Unabated Fulanisation of Ekiti (2)

“HE, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck.shall suddenly be destroyed without remedy”-Proverb 29:1

My calling out the governor of Ekiti State, Dr Kayode Fayemi,  for his I-don’t-care attitude to the plight of Orin Ekiti people under Fulani assault while doing overtime to appear a good boy to the Fulani establishment has drawn the ire of the Ajele.

First was a lawyer who called me to say he is the counsel defending the suit filed by 16 Obas against the governor of Ekiti over his choosing of an Oba they insist is not among the 16 the law says can be chairman of the council of Obas in the state. He said I was validating the leading Obas in the state whom he called “a motley crowd”, “irrelevant kings” and other names that speak volumes about the mindset of some of the folks Yorubaland is burdened with today.

Then came the tale told by an idiot rejoinder of one of the governor’s media Rottweilers, Segun Dipe, who churned out lengthy abuses without facing the issues I have raised about the plight of our people.

His worthless piece is not worth my time in the midst of existential threats our people face at the moment. I only need to clarify his childish comment that I was calling out Dr Kayode Fayemi on behalf of the PDP.

I belong to no political party. I have supported candidates I believe in their programmes on federalism on the platform of PDP the way I served as Major-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari’s spokesman in 2011 when he ran on CPC after we signed an MOU on returning Nigeria to federalism.

The present political parties are beneath my personal values but like a senior judge told me a few days ago of the pains he bears having to decide which of the two thieves before him he should give the key to the treasury, we look at what is available and make a choice.

I supported Fayemi when he sought to be governor in Ekiti. I escaped death by the whiskers when PDP thugs attacked a vehicle I was in with Honourable Wale Oshun in Engineer Segun Oni’s hometown. I was not a member of ACN, but I belonged to a group with Fayemi then. I was to back out of the campaign at a point when I saw some perfidy but persuaded to stay on. But I eventually opted out of the group over the betrayal of trust conducted during Fayemi’s campaign.

If I decided to carry the card of any party, I will flaunt it. I will not behave like Dipe’s paymaster, who was a spook for security agencies under Obasanjo PDP government in Abuja and was flirting with ACN in Ekiti simultaneously. I don’t walk both sides of the streets at the same time.

I recall the words of my Features Editor at The Punch, Mr Bola Bolawole when this character called Dipe threw darts at him on Fayemi’s behalf and I quote as they are very germane to the issue at hand:

“Fayemi has his good points; Fayose, too. Both have their drawbacks. I cannot endorse or accept any of them warts and all… I dare to say, however, that while Fayose is an open book, Fayemi is a crossword puzzle. Fayose became the lone voice in the wilderness standing up against the excesses and atrocities of the Muhammadu Buhari-led administration. Whatever you say about Fayose, you will never take that away from him. Fayose defended his people against mindless and murderous Fulani herders; his anti-open grazing law and ferocious speeches curbed them. Since he left office, Ekiti has become the killing fields of Fulani herdsmen. Fayemi at best has been ambivalent on a burning issue that demands firm and prompt action. “The hottest places in Hell” says Dante,”are reserved for those who in times of moral crisis maintain their neutrality, “We are in such a time in Nigeria today. I told Fayemi hard truths. I told him he would lose in 2014 and why – and it happened . That was before “federal might”.

“What did Fayemi’s ministerial appointment fetch Ekiti or the South-West? How can I then root for him to be President? It appears to me that Fayose will better defend South West interests than Fayemi.”

BB already ended this issue in July, 2019. We criticised Fayose on issues we disagreed with him on but no one can take from him eternally his rising up to the shenanigans of the herdsmen that Fayemi was writing cowardly petitions to the Sultan of Sokoto on.

I have no other issue with him than the fact that he needs testicular fortitude to act like a man and stop behaving like a sissy.

You came to office the first time and were humiliated out of by losing in all 16 LGAs. What a referendum. Now you are back via “dibo kosebe” (vote and cook soup) which gives you an opportunity to rewrite your history. Instead of using the opportunity, you are playing opportunism trading the interests of your people for some far-fetched presidential ambition.

You are from the intellectual region and shouldn’t be difficult for you to take some courses in leadership about leaders we are proud of in Yorubaland.

You wear Awo’s cap. Study his political life of placing the interests of his people above personal ambition. He didn’t become President of Nigeria but greater than Presidents in what Professor Wale Adebanwi called his post-life career.

You were born in Ondo State that had the fearless Chief Adekunle Ajasin as governor. Even in his 90s, we were proud of his encounter with Onyearugbulem in his stubborn defence of NADECO’s core values.

You partly live in Ibadan where the great Lam [the late Alhaji Lamidi Adesina] once received a Fulani delegation led by Gen. Buhari  who came on an offensive mission to the governor. The late Lam listened with rapt attention as they ventilated. He stroked his beards intermittently. When they were done, he took the floor and spoke words of courage that they could not take the lunch he offered them thereafter.

Know this: any king that reigns and the city multiplies would have his pages in history and the one under whom the town disintegrates will also be remembered scornfully.

Ekiti is being rubbished while you are playing poster boy for Fulani around Nigeria. That is our objection. Defend your people Mr Governor and let your manhood stop rising like garri Ijebu against we that are yours and getting flat when Fulani approaches.

I pause for now.

Feedback

Core North deliberate provocations

SIR, let me air the following views through “voice of Courage”. These views are majorly a reaction to ideas and revelations contacted from your previous writings and publications by other compatriots. Thank you.

Sadly, but inexorably GMB’s government is tearing this country apart! And the actors in this regime know it. They cannot claim ignorance of the potential danger this nation is being driven towards by the too obvious cold war they-the Fulani of the core north-have been waging against the South as a geo-political entity. This Scenario is not a new reality; it dates back to the first republic when the nauseating slogan of “born to rule” reared its ugly into the Nigerian polity. It has all this while been an ethno-religious ambition, the pursuit of which has seen changing tempo over the years depending on the character and world view of each of the Hausa/Fulani heads of state this nation was been ruled by.

The ambition is manifestly demonic, its features are as empirical that no right-thinking compatriot would deny the sweeping Jihadism behind it all. The controversial 1963 national census was the launching platform. Since then the steady but progressive usurpation of the nation’s key assets by the north continued unabated. All strategic military installations of this country are sited in the north. A sweeping proportion of the oil blocks in the Niger Delta are in Northern hands. The current regime has shown its extreme hatred for the South while simultaneously pampering the north with the most strategic and consequential appointments in ministries, departments and agencies. As reflected in your column of Sunday, December 15, 2019 and elsewhere, there is complete northernisation of the top echelon in the military, customs, immigration, the police, DSS, judiciary and NNPC! Why on earth is a democratically elected government doing this? Even some military governments under northern  leaders did not go this far! Where is justice? Where is equity? Where is fair play? Where is the federal character principle? And to reflect on the sources of the resources that this country relies on for sustenance!

Certainly there appears to be deliberate intention to provoke the South. Those who love this nation will readily read the potential danger being sowed into the future of this nation by these developments. To deliberately endeavor to subjugate a section of the polity as second-class or third-class citizens in a multiethnic, multilingual and religiously heterogeneous country like ours is reckless move and fraught with consequences such as what brought disintegration to some countries of old.

The core-north appears uninterested in calls for restructuring and devolution of power and resources from the centre to the federating units; they have rejected wholesale the report of the 2014 National Conference. This attitude is part and parcel of their game-plan; even though it is evident that only a truly federal arrangement will lead this country into her greatness. Now “only righteousness exalts a nation, sin is the reproach of any people”. Any practice or policy that contradicts fair play, justice and equity in the governance of any society is sinful. Nations don’t just attain greatness, it is virtues inspired in the people-including leaders-that initiate and sustain greatness. Conversely, fallen or dismembered systems suffer their terrible fates as rewards for the people’s vices, many of which have been touched in this humble submission.

—Alade Ogundiran, Ile Ife.

Re: O Nami

My brother, a few corrections to Kemi Rotimi’s rejoinder in “O Nami”: Gen. Martin Luther Agwai was the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) during OBJ’s second term. He is from Kaduna State (NW). Likewise the heads of the Airforce and Navy were from the North-Central (NC).

OBJ made El-Rufai from North-West FCT Minster; was it that he could not get a Yoruba man? In spite of his obvious flaws, he still remains the most detribalised President/Head of State to date.

Lest I forget, Gen. Agwai was also upgraded to CDS (Chief of Defence Staff) during OBJ’s second tenure.

—Chief Femi Alafe-Aluko.

Re: Unabated Fulanisation of Ekiti

Thank you sir for bringing the neglect of our plight in Orin Ekiti under Fulani assault in focus. We are saddened that our governor does not care about what we are going through. He plays politics at our expense as if we don’t matter to him.

I pray for divine covering upon your life. They will rise against you for the truth you speak in one direction but they will stumble in seven.

—Tunde Adewole, Orin Ekiti.