Why Fayose must stick to his area of competence

BY PHILIP AGBESE

Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose, is a man that has succumbed to his delusions as manifested in his growing belief that he could emerge as Nigeria’s Donald Trump and that he could potentially win presidential votes by being noxious. Depressingly, instead of creating the “Trump Effect”, Fayose comes across as someone in the final grips of schizophrenia, which Wikipedia describes as “a mental disorder distinguished by a loss of contact with reality and the occurrence of psychotic behaviors, including hallucinations and delusions (unreal beliefs which endure even when there is contrary evidence).”

Fayose’s loss of contact with reality is typified by his latest attempt at vilifying the military with the claim that “fake defence contracts” are being used to launder money. His justification was a Transparency International report that he apparently did not read, for if he had read it Fayose would have realized that the period referenced in the document was under the watch of his party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), which presided over the bazaar era when our commonwealth was converted into pocket change.

An objective reading of the TI report would prove that the stolen funds it was referring to include the N4.7 billion arms fund that somehow got on a jet that landed at Akure Airport by 9.28am of June 12, 2014. The money was said to have later found its way into the account of Fayose in Zenith Bank with number 1003126654 and Bank Verification Number 22338867502. The whole complex web of theft that ensured the Ekiti State Governor got his share of the “fake defence contracts” was so intricate that space will not permit them being repeated here.

He however ignored this fact to begin calling for the head of those that currently lead the military when the crime was committed long before they were appointed. The TI report created this misleading concept that attempted to indict serving leaders for the fraud committed by persons that have been put on trial and some assets and money recovered from them. These do not include Fayose of course since he is currently prancing around buoyed by the immunity guaranteed for state governors by the constitution.

It is most unfortunate that someone as bereft of principle as Fayose is now lecturing the nation on how to prosecute the anti-terror wars. Again, since he patently lacks the capacity to be original, his reference point is “the United States Country Report on Terrorism 2016”.  His reliance on this report is symptomatic of what is wrong with Nigeria: elected leaders who insist on Nigeria remaining colonized by only viewing the country from the prism of western influence have no business reading in details such reports as far as the devil in the heading justifies their motor park mentality to governance. If America says it then it is correct. It shows that Fayose has no business presiding even over his own household not to talk of piloting the affairs of a state; it also explains how and why his state’s resources are frittered away with his foreign trips because he does not believe in his country.

Since Fayose brought up the United States Country Report on Terrorism 2016, it is proper to address the aspect that pertains to him. Boko Haram terrorism in the north-east is being aided by the birth of other terrorist movements in other parts of the country. Notable among such is the militancy in the Niger-Delta, which cannot be divorced from Fayose’s PDP and the secessionists in the south-east, who have Fayose as a patron (Indigenous people of Biafra –IPOB – even named him their governor). He must therefore be told in clear terms that he is a terrorist sympathizer, who indirectly promote conditions that allow Boko Haram to thrive. Tragically, Fayose enjoys immunity that he has tremendously abused to further instability in the land.

As to how the anti-terror efforts are being implemented, the Ekiti state governor’s ideas would count if all that was needed was to mobilize motor park touts and commercial motorcycle riders, which are Fayose’s forte. Defeating Boko Haram is also not about cutting ponmo, eating from roadside bukka or doing any of those populist but mundane things that  have no bearing on governance, which was Fayose’s primary assignment to Ekiti state electorates until he discovered that he can hoodwink them by being the Comedian-in-Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Considering that he has launched a so called 2019 Presidential ambition, it is understandable that Fayose is desperate about creating the “Trump Effect “. He must however use the last fragment of reasoning allowed him by his delusion of grandeur to recognize that the incumbent President of the United States, Donald Trump, even at the height of insufferableness did not compromise the security of his country in pursuit of relevance. He must learn to contain himself within the subject for which he is mentally endowed like hanging around street urchins and not intellectually demanding matters like defence.

He might be getting away with ruling Ekiti State as an imperial majesty – one that requires appointees as high as commissioners to help him remove his shoes or being a governor that slaps around members of his cabinet – but Nigeria is larger than the stone age show he is running in his home state. Where the people of Ekiti state have indulged him, having compromised their right to good governance with the acceptance of stomach infrastructure, Nigerians will not suffer a fool.  Shame on the sophistry of the south-west to accept such a plaque upon them.

This does not however mean that Ayodele Fayose, Governor of Ekiti State, is not entitled to speak on issues affecting Nigeria. But given his antecedents it would be wise that he presents a certificate of mental fitness for Nigerians to begin to take him serious again. In the interim, he would do well to maintain a dignified silence so that he can be assumed to be wise.

Agbese sent this piece from FESTAC town, Lagos