@deboAdejugbe: This is how they have tried to frustrate Fayose to date (Y! Politico)

by Debo Adejugbe

The fallout from the Ekiti elections is fast becoming one that we will have to live with for a long time; it could even turn out to be a defining moment – legal or politics wise – in our polity as the battle to stop the governor-elect, Ayodele Fayose, from claiming the mandate given to him by the Ekiti people rages on. I’m not going to delve into elections matter or the sanctimonious grandstanding of the ‘Ekiti-voters-are-stupid-and-hungry’ army because I already addressed the issue in an earlier article in this column where I told this army to back off (more like ‘fuck off’, pardon the French) the Ekiti voters and face facts as relating to the Elections.

The battle has shifted elsewhere and the more it rages the more the questions piles up. The sudden notoriety of the E-11 and the carefully packaged assault from the media on the governor-elect beggars all description. This group initially congratulated Fayose after he was declared winner only to, on second thought, challenge his integrity and eligibility. People who had the opportunity of listening to the group’s chairman, Femi Ajiniran, on Channels TV’s sunrise program earlier this month would have been taken aback by the lack of content and incoherence he displayed in trying to justify why they are against the governor-elect.

For example, he felt the people that voted did not form the majority of Ekiti people hence it is not the wish of the people of the state to have Fayose govern them. He went on to explain how they tried to manipulate the primaries of the PDP in favour of some candidates they’ll be ‘comfortable’ with but lost that battle to Fayose (he felt Fayose manipulated his party and INEC) and he also tried reiterating that he (and the members of the group) are apolitical. This group is made up of 56 people according to Ajiniran. Such a small group that feels they speak for the majority of Ekiti people but telling us to discount the thousands that voted.

Before I go on to address this major media war and the elephant in the room – the assault on a judge handling a case against Fayose – I will like to chip in an analogy involving Fayose and Fayemi. Maybe the knuckle-heads at the E-11 will now understand what eligibility and integrity means to the people of Ekiti state (and Nigerian voters in general).

Is Ayo Fayose eligible and does he have the integrity to govern Ekiti state? Probably not if we go by the array of stones hauled in the media against his yet-to-be-inaugurated government and the corruption case against him (if convicted) that has dragged on for years, but he has to be convicted first. The people of Ekiti state who had a firsthand experience of dealing with him and his perceived excesses overwhelmingly said: Yes, he is eligible. That is case one.

Now case two has to do with Kayode Fayemi. Is he eligible and does he possess the right dose of integrity to manage the affairs of Ekiti state? An affirmative yes if we have to go by the media-painted sainthood and the array of Social Media accounts that endorsed his perceived humility, intelligence and the robust intellectual points he brings to the table. Enter the Ekiti people, directly governed by Fayemi, who overwhelmingly disagreed with this hyped-up eligibility and integrity mantra; standing firmly to say: No, he is not eligible.

This is a point that the E-11 must take in. It is appropriate that they have taken their case to court for the judiciary to determine its merit. What is baffling the average Ekiti man, however, is the timing of the case. This should have been tabled before the elections when their incredulity at the decision of the PDP to field Fayose was at its highest and at a time they could have prevented him from standing for election. Not after they congratulated him and urged Ekiti people to move on. Could this be that they arrived at this conclusion when it dawned on them that the rumoured N200 million being owed the government as the rental charge for Fountain Hotel (constructed by Fayose in his first term) would have to be coughed out? Or is it as a result that the patronage they enjoyed under the outgoing government (which they never had under previous governments) will be severed? It is left for E-11 to answer these questions.

If the allegations of ‘supervising thugs’ to beat up a judge which has pervaded the media space, and has refused to slow down, is proven to be correct against the governor-elect, he should be made to face the music without mercy. It is also important to refrain from ‘Media judgments’; where they try a case all by themselves based on the account of one party while neglecting, in totality, all arguments brought to the table by the accused party. This is the case of Ekiti and people who ought to be learned enough to understand these issues are the main culprits. They initially ran to press with the story that Ayo Fayose slapped the judge only to retract and rephrase to ‘he supervised the assault’.

My major reason for seeing this as a ‘media battle’ is hinged on the fact that serious news items from Ekiti state, that should be rotated round the clock, are being suppressed just to have Fayose’s head on a plate. Before the elections, Foluso Ogundare, a member of the Bibiire coalition in Emure Ekiti (supporters of Opeyemi Bamidele’s candidacy) was murdered when thugs, allegedly loyal to the outgoing governor, descended on their meeting causing mayhem and shooting sporadically at members of the group. The news was sparingly reported.

Another instance of this media bias is the reportage of the murder of Omolafe Aderiye, a known Fayose supporter, which has effectively turned the state upside down. Rather than stick with the story as the main reason why the state was thrown into chaos, prompting the governor to declare a dusk to dawn curfew; it seems that narrative will not serve the greater purpose of bulking up Fayose’s sins, the story has to be embellished in ways that it doesn’t implicate the opposition. We all know what would have happened had an APC supporter been murdered in the street. There seems to be contradictions in the media’s balancing of news items from Ekiti and how they push it to the populace.

Finally, it is up to the learned members of the judiciary to determine the ‘eligibility’ case brought by E-11, hinged on sections 137 (1) and 182 (1) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria which were deleted in sections 13 and 19 of the first alteration act of 2010. It is important to remember the furore generated in 2010 by the decision of the National Assembly not to subject the alterations to presidential assent on the excuse that it wasn’t needed. Olisa Agbakoba challenged (and got a favourable judgment) the decision in court while Femi Falana was of the opinion that there was no need for presidential assent, with reasons.

The president effectively put all the wrangling to bed on January 10, 2011 when he assented to alterations 1 & 2. The issue now is to interpret if those deleted sections should be used against Fayose’s candidacy – funny right – or we should keep burdening our courts with cases that relegate important issues to the background. That is not my pronouncement to make though.

The wheel of justice should take its course and the media should bring all the appropriate information to the fore instead of playing up one side of the argument. They must take a balanced stand and refuse to be used in this Ekiti war that portends major trial to our democratic ethos. Let whoever is responsible for the chaos (murder, court mayhem and others) be punished accordingly after investigations by an independent commission of inquiry into the matter. That should be our collective focus at this point if we truly care for the truth.

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Debo Adejugbe is a trained Telecommunications/Electronics Engineer and a certified IT professional living in Lagos. Dad to amazing Hailey and an advocate against Sexual and Domestic Abuses. Debo has political sympathy for the Labour Party. 

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija