I crave reader’s indulgence for adapting the title of this piece from the scriptures, Acts of Apostles’ 19:15, but it is germane to our discourse today.
As I do for all sound guys, I admire Governor Fayemi of Ekiti state for his educational attainment and cerebral acumen. He comes around as a well refined and well-groomed couth man not in the league of his rude and often crude political scavengers.
You will never hear him utter any of the gibberish oozing out of the buccal cavities of these political rats parading themselves as elephants. Being a well-read man, he is most likely employing one principle of the Mafia Manager. If you must take out a snake from a hole, make sure you use another man’s hand.
These political foot soldiers are struggling hard to rewrite recent history that happened under our noses. We will not allow them.
For somebody to say that Ekiti leaders kowtowed to Fayemi for his first term as governor is the height of gratuitous and nauseating insult. On what basis were our leaders begging? Was it for paucity of credible and educated people? Never.
Yes, Fayemi holds a doctorate degree and so what?
There is a family in Efon-Alaaye with over half a dozen doctorate degree holders. The Olanipekuns in Ikere-Ekiti have three SANs including their patriarch, Wole Olanipekun (SAN) whom we know will not descend to the dirty arena of Politics.
What of the Alukos and legions of professionals in Ekiti. They do not call us a fountain of knowledge for nothing. In Otun-Ekiti alone, I know of a single family with over a dozen-chartered Accountants.
This is the state whose leaders, a political foot soldier claimed, crawled to beg Fayemi for a week to please come and be our Moses and which spent another two weeks to beg Erelu.
If you spent a week to beg the husband and two weeks to beg the wife, you do not have to be a roboticist to know who the boss is. Ridiculous. My seniors in secondary school days would simply infra-dig that. (infradignitatem)
Now, let somebody educate me on what made Fayemi a better gubernatorial candidate than Babafemi Ojudu or MOB and a host of others in his first term, if somebody was not pulling a string somewhere? Why would we leave out Ojodu, MOB, Aluko, Orire and a host of other very sound minds to beg a lecturer in Ghana to come and be our governor?
Ekiti never knew him from Adams except his school mates from Christ’s school. Tinubu sold him to us. Tinubu was the lord beating the drum at the bottom of the river, while his aides were dancing on the surface.
At that period, if Tinubu sponsored my grandfather, Ekitis would have voted for him. He was the face and voice of progressives without which you were not going to be anybody.
The moment Niyi Adebayo lost his re-election bid, he also lost all political clouts. Bourdillon was the mecca for all of them and that was the first place Fayemi went after his over three years’ legal battle that finally gave him victory in Ilorin. If Tinubu was so inconsequential in the political trajectory of Fayemi, why the homage straight from Ilorin?
In recent history, Ojodu, MOB and Fayemi were all anti-Abacha warriors fighting from trenches all over the world. Ojodu was one of the three senior guerilla journalists running the Tempo newspaper giving Abacha sleepless nights and high blood pressure. That paper had no permanent press as it was printed in the next available press and sold in creeks and corners under agbada.
Fayemi, we heard, was the young man manning Radio Kudirat. He must have impressed Tinubu enough to compensate him with the gubernatorial ticket. If he was so known, why the marketing in Hotels and dozens of meeting. If Tinubu had so wished, he would have used Ojudu with little selling because he was well known.
Ojodu that was also instrumental to the enthronement of Fayemi as governor, after Jagaban endorsement, is the same man they now want to send to political Golgotha. It does not surprise me a bit, because it is so convenient for people to be ingrates and when you factor politics to the equation the hypothesis becomes a law.
People should not stand history on its head for crumps from the table. It is highly perfidious for anybody to insinuate, let alone say that Tinubu did not bring Fayemi to Ekiti. For them to be claiming they dropped from heaven without a political father is forgetting their source. A river that forgets its source will dry up.
In the primary that produced Abiola, it was just one sentence by Yaadua to Atiku that made him step down. Those who were there confirmed that Turaki shed tears but still granted his principal’s request.
Here, their principal has not even asked them for a political favor before they started a war of attrition that will consume them.
They did it in the primary that brought Akeredolu in his first term. They did their gang up to unhorse Oshiomole and spent our money to prosecute an election that was and is of no benefit to Ekiti. We will not also forget in a hurry their ignominious role to discredit their benefactor during the End-Sars protest. What is Omoluabi in all this?
For the record, Fayemi is not the first, and the only minted politicians by Jagaban. They are many from both sides of the Niger and they are not demarketing Tinubu as these people are doing.
Aregbesola, Dele Alake, Obanikoro, VP Osibajo, Afikuyomi, Obasa and Dare, the present Sports Minister are just a few of the numberless graduates of Tinubu school of politics.
Tell me, what governing credentials are they taking to Abuja to be VP because the arrogant pint-sized man would rather die than being Fayemi’s vice?
In their first coming, they performed fairly well, but this second term is a colossal failure. It is as disastrous as it is calamitous. Somebody should point to one achievement for them this time around.
Because of their ego massage and political aggrandizement, they destroyed my domain’s security architecture, which was the envy of the entire state just because the head of that unit is a senior cousin to a PDP big wig. Whatever happens to politics without bitterness. Now, the rough necks are back in town unchallenged.
All the roads have turned to gullies, health is in shambles, and education is retrogressing. I have forgotten they used our money to sponsor a grandfather as National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) president.
They are chasing mirages instead of facing the serious business of governance. They have forgotten the critical issues of infrastructural development, health and education, to delve into chieftaincy issues which fall squarely on the laps of the deputy governor and which they often end in fiasco.
When they are not doing that, they junket to Abuja to hold conspiracy meetings with the Lilliputian in the North central state.
The chips will come down and the big masquerades will come to dance in the political market. There and then they will know the difference between the man and the boy. The butterfly will soon find out he is not yet a hawk.
As an Ekiti man, it would gladden me to see one of us as president, but not through such a treacherous route. Others know us for integrity and loyalty, not back stabbing and ingratitude. We are not known to forget our source, which these disciples are struggling hard to do.
Finally, this story may interest them. It is about an Ekiti man who wanted to buy a motorcycle from a depot where the late Ooni Sijuade was the Manager. The Ekiti man was short of cash but wanted to take the bike home by all means. The depot assistant would have none of that, so an argument ensured and got to Sijuade who asked his assistant to release the bike to him being an Ekiti man. He said, ‘if he is an Ekiti man, he would bring the balance’.
A week after, to the consternation of the depot assistant, the Ekiti man brought the balance. Depot assistant ran to Prince Sijuade to inform him the Ekiti man has brought the balance to which the prince replied, I told you; he is an Ekiti man, he would bring the balance.
That is the stuff we are made. That is the Omoluabi in us, not these charades, subterfuges and pretensions. They should give us a break from this macabre dance, this babanla nonsense as Fela would say.
Their principal can be president without being a Judas.
Otunba Jide Omiyale(MBA) SME Expert and amateur Political analyst
