Fayose going! Going!! …

But for the revelations of Captain Musa Sagir who exposed how the Ekiti governorship election which brought Fayose to power was rigged, many of us had bought the fib that Fayose’s pseudo populism and politics of ‘stomach infrastructure’ did the trick. Now we know better. Fayose is a carpetbagger. An impostor. Some filthy rigging rag […]

But for the revelations of Captain Musa Sagir who exposed how the Ekiti governorship election which brought Fayose to power was rigged, many of us had bought the fib that Fayose’s pseudo populism and politics of ‘stomach infrastructure’ did the trick. Now we know better. Fayose is a carpetbagger. An impostor. Some filthy rigging rag the cat brought home overnight.
Don’t think it doesn’t concern you. Remember, Jonathan thought Boko Haram was the problem of the North-Eastern parts of Nigeria until Oby Ezekwesili, Mariam Uwais, Jibrin Ibrahim and many other patriots came together to draw the world’s attention to the scandalous situation. The Bring Back Our Girls’ group will yet provide ample material for scholars in future interested in how advocacy can give undying life to a matter hitherto consigned to the backwaters. Now, it’s already one year since those innocent girls were abducted from their school by demented terrorists, an anniversary being marked today by the BBOG group with a Commemoration Lecture by Cardinal John Onaiyekan on the theme: “Crying To Be Rescued”, and a symposium featuring Prof. Chidi Odinkalu and Allen Manasseh, among others. I understand that President Jonathan and President-elect Buhari are also being invited to the event.
Sorry, did I digress? The point is that you should never think that you are shielded from a problem afflicting another part of Nigeria. When Boko Haram started knocking on the door in Abuja, the authorities were rudely shocked into realisation that they had left a black mamba to breed and fester for too long and it had now come with its deadly offspring to depopulate the land.
If you think the problem in Ekiti (or even the gangsterism in Rivers State) does not concern you, wait … very soon impunity will knock on your door or dive into your room through the window. Fayose and his ilk are nothing but bad news for civilisation. Since October 16, 2014, when he was sworn in as governor in controversial circumstances, Ekiti State has known no peace.
The governor has perso-nally supervised the chasing of perceived opponents (not least of which are members of the state house of assembly) out of town. Before his inauguration, he had invaded a court and beaten up lawyers and court officials. Fayose was physically present at the scene where a judge was beaten up and his suit torn to shreds while court records were destroyed. This is one of the worst cases of impunity in the country’s political history. He has a ready homicidal gang always ready to depopulate the ranks of his opponents. He is the political equivalent of the unmourned drug baron Pablo Escobar.
Since assuming power, Fayose has orchestrated a campaign of intimidation and harassment against the Speaker of the state house of assembly, Dr Wale Omirin whose petrol station business was shut down for constituting ‘environmental menace’. Fayose also sacked the personal staff of the Speaker, rendering his office ineffective; he then instigated a minority of seven PDP members of the House to purportedly ‘impeach’ the Speaker in a House comprising 26 members. This coup against the constitution has been carried out with the cold complicity of security agencies that looked the other way as 19 majority legislators fled the state for fear of violent death.
Fayose’s notoriety thrived under the Jonathan regime because the security agencies thought he had the nod of the president to continue terrorising the opposition. But a new day dawned when General Buhari won the presidential election against all the calculations of myopic vassals like Fayose. Buhari’s victory may yet be Fayose’s nemesis. At the height of his service to the Jonathan campaign, Fayose had even advertised his mother’s incontinence which made her wear diapers in his bid to insinuate that General Buhari could not be presumed healthy. What kind of child would embarrass the woman who gave him birth in that way? In Fayose’s world, there are no rules, no boundaries.
Now the 19 majority legis-lators under the leadership of Speaker Omirin have issued an order to the state’s Chief Judge to commence investigations into the impeachable offences they have outlined against Fayose. Fayose evaded service of the notice of impeachment and ironically tried to get an injunction against the move in an Abuja court. The same man who desecrated the judiciary is now seeking protection under it.
As another sliding tackle, Fayose has instigated his own seven minority legislators to write to the Chief Judge disclaiming the impeachment notice. The impostor recognised as Speaker by Fayose is Mr Olugbemi, whose spoken English is so bad that it clearly indicated how low the Fountain of Knowledge has sunken. His public outing to read the so-called disclaimer exposed him as someone who could do with some good secondary school tutorials.
Fayose was physically present at the scene where a judge was beaten up and his suit torn to shreds while court records were destroyed. This is one of the worst cases of impunity in the country’s political history. That this travesty remains unpunished is an indication of the degree of lawlessness that has characterised the Jonathan presidency.
There is only one way it can end: Fayose will be disgraced out of office. Being who he is, he would want to do as much damage as possible before the law catches up with him. One of the saddest developments in the current democratic dispensation is the despoliation of the enviable name Ekiti has made for itself over the years as the breeding ground of intellectuals. To be governed by an intellectual Lilliput like Ayodele Fayose must really be humiliating for the trail-blazing indigenes of that state. But while the rest of us support them in their bid to restore sanity in their state, they, on their part, must rise to the occasion. As Martin Luther King admonishes, “He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it”.

APC wins Lagos!
With the victory of APC’s Akinwumi Ambode as governor of Lagos State, the game is over for hate peddlers. Let brother embrace brother!