by Bukola Ogunyemi

His tenure as Ekiti governor was a demonstration of thuggery, violence, financial recklessness, abuse of office and corruption. The 3 years and 4 months reign of terror in Ekiti remains fresh in the memories of everyone who dared to oppose his policies, and the mess he created in the state’s finances are still being cleaned up till today.

Ayo Fayose’s emergence as the PDP candidate for the June 21st gubernatorial election in Ekiti State has brought a new dimension to what political observers have hitherto described as a walkover for the incumbent Kayode Fayemi of APC. So who is Fayose and what variables does he bring into the political equation of Ekiti State?

Fayose was governor of Ekiti State from 29 May 2003 to 16 October 2006, when he was impeached. He was one of the most popular governors of that era, mostly for negative reasons. Fayose rode into power on the back of a PDP South-West takeover masterminded by then president, Olusegun Obasanjo, who was worried about the lack of political support from his region, then under the firm control of Alliance for Democracy, AD.

His tenure as Ekiti governor was a demonstration of thuggery, violence, financial recklessness, abuse of office and corruption. The 3 years and 4 months reign of terror in Ekiti remains fresh in the memories of everyone who dared to oppose his policies, and the mess he created in the state’s finances are still being cleaned up till today. The rot perceivable in the educational sector in Ekiti, the land of knowledge, prior to the intervention efforts of Kayode Fayemi, is traceable to Fayose. Protected by his political godfather, Fayose plundered the resources of the state, bailing himself out with cheap populism typical of his party, the PDP.

Perhaps most notable among the several instances of Fayose’s corruption in office is the N1.4 billion Ekiti State Integrated Poultry Scheme scam. Using his friend, Gbenga James, and aide, Goke Olatunji, Fayose diverted funds meant for the establishment of poultry farms in each of the 16 local governments in the state for personal use. It’s a classic case of financial recklessness, abuse of office, nepotism and abuse of due process. The contract was handled by a company owned by Fayose’s friend, the company had no collateral to secure loan to finance its part of the project, the expenditure was not appropriated and there was no agreement between the company and the state as at when monies were paid. What more? The project wasn’t executed.

James later confessed Fayose had asked him to inflate the contract by almost N1 billion and that most of the money paid to his company were later routed to accounts controlled by Fayose. Trouble started in April 2005 when President Obasanjo publicly remonstrated Fayose during a tour of the poultry project, complaining of the absence of the characteristic smell of bird droppings typical of every poultry. Fayose apparently hurriedly put some pens together in Afao and hired some birds from a poultry farm in Ibadan just few days before Obasanjo’s visit. Such began his troubles which eventually led to the discovery of more scams, culminating in his impeachment by the House of Assembly the following year.

In February, at an interface between Governor Kayode Fayemi and bloggers, the governor claimed not to be able to remember or point out any tangible project or achievement of the Fayose administration. I thought the governor was just being petty, but former governor, Niyi Adebayo, had indeed made a similar remark in August 2013 in response to Fayose’s claim that he is Ekiti’s best governor till date: “He likes to make out that he is loved by the masses in the state; all you have to do to puncture this is go on the streets of Ekiti, they will tell you what he is. He is just a rabble rouser. What did he do in Ekiti? All the roads he claims he did in Ekiti, all of them failed after less than a year. There is no monument in the state that you can say Fayose did that has stood the test of time.”

If Otunba Adeniyi spoke as a man from the opposition, Segun Oni, of the PDP, made a similar statement during his term as governor. Out of the mouth of two or three witness, the truth is established.

Fayose’s greed and corruption is matched perhaps only by his violent nature. Political assassinations were a common headline in Fayose’s Ekiti.  Most damning is this US Cable made available by Wikileaks in which lawyer and human rights activist Femi Falana, himself an Ekiti indigene, accused Fayose of operating a full time hit squad.

“Falana, an unsuccessful Ekiti gubernatorial candidate in 2003, lamented that current governor, Ayo Fayose, has no moral compass.  Falana accused Fayose of being directly involved in numerous killings and massive theft from the state’s coffers.  While the police and State Security Service (SSS) know that many governors have vigilantes working for them, Falana said, Fayose is notorious in that he has a full time hit squad under his command.  Falana claimed knowledge of an SSS report linking Fayose to numerous murders, including one in which he was physically present.”

“During several public speeches last year, Fayose got swept away by the excitement of the moment to the point of threatening Falana’s life as well as that of Obasanjo’s personal attorney.  Around that time, the feud also began between Fayose and Ayodeji Daramola, the PDP gubernatorial aspirant killed in August… In a bi-election in a local government in Ekiti earlier this year, Fayose’s candidate was not well-favored. Fayose arrived at the polling station with a band of his “political advisors”, otherwise known as thugs.  Brazenly, they began replacing the ballot boxes in broad daylight. When members of the opposition protested, Fayose commanded several to be beaten and dozens to be jailed for having the insolence to question his authority to direct the electoral result as he saw fit, asserted Falana.”

That is the man the PDP has deemed fit to return to the Ekiti government house. Fayose is not fit to govern Ekiti, he is not fit to occupy anywhere apart from a 4 by 4 cell in a maximum security prison. The EFCC have had reasons to seek protection for some of the witnesses who agreed to testify against Fayose in the ongoing poultry scam trial after they received threats to their lives. It has also been established that he lied on his asset declaration, claiming he had a two storey building when he did not even own a plot of land, and a Bank PHB account in which he claimed to have had N100 million was discovered to belong to his party, the PDP, and with a balance of N50,000.

When in response to his suspension from the PDP in July 2013, Fayose said “he is an institution that cannot be excised from a party like PDP” I bet he referred to himself an institution of violence and corruption, which is what the PDP stands for. Fayose’s emergence as PDP flag bearer in Ekiti isn’t for the dearth of men of better standing and political worth within the party. There are men of better morals and pedigree in Ekiti, but the PDP choose Fayose to make a statement. A statement of admission of its status as the breeding ground for and abode of corrupt and retrogressive politicians in Nigeria.

The return of Fayose as a PDP governorship candidate is a statement of purpose by the party that it is ready to employ violence in holding on to power and claim lost territories. Fielding a notoriously violent, previously impeached politician, under trial for corruption, for an election in a progressive state like Ekiti is PDP’s way of saying elections won’t be issues or ideology based, but a do-or-die affair, a don’t-miss-the-leg-if-you-miss-the-ball tactic. The return of Fayose is PDP’s statement of purpose that its agenda for Nigeria and Nigerians, as is being implemented by the Jonathan presidency, revolves around violence and corruption.

We have heard of voting the party and not the man, we have heard of voting the man and not the party, in this case, the man and the party are one and the same – paragon of evil that Ekiti cannot afford to again have in power. Fayose’s candidature holds no promise other than his party’s manifesto to steal, kill and destroy. I urge the good people of Ekiti to put collective good and the guarantee of good governance and development above the allure of stomach infrastructure, vote wisely and prepare to demand their mandate.

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