EKITI ELECTIONS: LESSONS FOR ALL PART 2

In the last post, I said "To be continued ..." Not because I expected a follow-up so soon, not because I know I that Nigerian political discourse can hardly be exhausted. It also cannot be captured in its entirety by a single perspective as minuscule as mine. But even when my opinion pales out in the face of more than a hundred million others, I still have a right to be heard. No matter how insignificant it might seem to the next person whose reasoning is clouded by solely hearing him or herself, I still have the right to be heard even though I may be ignored.

Those who are on Tweeter, Facebook, and other social media throwing up tantrums about what happened, did not happened and/or could have happened in Ekiti are right to express themselves but in doing so they should also understand that like me, no one has all the facts of the matter more than the two elephants involved. The Yoruba race has always shown itself as the most civilized of all of us in the manner they manage their differences. They have as many Christians as Muslims. They inter-marry along lines of difference. They share their religious festivals across divisive lines. And they live together without any escalation of hostilities like we see I the north especially. If Ekiti were to be in nor restive part of the country; with the manner of vitriolic emanating from the just concluded polls, by now several. People who did not even vote would have met their maker unprepared. For this reason, I salute the maturity of Ekiti people. I salute the sportsmanship of my best politician of the year, Dr. Fayemi and the manner in which they showed that Ekiti people existed prior to the emergence of the shenanigans of blood-sucking politicians using the acronyms of APC and PDP, and that Ekiti people will remain long after PDP and APC have ceased to exist. Where are the NPN, NPP, PRP, and parties that turned brother and brother, et cetera? They are no longer there and so will these ones eventually disappear.

I was told by someone just after my post that Ekiti people sold their birthright because of bags of rice and salt. I wasn't surprised!

I like what Tolu Ogunlesi wrote immediately after the elections. He asked the pertinent question: Did Ekiti vote for Fayose or against Fayemi?

This is a million-dollar question! If the people of Ekiti voted against Fayemi, how can anyone say that they voted for bags of rice given to them? Could it not be due to the rumors in Ekiti that Fayemi performed below expectations and that he built a university outside the country within four years? Could not be because he, like the Osun State governors, picked almost all his commissioners from Lagos to the disadvantage of home-based professionals? I am not saying that these things are true. But the fact remains that rumors have a way of making people have doubts due to the belief that inside every rumor there is an element of truth! 

The fact remains that even if people of Ekiti voted due to the bags of rice distributed by the PDP candidate, there is a defect in the incumbent with prompted them to receive the rice and reject their governor. I said in my last post that politicians often forget their pre-election promises until it is time for the next elections. They do not know how short four years could be when the expectations on you are enormous and you are busy procrastinating. Fayemi could have been a victim of that. Here in this country, politicians don't have any blueprint prior to the election perhaps because they do not have adequate information to make certain decisions even before getting into power. As such, they spend a better part of their first terms planning. It is for this reason that second terms are always do-or-die affairs for them.

I think it is an insult on the sensibilities of Ekiti people to say that they voted Fayose because they were offered bags of rice. Does it then mean that nobody voted him because he or she was convinced that Fayose has changed? After all he went round the state pleading with opinion leaders and tried to convince them that he is new person, whether that is true or not. Perhaps he was able to convince some people that he has really changed. I am trying to point out the fact that we find it very difficult to accept defeat in this country. No one wants to concede anything. Everybody is bent on proving that his or hers I always the most cogent and valid. When someone sees that his or her candidate lost because he or she has lost popularity, as in Ekiti, they now come up with some cooked up stories about bags of rice and salt and sugar.

One will wonder why I am so bothered about this palaver in Ekiti. Nothing else, brothers and sisters other than the fact that the one these APC supporters are going in sections of this country, 2015 is a year that I wish we can postpone till such a time when sanity will return to some brainwashed heads. I wish the politicians who are going for elective offices in the coming elections will learn from Fayemi, definitely not Fayose, because I make bold to say that has Fayemi won, hell itself may have descended in Ekiti by now. Thank God is Fayemi that lost. I see him rising again by popular demand just like Kwannkwaso in Kano. But unlike Kwankwaso, I see him learning from his mistakes and coming back to do better. I really expected more from that man but who am I really to judge? They say we will get to the promised land, but I do hope that it will come sooner than those who are saying truly intend it to come.