Nigerians are a funny lot. They always leave a burning house to chase after escaping rodents and we can see that in the unfolding scenario around the Ekiti gubernatorial election. Now, there are accusations and counter-accusations about rigging, vote buying of the “see and buy” variety, ballot box snatching, violence and all that. But, in this piece I’m not going to precipitately accuse this party of doing this or the other party of doing that over the above matters. I believe in the coming days, no matter the results declared, the truth of what really happened in this Ekiti election will naturally come to light. We can hold judgment till then or just blab on if we like. Talking Nigerian elections post-election requires painstakingly searching for truth and revealing it. We will get there.
However, there is always a background to any event or action and that is what I’m concerned with here. The Ekiti election had a background on the PDP and Fayose side and on the APC and Buhari and Fayemi side. The PDP and Fayose background is that Fayose has made himself a thorn in the flesh of the Buhari government. In fact, his whole politics seems to be fashioned around this. Yet, his governance strategy in Ekiti based on the optics of an open, approachable government has not been able to deliver on development in an appreciable way. Rather, what we have had is the excuse that Ekiti is being victimized because of his ‘national politics’, even though we haven’t heard that Ekiti’s monetary allocation was tampered with or not released because of his differences with the centre. So, that cannot possibly be the reason why salaries of public servants in Ekiti aren’t paid for months.
On the other hand Fayose scored a huge domestic success in the area of security where most other states failed. For Fayose, the excuse that like any other governor, he is only Chief Security Officer in name was not going to hold as he acted boldly. The only real security challenge we have in the nation, apart from the highly choreographed Boko Haram menace is the herdsmen menace. And, no, it is not a matter of herders and farmers “clashes” or communal disagreements of that nature; this is state-sponsored terrorism against a section of the population to achieve an ethnic domination agenda. Fayose read this very well and used the instrumentality of the law and powers available to him as governor to pass an anti-grazing law that not only is law in the books, but has teeth. When his resolve was tested by breaches, he showed through diligent state prosecution that he wasn’t joking. It is therefore not mere political talk when we say Fayose protected the Ekiti people from the scourge of the herdsmen. But, it’s difficult to calculate politically how much this was a trade off against poor performance in other domestic areas. For his political party nationally, he is a voice when they have all been subdued and intimidated by a vengeful regime pretending to be fighting corruption.
Now, the background for Fayemi, Buhari and APC is that in Fayemi, they have a distinctly unpopular candidate they want to impose on Ekiti through brutal money politics shoehorned by official force and violence. Fayemi who was Minister of Solid Minerals was the worst minister in the Buhari cabinet in every respect. But he’s stolen enough money for their purpose in Ekiti. The convergence of Buhari and Fayemi is in the former’s need to take Ekiti. While he plays this like taking Ekiti for their political party, APC; it is actually taking Ekiti for the Jihadists and herdsmen. This sounds alarmist, but it’s true.
The Jihadist elements in the North as presently being fronted by the herdsmen are operationally not different from the Jihadists of almost 200 years ago. Many areas in the southern part of the political North today were not Muslim areas until the Jihad that was instituted to claim them. Those they could not conquer, the white man did it in the name of the pacification of the North and handed them over to Fulani emirs in the name of Indirect Rule. Of course, the white man is long gone, but old unfinished history has resurfaced in a new form. Tinubu has played the Afonja already by giving the keys of Yorubaland to his Northern friends in the name of politics, but actually it is plain greed - greed for money and power, though he’s yet to find out he does not have the latter. But, like Afonja, by the time he does, it would be too late. Oyo, Ondo, Osun, Ogun, Lagos are all APC states. To the ordinary Nigerian, this might seem normal politics, but to the Jihadists, these are conquered territories. The men running these places as APC governors are viceroys of the Jihadists who will always do their bidding. Only Ekiti has held out against the Jihadists in a normal political stance by voting PDP and in reality by the anti-grazing law and its robust prosecution of persons who breach it.
Of course, this has had the Jihadists cursing under their breath and more determined to get their pound of flesh. When you look at their trail of blood and destruction through Benue, Taraba, Kogi and Plateau and a few water-testing set-piece cases in the Southwest, it’s obvious why Ekiti is strategically important for them. They need to punish Ekiti for holding out against them this long, but more crucially for prosecuting herdsmen. El-Rufai told Nigerians what price we’ll pay for every Fulani and the Miyetti Allah people have not minced words in telling us that one cow equals to a hundred humans - men, women and children brutally butchered to send a message. So, when you see all the instruments of violence and armed men wheeled into Ekiti for this election, when you see the kind of characters and money coming from the North to campaign for Fayemi, there is only one thing on their mind - it is not to claim Ekiti as a political price for the APC as a party, it is to claim Ekiti for Fulani vengeance and establish it as a desolate lesson ground for others. Yes, it is to claim Ekiti for death. When you look at the death trail of the herdsmen, you know being APC is not an assurance of security, but only guarantees you the status of a sitting duck. They always need a governor to open the door for them in every state and for them, Fayemi, the highly compromised Ekiti politician, is the perfect man for that job, the perfect stooge.
Now, when we compare both backgrounds, you see that we have the PDP candidate, Professor Kolapo Olusola seen in several quarters as a Fayose stooge and in others as a natural successor, being the Deputy Governor. Indeed, for the latter group, there is no surprise that Fayose was actively campaigning for the man because he is the party’s flag-bearer and the man likely to continue his legacy, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Those who claim Fayose dominated the man’s campaign and that he did not allow him to go out on his own to campaign and tell people about his agenda are being economical with the truth because Fayemi didn’t do anything either. What we have had, after the brutal pacification of competition within the Ekiti APC, are surrogates from outside waltzing into Ekiti and doing his campaigning for him. There’s a reason for all the money that poured in from core Northern APC states and their personnel being on the ground. But we will find out whether the Ekiti and the Yoruba have asked themselves what these people want with small Ekiti in return for all their effort.
So, back to my opening statement here, what do I mean? I hear people saying Fayose did not have an army to confront Buhari and Fayemi, that he was just making noise and crying on television thinking sentiments would win it for his side. I hear those who say he was just riding okada all over the place and eating pomo and thinking such populist stunts would win it for his side when he owes public servants months of unpaid salaries. Basically, with some of the results, real or fake, coming out on social media, I’m hearing people describe him as a waste of space, a braggart who must be swept away. A lot are already preparing his place in Kirikiri for him and so on.
For me, how can we as Nigerians allow ourselves to think these are the real issues when the really dark things are happening right here under our nose? So, is Fayose, whatever his frigging fault, more dangerous to Nigeria than Buhari at this moment? Is Fayose’s drama more annoying than Buhari’s open consciencelessness over the killings his people are committing all over the country, something he has clearly said and showed he cannot stop? So, is the idea of installing Fayemi in Ekiti Government House by hook or by crook in order to remove the supposed Fayose scourge better than protecting Ekiti from the scourge of the herdsmen? Are Ekiti people and Nigerians more comfortable with the supposedly urbane Fayemi parceling out Ekitiland as ranches and cattle colonies to Jihadists than they are with a governor that is supposedly Fayose’s stooge, even though we know that the man needs the benefit of the doubt to chart his own course first before being declared a stooge? Honestly, as 2019 rapidly approaches, are we really seeing the big picture unfolding here?
Personally, I do not want to be pessimistic about our democracy. But when I look back to history and analyze how the events in the Southwest had always led to the truncation of our democracy, I worry. I mean, in the First Republic, it was the Western Regional Crisis that was the immediate reason for the January 1966 coup and in 1983 it was the Ondo Crisis resulting from the attempt by the NPN to steal the state through Omoboriwo that led to the Buhari coup. In each case, problem started when the central government attempted to claim the Southwest into its political column. And then now, we have Ekiti. Okay, some Yoruba may have forgotten, but there is a history behind all this. There is a Yoruba saying which goes like this: “Kaka k’ayan’lẹ fun Gambari, k’aroju k’akú". This is interpreted as: “Rather than cede to the Hausa-Fulani (Gambari) our land, we will endure the pain of death”. This is a saying that was coined when the Yoruba were fighting to push back the Jihadists who had attacked Yorubaland from the North in the first half of the 19th century. Today, all Yorubaland (apart from Ekiti) is in the hands of the APC. Interpret that how you want, I would say it’s now all in the hands of the Jihadists. If Ekiti falls, it would be the first time since our return to democracy that one party controls the Southwest fully. I know what that means. It won’t be good for Nigerians, but it would be worse for the Yoruba because for the Jihadists, the Yoruba remains that ethnic group they have to bring to heel because in their calculation, they have already sowed the seed with Islam. Unfortunately, that bomb did not detonate because the Yoruba articulated Islam in a different, tolerant way. But the Jihadists don’t give up. From generation to generation, they pass on their unfinished business.
Let me end this by saying this whole scheme will not be clear to Nigerians and the Yoruba until after they claim the election of 2019 through the help of the Yoruba as usual. That is when the Jihadists’ calculation with the June 12 ‘Democracy Day’ stunt and all the fawning over Abiola will become clearer. Their first and main victim would be Tinubu. He will not have the mouth to shout because he would have been the one who dug his grave. He would not have a reference to make about the Hausa-Fulani against the Yoruba and claim martyrdom like Abiola because those who would have the knife over his throat are the same people who have declared June 12 ‘Democracy Day’, apologized to Abiola’s family and given him a posthumous GCFR. Yes, the Jihadists anti-corruption or whatever war will claim him hook, line and sinker and Afonja will not turn in his grave.
[This write up is by Kennedy Emetulu](Sahara Reporters)