VP Ayo who? %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

WHEN I wrote about a similar ‘mission impossible’ about two years back, predicting and by God’s grace accurately so, the coming of Donald Trump presidency at a time the rest of the world, including self-deified Barack Obama, thought he was on to another of his billionaire buffoonery, I was candid because it was a direct prophecy from the Throne of Grace to me. So sure-footed I was about the prophecy that I entitled the three-part series ‘President Trump (1-3)’.
Today, I claim no such direct revelation about the declaration for president by Ekiti-Unforgettable Ayo ‘Wonder’ Ayo Fayose and my title of the piece speaks eloquently to my disbelief of the genuineness of purpose. I personally think the declaration for president is a subterfuge to position himself for right-of-first-refusal as a Southern running-mate to a northern presidential candidate of the PDP or whatever apparition the opposition would club together to face a disunited APC in 2019.

But neither my disbelief nor that of the entire 180 million Nigerians can downgrade God’s Will from Number One to Number Two, if Ayo Fayose is by any chance running on a divine mandate, which could be the case considering an unlikely political journey he’s had since his entrance in 2000. His household is also a spiritual paradox. The matriarch Feyisetan; completely sold out to God, the Omniscient who doeth wonders with the unworthy, the patriarch (?) Ayodele; completely sold out to the Unimaginable. But it is the latter who has been God’s signal to unbelievers that His grace has nothing to do with societal fast rules about morals. I once read Ayo Fayose’s interview where he said when still completely consumed by exuberance, he would be decked to the hilt with green bottle on the bed and his wife would hold his feet, passionately beseeching the Almighty on his behalf, a spiritual exercise which he claimed he used to laugh off at times.

Since the only prayer of a sinner God answers is plea for mercy which I assume was what the purer of the couple, usually furiously sought, every other benefit Ayo Fayose has enjoyed from God, including bringing incumbents to shame, must have been undiluted high favour from The Father of All Grace.

I trust Nigerians with dead-panned sense of history laughing away the doddering of Ayo Fayose as I write this on Thursday, the same day he declared for Aso Rock. For those with searing hate for him, any attempt to link his adventure to Trump’s would be a bunkum. The arguments to make such inferred analogy appear hare-brained would be legion, including the the ad hominem of Trump is Trump and Ayo Fayose is Ayo Fayose.

But such escapist prejudice can only drive the probability of same adventures ending the same for both men. If you claim that they are different personalities with different Chi, then the Ekiti politics strongman should ordinarily be the carrier of the masculine version of such destiny, while Trump would be the one with the Eke, the feminine version of the Igbo famed god of destiny. At least, before Trump became a global political apparition (as many consider him), Ayo Fayose had been creating political bubbles, even if locally. But some men are simply cut for the big chunk of the cherry at first bite, which is the only reason Trump can claim to be a bigger-Graced sensation than the Ekiti’s Peter.

I guess the governor himself must be drawing some inspiration from the Trump miracle, which likely explains why he dared ‘his party’ the PDP which claimed it had zoned the fatter chunk of the presidential ticket to the North. If Ayo Fayose refused to back down like Trump did when the Republican hierarchy especially the one he dubbed Mitten (Mitt) Romney tried forcing him off the presidential bus, he could be completing the Donald script. Who knows, such ‘anti-party’ could work the PDP renegades into his corner and get the party primaries re-shaped as a battle between the conservatives and progressives (imagine that much-abused pretensive phraseology even applying within PDP). The divisive profiling worked for Trump. It could, even when the chances are very remote in Nigerian money politics, work for Ayo Ayo Fayose.

But does Ayo Fayose really want to be president? Or better still, why does he think Nigerians should trust him more than President Muhammadu Buhari or any other aspirant from either APC or PDP? Only the aspirant can tell his real intentions. Campaign rhetorics come from the head of politicians, either in crammed nebulous speech form or brain-wave from abridged sleep and rest or aggravated stimulant or intoxicant. Their hearts are only for the gods they bow to either as haggard-looking effigies or human armada who have unfettered access to the putrid closets of these politicians.

While one is at liberty to take Ayo Fayose’s presidential campaign rhetorics just like others which are mere buzzing, the fact that he is voluble and slips verbally nearly every time like Trump, could give a rare insight into the working of his inner man concerning this adventure. Is Ayo Fayose wealthy enough for this currency-guzzler of a project? Can’t say, but like others elsewhere in Nigeria, Ekiti’s finances may be a casualty along the line.

But he can choose to be different in campaign financing like Trump by showing evidence he’s committing his personal money to the journey.

With campaign funding in our politics remaining a mess despite the ineffectual law guiding it, the aspirant could stand taller than others including Buhari whose campaign funding was as messy as other dirty office-seekers, if he could start the race by being completely open with the campaign financial books.

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