Ekiti, the day after

Last week seemed to have been designed for commentators in mind. From the tragic bomb blast that left at least 49 students dead in Potiskum, Borno State, to President Goodluck Jonathan’s formal declaration to contest next year’s presidential elections and the purchase of nomination form for Aminu Tambuwwal, the House of Representatives Speaker, by some of his fellow representatives to bid for the APC presidential ticket, many issues deserved one’s attention. Throw in the Super Eagles’ game of Saturday, November 15, and its attendant drama, only a lazy columnist can complain of the issue to tackle.

But we are not examining any of those items today, as some of the underlining issues have been our concern for the past few weeks. I return to a matter that is dear to my heart and it has to do with Ekiti State. Many writers and commentators have tried to analyse and understand why the people of Ekiti gave a red card to former Governor Kayode Fayemi on June 21. So much issue has been made of ‘stomach infrastructure’ with not a little tinge of condescension shown to a group of people who made their choice loud and clear at the polls. Whichever way you choose to look at the election, Peter Ayodele Fayose was the people’s choice. It is mind-boggling that Fayose won in all the 16 local government areas of the state even after he was disgraced out of office eight years earlier.

I first met Gov. Fayose in January 2003 at the office of an older friend in Abuja. His personality literally filled the large office as he kept talking in the Ekiti dialect with my friend who is also a journalist. His concern that day was that he was not getting positive vibes from Aso Rock as then President Olusegun Obasanjo seemed not to be in support of his candidature. Fayose pleaded with my host to continue interceding for him with the man he continually referred to as Baba. He later became governor on May 29, 2003 until he was forced out on October 16, 2006.

The second time I saw him closely was May 2010 at the funeral of a friend’s father in Igede Ekiti. We were at the reception venue after the service at the Baptist Church enjoying pounded yam, the traditional meal of the Ekiti people when suddenly, the entire area was thrown into pandemonium with the shout of Oshokomole rending the air. It was Fayose that just arrived and the people swarmed round him as he moved from one area to another acknowledging the hordes of people who were clearly pleased to see him. It dawned on me that day that Fayose’s political career was not over and one would write him off at his own peril. How he lost a senatorial race in 2011 is also part of the intriguing drama of his political trajectory.

Though his election is still a matter for an election tribunal, he assumed office on October 16. This background is necessary for those who think Fayose is a political nitwit who reaps where he does not sow. He has earned his time in the sunshine; he deserves to bask in the adulation of his people.

But he has to be careful. I listened carefully to his address on the inauguration day and some of his subsequent actions seemed to have confirmed my fears. Governor Fayose should look forward and not backward. His obsession with his predecessor is not ideal and he should focus more on bringing succor to the people who voted him into office. If the former governor’s actions warrant a probe, he should expedite action along that line and set up a commission of inquiry to look into the state’s account otherwise he should let him be. His concern should be how to navigate the political landmines laid on his path by those who do not wish him to succeed.

The words of Mario Cuomo, lawyer and former governor of New York should serve as warning to Fayose. “You campaign in poetry, you govern in prose,” Cuomo said in 1985. The poetry of campaigning is full of possibility and problems are easily solved and opposition demonized but the prose of governing is usually messy and maddening, full of compromises and realities hitherto unknown. Governor Fayose should get to work earnestly and reduce the yoke of Ekiti people. I think the street sweepers’ matter and those of civil servants could have been handled with more tact just as he needs greater rapport with the state legislators, because Ekiti is bigger than all of them. His political sagacity is needed more than ever now in dealing with the legislators. The forthcoming elections is another area that would test his managerial ability and fair mindedness seriously as some PDP members in the state are already grumbling that the governor is insisting on selecting those who will fly the party’s flag. I hope he remember his promise shortly after he was elected when he said the era of imposition was gone in the party.

I hope he does not disappoint the people of Ekiti.