Ekiti politicians and chicanery.
Femi Orebe
Chicanery is defined as ‘the use of deception or subterfuge to achieve one’s purpose’. Ordinarily, resorting to chicanery should be beyond the remit of any Ekiti politician, a supposedly proud son / daughter of our ILE IYI, ILE EYE – Land of Honour – who should, ipso facto, be considered an Omoluabi.
Unfortunately, old habits die hard, if they ever die at all.
I have written my fingers sore on these pages about Ekiti’s traditionally toxic politics, reminding our politicians of how this has bludgeoned the state and retarded its economic development for ages.
The unfortunate recrudescence of this acidic and enervating politics, therefore, is one thing many thought we have now outgrown especially with the tremendous effort of incumbent governor Biodun Abayomi Oyebanji towards achieving overall peace in the state, an effort which has resulted in an unprecented level of mutual understanding, even camaraderie, amongst leading politicians in the state. Oyebanji has been commended, across board, for this by friends and foes alike.
That said, I am not in any way, suggesting that the next election in the state should, therefore, be a walk in the park for the governor or that those seeking to contest against him should be overawed, and look askance, while he ruled the roost. Far from it.
I least expected, however, that such opponents could, so soon, become as creatively mischievous as they are already proving to be with their outright lies against the governor.
Any Ekiti citizen, if he or she so wished, has the inalienable right to seek to govern the state. All he will have to show is his track record and his plan for the advancement of the state but certainly not one built on eggregiously running down the other
contestants.
It can bear repetition again that old habits die hard especially the obnoxious politicking that has characterised Ekiti since 2003.
Since that date it has been ‘roforofo’ all the way, and as an observer – participant in the politics of the state myself, I have witnessed all this, first hand, but did not remain silent, having always warned, on these pages, against our unhelpful, negative politics.
For example, in an article I captioned: Ekiti 22: Must Our Politicians Always Fight to The Death, dated 13 February, 2022, I wrote, inter alia:”Thematically, since the totally unexpected defeat, after only his first term, of the Omoluabi governor, Otunba Niyi Adebayo in 2003, as if Ekiti is under a curse, successive governorship elections in the state has been something of a fight to the death among both qualified, as well as totally unimaginable, Ekiti wannabe governors. Most astonishing is the fact that the protagonists of this
odious reality have always been young politicians who you would, otherwise, have described, at the particular time, as youths who would lay the foundation for a glorious Ekiti future.Incidentally, one way or the other, some of them did find their way to the governorship seat but were buffeted by intractable inter – party squabbles which ensured that whatever little they managed to achieve in office, could very well have been quadrupled have they emerged under different circumstances.
This descent into anarchy has remained with us ever since, to our eternal shame.
For instance, For almost the entirety of Governor Segun Oni’s tenure, not only was the state House of Assembly equally divided between the two main political parties, the legislature hardly achieved anything tangible – indeed a mere confirmation of the list of state commissioners – a routine affair- could not be done peacefully and, the governor, being in court defending his victory, could do pretty little until the Appeal Court, sitting in Ilorin, Kwara state, voided his election on 15 October, 2010.
All these would not have happened had total strangers like former President Olusegun Obasanjo and Chief Bode George not, like meteors, suddenly appeared and insinuated themselves into the state’s politics. That was way back 2003 when they overawed the almost faultless campaign of Chief S. K Babalola, a highly regarded Ekiti elder and gentleman, thereby effectively muddling up Ekiti politics, like forever”.
That is when the rain started beating us in the state.
With BAO’s Omoluabi politics, which some opponents have chosen to describe derogatively, but one that has not only brought commendable peace, and eventuated in ALL FORMER GOVERNORS of the state, from different political parties, endorsing him ahead of the 2026 election, one had expected that common sense would prevail in the campaigns towards the 2026 election.
But for where?
There are, already more than enough evidence to show that some candidates would go far beyond the boarders of decency in their own campaigns of calumny.
I actually pity whoever, whether at the APC primaries, or in the other parties, who would have to face this BAO PHENOMENON – so called because governor Oyebanji now transcends political parties in the state -at the election proper.
Oyebanji will sure end up winning the election in a landslide far more massive than he did in ’22.
The opposition started off their campaign of calumny by trying to pooh – pooh Oyebanji’s politics aimed at restoring measurable peace – which they called names -but through which he won the admiration of not only other parties’ leaders, former governors inclusive, and also a good majority of the citizenry.
Unknown to his detractors and their sympathisers, Oyebanji is not a stranger to Ekiti’s adversarial politics and its consequences on the state since he came a long way.
Still in his 20’s, and as a young staff of the state’s only University, BAO had been picked by the redoubtable Chief Deji Fasuan as Secretary to the Committee for the creation of Ekiti state. From that highly strategic position, at such a tender age, he would go on to serve as Chief of Staff to the state’s inaugural governor, Otunba Niyi Adebayo just as he would later work in the government of governor Kayode Fayemi, first as commissioner in several ministries, capping it all as Secretary to the State Government.
As I have tried to show in this piece, all these were very tumultuous times and Oyebanji would have made a complete mess of his education if he had not learnt, as well as internalised, how exactly disruptive and negatively impactful on Ekiti’s socio – economic development all these were.
I, therefore, cannot blame some contestants who, coming back home, this late hour to contest against such a titan of Ekiti politics do not know how or where to start. They should take heart as they will surely have their time; only it won’t be in 2026.
The most odious, and the latest of the anti- Oyebanji propaganda is the odious but simplistic one, currently circulating.
It is a double-edged allegation aimed at both his predecessor, Dr John Kayode Fayemi, and himself.
This is the wicked allegation that on a future date they failed to indicate, former Governor Fayemi would come and lead, like they are kindergartens, the incumbent governor, other leading APC chieftains in the state, including the Speaker of the State House of Assembly, legislators of both the state and National Assembly, as well as very senior members of the party including a former Deputy governor, as if these people have no minds of their own, into an ADC which, with the legal jeopardy it has run itself into, may actually never emerge as the final haven of this opposition of strange bed fellows joined together by the sole reason of their animus against President Bola Ahmed Tinubu who walloped their leading lights in the 2023 Presidential election, a fate that awaits them, come 2027.
The perpetrators of this sick joke are thinking of achieving two things: one, pull apart President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Governor Fayemi who, unknown to them, have between them a far more robust mutual respect and understanding than they can ever think of.
This is not new; rather it has been the intention of some people who just couldn’t understand the basis of Kayode’s staying power.
The reason for that, apart from Fayemi being a scholar and
thinker, is his ability to, and habit of saying things as they are; never quibbling.
For instance in his key note address to the Southwest All Progressives Congress (APC) Assembly, held in Lagos in October, ’24, he said the following:
“While we can be proud of the road we have travelled since 2015, we cannot afford to rest on our laurels as a party or be complacent about anything. It is imperative that we openly and honestly acknowledge current challenges and develop a coherent and comprehensive plan that can enable us to confront them.This we must do by resolutely learning lessons of experience. We should also be ready to mobilise ourselves for the urgent and necessary task of rebuilding the hope of our compatriots both in Project Nigeria and in our ability as a party committed to leading the charge against underdevelopment, disunity, and insecurity”.
While some in the party may have read that as being critical of the government, President Tinubu, like the immortal Awo who appreciated that kind of candour in his lieutenants, must have given Fayemi a thumbs up, rather than be offended or crossed with him.
Besides that, the President has had Fayemi as a protege around him for so long that he cannot now be hoodwinked, or be easily persuaded to detest him as many would have wished. Knowing his ability all the way from their pro- democracy days, through the formative days of the APC when Fayemi was in charge of policy formulation but especially his deft handling of the party’s primary election where some contestants would have believed in money buying them the diadem.
A highly strategic and very experienced politician, President Tinubu would have known that if Fayemi were in the ADC, he would be nowhere other than at the head of the party’s Think Tank, meaning that the party would not be facing any imminent legal difficulties as he would have thought through it all.
These are no conjectures and as God would have it, the President confirmed these views in his message to Fayemi on his 60th birthday in May 2024 when he said the following among other things:”During the challenging General Sani Abacha era, civil rights and pro-democracy activists, especially those in exile, had to rely on their ingenuity to survive. Kayode’s brilliance, commitment, and strategic skills were invaluable to our cause”.
That was at a time some little minds would think the President was annoyed with Fayemi over the 2023 Presidential election at which he contested before withdrawing for the President.
This uncanny perspicacity is one of the things that will, forever, make President Tinubu an exemplar.
The Lilliputian propagandists who alleged that Fayemi would be leading governor Biodun Oyebanji
in to the ADC are also trying their hardest to ensnare a governor they don’t know how to rationally tackle. They don’t even know where to begin. In the first place, they appear ignorant of the saying that all politics is local.
Do they, in their widest imagination, think that Fayemi and Oyebanji can that easily forget all they did, alongside other party leaders, to make APC the darling political party in the state or won’t they have to be ‘ad idem’ before they can agree to jump into an uncharted ADC which will, very soon, split down the middle because of the ambitions of the perennial Presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi who has, infact, already sworn to contest on that same party platform which, unknown to him, appears arranged, from the word go for Atiku, the annoited Northern candidate. Anyway, out of the fear of the North, Obi has, without being asked, promised to serve for only 4 years even while Ndigbo had, like forever, craved a Presidency without a diminution of the 8 years constitutionally prescribed.
How popular, for instance, do these opposite men think BAO is, in the state, that he would go jump into the ADC inferno? What on earth do they think will make Fayemi, and a genteel Oyebanji comfortable amongst the coterie of yesterday men congregating in the ADC?
Do they, in their lives, think Oyebanji can so whimsically throw away the peoples’ love, and certain victory, .by jumping into the same boat with the El Rufai’s of this world?
God forbid bad thing as we say in our neck of wood.
Why wont they know that a thoroughbred, and easy going governor Oyebanji would rather remain in the APC to face whatever comes – victory of course – than jump into ADC?
Finally, whoever these people are, and in whichever party they are , be it APC, ADC or the atrophy-ing PDP should better concentrate their efforts on telling the people how they intend to govern Ekiti better than governor Oyebanji whose government has not only engendered undeniable peace throughout the entire land, but has also been quite impactful on all fronts.
