The presidency has mocked Governor Ayo Fayose and the Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP) over the outcome of the Ekiti governorship
election.
All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate in Saturday’s governorship election in Ekiti state, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, was declared the winner.
An article titled ‘Fayose: In The End, A High-Powered Nothing’
authored by Garba Shehu, senior special assistant to President Muhammadu
Buhari on media, said the electorate spoke through their votes.
Shehu wrote: “The people of the politically significant State of
Ekiti have spoken against their Governor, outgoing governor, Mr. Ayodele
Fayose, who told them that the governorship election they just had was a
referendum on President Muhammadu Buhari. He said candidates Kayode
Fayemi and Olusola Eleka were pawns and that he and President Buhari
were the actual contestants.
In what observers said was the most intense, and a most angry
campaign, the people gave their verdict: Dr. Kayode Fayemi, the one-time
governor, declared persona-non-grata is now persona-grata again.
President Buhari has won this referendum. The people of the State have
sent a clear message. The politics of brinksmanship, assaults, insults,
abuses and Robin Hoodism disguised as stomach infrastructure has been
rejected in favour of politics of inclusion, development, responsibility
and good governance.
President Buhari’s war against corruption and insecurity; the message
of agric revolution and infrastructure development and fidelity in
resource allocation and management have struck a chord with Ekiti
voters, who had been lied to and deceived by Governor Fayose. While the
opposition continued to rant at him, President Buhari’s uprightness,
coupled with incorruptibility and personal integrity, unmatched by any
politician in the country has again stood the test of time.
The All Progressives Congress (APC) win in Ekiti means that the Party
has control over 25 out of the 36 states of the Federation. The party
thus becomes the only one in power in the six states of the South-West
geopolitical zone.
Besides reinforcing the APC’s position as the only standing pole in
the political landscape, it is a credit to the national leader of the
party, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, against whom all manner of ethnic and
religious opposition is being mounted by former President Obasanjo and
some of the Asiwaju’s sworn enemies in the sub-region.
With this, the political landscape of the South-West has been
transformed. APC’s regional strength has been strengthened and the
Asiwaju will be respected even better. Without losing patience and
decorum, the Asiwaju has proved that rivals must reconcile and come to
terms or lose everything.
This win is equally a huge boost to the APC and its new leadership
under Chairman Adams Oshiomole, who got their first baptism of fire in
Ekiti. It is, importantly, a big boost to the second term ambition of
President Muhammadu Buhari.
For the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) which came second in the
election in a state that they held sway, it is a loss politically and
psychologically. The result of the election has proved that PDP is
irreparably broken and dismantled. They have nothing to offer to the
country and its people. The message from Ekiti is that no state in
Nigeria will vote PDP. Never again.
As for Mr. Fayose and his morbid brand of politics, it is now his
time to reconcile himself to the imminent political extinction he faces,
his political career sealed for good. Newspapers have mistaken him for a
gadfly who creates discomfort for the government at the centre to make
it better, but Fayose is a street-type thug. He never fits the role of a
gadfly because he thrives on bitter enmity. Opposition does not mean a
negative view of everything. Neither does it translate into a licence to
abuse your superiors.
The winner of the election, Governor Fayemi’s trajectory from a
persona-non-grata to a persona-grata again has given a wave of cheer to
APC members all over the country. It has given a fresh hope that fake
news, lies and propaganda run only short distances, because they have
short legs.
An old proverb says you can’t beat something with nothing. After all
the noise, theatricals and drama, Fayose’s fall came with a thud, not a
bang: a high-powered nothing.”