fayose returned later to be nice to Oni: Is that what Oni will remember and pay back on July 14? Even APC national leader, Senator Bola Tinubu, which will sway him: Fayemi’s well-advertised treachery or the open and unmistakeable support Fayose offered him when the cabal around President Muhammadu Buhari made to rubbish him? Tinubu will be hard put to support Fayemi from the bottom of his heart; he is more likely to be favourably disposed to Fayose.

When Dele Alake, Opeyemi Bamidele, and Femi Ojudu – all three close aides of Tinubu – jostled for the Ekiti Central Senatorial ticket in 2011, the struggle was so bitter that Tinubu was left nonplussed. Eventually, Alake withdrew from the race; Opeyemi reportedly was winning the party primaries when it was scattered by thugs said to have been loyal to Ojudu; just like the first APC governorship primaries two weeks ago were also said to have been disrupted by roughnecks loyal to the same Ojudu. Ojudu, however, denies all allegations. Ojudu finally got the party ticket and for the Senate and squared up to Fayose, who contested on the platform of the Labour Party. Fayose was said to be coasting home to victory when the election was disrupted. On its resumption, Ojudu was declared the winner. In the interim, Opeyemi was compensated with the lesser ticket of House of Representatives. Fayemi as sitting governor was said to the main backer that gave Ojudu all the advantage. The party primaries that threw up Fayemi as APC governorship flag bearer was also contested by Opeyemi and Ojudu; while the latter backed out after the first disrupted attempt, making all manner of vicious allegations and throwing scantily-concealed barbs at Fayemi, Opeyemi participated in the re-run but failed woefully. He has urged his supporters to support Fayemi. Is he sincere, seeing that the same Fayemi worked against him to give Ojudu the advantage?  Between Fayemi and Ojudu, a once-cosy relationship appears to have gone sour and it is doubtful if Ojudu will (wholeheartedly) support Fayemi. During the impeachment saga, Ojudu reportedly mesmerised the House of Assembly members to believe he was relaying Obasanjo’s directives to them to sign up for Fayose’s impeachment. He was a prominent member of the Ekiti Professionals who wished Fayose dead. Is this group having a second thought right now? Another prominent member of the group and an unrepentant critic of Fayose, Comrade Femi Falana, SAN, recently fired salvos at Fayemi, asking him to account for the Bond money he took, especially as it pertains to the Oja-Oba market that he pledged to build with part of the Bond money but which he did not. Where will Ojudu and Falana stand on July 14th?

So far, the PDP sector appears more cohesive than the APC’s, but not without its own rumblings, however subdued. The success of the Deputy Governor, Prof. Kolapo Olusola Eleka, in the party primaries has not been without its own drama as well as ups-and-downs. Three party leaders, namely; Prince Dayo Adeyeye, Senator Biodun Olujimi, and Owoseni Ajayi kicked against Fayose’s “anointing” of Eleka. Only the party leadership’s adroit management of the situation and the wisdom displayed by Fayose in allowing free and fair governorship primaries saved the day. Unlike the APC that needed a re-sit before it could pick a flag-bearer, the PDP scaled the hurdle once. Eleka defeated his lone opponent, Adeyeye, by a wide margin. Olujimi had earlier withdrawn from the race to throw her weight behind Adeyeye. Ajayi never appeared on the ballot. Everyone saluted the process as credible; yet Adeyeye announced his defection from PDP: To where, is still the subject of speculation.

While we wait for further news in that direction, the PDP primaries itself was said to have rattled the Fayose group in that it never gave the PDP “rebels” the chance of garnering up to 10 per cent of the votes. It means, then, that the additional about 30 per cent of those who voted for Adeyeye were traitors who played the proverbial “if you see my hand, you cannot see my mind” with Fayose. They wore the “Fayose family” uniform but when it was time to vote, voted their conscience or went, interestingly, with the higher bidder or cast protest votes. It is doubtful if Adeyeye can still contest the July 14 election on the platform of another political party. Will he, then, return to PDP to negotiate or will he pitch his tent elsewhere? Can he work with Fayemi, seeing Adeyeye came from the AD or so-called “progressives” background or is the devil you know better than the angel you know not? Analysts posit that a more likely possibility would have been if APC picked Segun Oni as flag bearer; then, it would have been possible to expect that Adeyeye (who headed SUBUB under Oni) and Olujimi (who was Oni’s Commissioner for Works) would have felt more comfortable walking straight into Oni’s arms.

Where will Ekiti workers and teachers especially line up on July 14? One of the reasons why Fayemi lost the 2014 election was his insistence on conducting examinations for teachers. While he said it was to determine their level of competence so as to prepare them for further training, the teachers insisted it was a ploy to sack them en-masse. Fayemi has done nothing to erase this suspicion of looming mass purge if he returns as governor from the minds of Ekiti teachers and workers. To make matters worse for him, the same teachers he wrote off as incompetent are those the Fayose administration has leveraged upon to move the state from the backwoods to the first place in educational attainments and achievements since 2014. The state has moved from occupying about the last position to coming first back-to-back in NECO examinations in 2016 and 2017; while also recording astounding achievements in WAEC examinations. It has also won laurels to represent the nation home and abroad. Incidentally, the deputy governor, Prof. Olusola Eleka, who is contesting the July 14th governorship election on the ticket of PDP, is the head of the government team that has recorded these achievements. Still on teachers and education, Gov. Nasir el-Rufai, who sacked 22, 000 teachers in Kaduna state with a stroke of the pen, said last week that it is the agreed agenda of all APC governors in the North to sack teachers en-masse and that the agenda will be fully implemented after next year’s General Election. El-Rufai’s disclosure is bound to send jitters down the spine of teachers not only in the North but also in other parts of the country.

July 14th, we must admit, is still a long way ahead. Reading Alex La Guma’s “A walk in the night”, we understand how events can unfold rapidly in the twinkle of an eye. Consolidating on advantages; correcting mistakes; building alliances; and turning foes to friends are tasks that the contending groups must roll up their sleeves to accomplish while they still have time.