A notable chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in one of the communities in Irepodun/Ifelodun Local Government Area of Ekiti State, synonymous with rice cultivation, tells his story of the June 21 governorship election: “Soon after the ballots in my polling unit were counted and I saw that I had lost in the election, I was surprised and confused and downcast. Moments later, I brought out my mobile phone from my pocket to call some of my political leaders, but I didn’t know how to break the news to them that I couldn’t deliver my unit. I waited for some time but couldn’t muster enough courage even after several attempts to make the phone call. “When it became inevitable, I summoned the courage but rather than call my leaders, I decided to call my peers. The first person I called was a chieftain of our party in Ilawe-Ekiti, (headquarters of Ekiti South-West Local Government Area). While he was telling me in straight language that we had lost there, I could read the disappointment in his voice just as I heard the jubilation in the background. “Then I called someone in Ire-Ekiti (in Oye Local Government Area). There too, I was told that we didn’t get a good result. I called Aramoko (Ekiti West Local Government Area). I was told that we lost there too. Then I decided to call people in Erijiyan (a community also in Ekiti West Local Government Area). The person I called in Erijiyan was hesitant. He was somewhat hysterical as he tried to explain to me what had just happened there. Then I put it to him: ‘We lost abi?’ And he said ‘yes’ hurriedly. “It was then I had the courage to announce that we had lost also in my community. My courage stood on the premise that I was a small fry in the party when compared to the leaders in the towns I had just telephoned people in. Ilawe is the hometown of Chief Yemi Adaramodu, the Chief of Staff to Governor Kayode Fayemi, while Ire-Ekiti is the hometown of the Director-General of the Kayode Fayemi Campaign Organisation, Mr Bimbo Daramola. (Daramola is also a serving member of the House of Representatives representing Ekiti North Federal Constituency 1 of the state). “We saw Aramoko as being strongly in support of our party and Governor Fayemi’s second term bid while Erijiyan is the hometown of the interim chairman of APC in Ekiti State, Chief Jide Awe. Apart from Chief Awe, we also have the member representing Ekiti Central Federal Constituency II in the House of Representatives, Mr Oyetunde Ojo, being from Erijiyan in Ekiti West Local Government Area. Honourable Ojo, the in-law of the national leader of APC, Senator Bola Tinubu, has a large following in the council area and he is believed to be popular because of his generosity. “I felt, ‘so, if all these people could lose in their areas and local governments, then I can be excused.’ The one that nailed it all is the fact that the voting process was free and fair as none of us complained about anything in the process and there is hardly anywhere we could stand to begin to, in truth, fault the election. We lost the election. I could see we lost to the people who revolted against us and not necessarily because of the winner or his party. If we go to the tribunal, I will not be comfortable going there with my party. We have lost, so we should just go back to the drawing board. That was what I saw in that revolution. It was not just an election, it was a revolution.” Another chieftain of the party in the state reacted differently, but substantially agreed that the APC lost the election to the people and not to the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP’s) popularity. “I have heard some people say that they actually thumb-printed APC in the election but in the end, we lost in such units. I find it preposterous because we couldn’t have been more in number in such units, voted and still had kept quiet when you felt something had gone wrong during the counting.” He said “as far as I am concerned, the idea that some kind of ink was used to rig the election or that some kind of ballot papers were designed to favour the PDP is just a way to keep the discussion on the loss of the election alive.” APC the real loser Echoes of the June 21 governorship election in Ekiti State are still reverberating across the country. To a large extent, the outcome of the election has occupied most spaces in the Nigerian political discourse. Many newspaper and social media analysts are still trying to rationalise why “a popular government, led by a popular gentleman in a popular party lost the election so heavily to a less popular candidate in an unpopular political party, without some form of help?” And this was what has thrown up the theory of “hi-tech rigging” one of the leaders of the APC in the state mentioned while reacting to the outcome of the election. The APC, through its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, had recently announced the decision of the national leadership of the party to challenge the outcome of the election in court. The party believes that something that could be explained in the courts went wrong before the election and, perhaps during the election and felt this might give the entire process a whole new meaning. But observers of political events in the state are of the opinion that the national leadership of the party might have failed to read the body language of the leaders and members of the party in the state. Some people in the state, on the other hand, felt “they might have seen the handwriting of the party members in the state on the wall but, as usual, decide not to take it into consideration in their decision-making.” Another opinion bloc contends that the APC by this move could fritter whatever vestige of goodwill the party still has left in the state after the election, especially when the well-applauded action of Governor Fayemi in accepting defeat and congratulating the winner is considered. For the APC, the election is also seen to have also thrown up another kind of challenge: How to reconcile its perceived “submissive stance” while Opeyemi Bamidele detracted so much from its popularity in the state. A school of thought has never wavered in its contention that the silence of the leaders of the party in the South-West, including Senator Tinubu, Chief Bisi Akande and the governors, on the issue of Bamidele whenever they came to Ekiti to campaign, was “not normal and it remains highly suspicious.” Bamidele contested the governorship election on the platform of the Labour Party but to many in Ekiti State who know the antecedents of the APC in the South-West, Bamidele is more of an insider in the APC - and a sojourner in LP - than many people who see themselves as APC chieftains. His face-off with Fayemi made him decline joining the APC when the party was formed and he decided to pitch his tent with the LP, an action many believed contributed to the problems encountered by the APC in the state. Questions are still on the lips of many people in Ekiti State as to the reasons the leaders of the APC were not seen to publicly comment (either negatively or positively) on the dangers posed by Bamidele’s political moves in the state to the APC in the election. They also believe that the “owners of the APC actually did nothing to curtail Bamidele’s anger with Fayemi and bring him under control if indeed they wanted their party to win Ekiti and remain solidly on ground.” But the leaders of the party did not fail each time they were in the state to campaign to vilify and thereby rile the PDP and its candidate, Ayo Fayose. Soon after the election, Bamidele took a swipe at Governor Fayemi and blamed the APC for “lacking in internal democracy” and claimed that was the reason for the party’s loss in the election. Thus, along with Bamidele’s submission, some other observers in the state blame “disconnect with the people,” which many people had termed to mean “throwing money around the streets of Ekiti.” In the light of what has happened, the APC has a lot to take care of in terms of holding the party together in Ekiti State. The APC must reassure Dr Fayemi that they have got his back and at the same time, see if the party could rise from the huge defeat in the state. Is Ekiti election sign of PDP’s resurgence? After the election of June 21, some people in the state revealed that Bamidele was their choice as the governor until the emergence of Fayose as the PDP candidate. Bamidele’s circumstantial emergence in the LP and the underlying issues were evidential of the looming crash of the APC. Those who stuck with Bamidele were those who said they could not go with Fayose because of the reasons of the past. While some people insist that preponderance of the votes Fayose got in the election was as a result of the bottled-up anger of the people against the Fayemi-led APC government, others claim that it was a proof of their avowed belief that the PDP had always been stronger than the APC in the state. To some others in the state, however, the people of the state had long rejected the APC and its government and only waited for the only opportunity they had to express their desire to send them away. The contention among some people in the state is that the election was a confirmation of the people’s revolt and rejection, not of Fayemi, but of the institution he is seen to have represented. Another chieftain of the APC said in reaction to the loss of the election that “we had lost the people about two years ago because they gave us their confidence but we bungled it.” According to him, “we were arrogant. We were carried away by the euphoria and did not know when the people left us to ambush us at the election.” A lawyer in the state, who commented on the election summed up the election as “free and fair,” and added that “it is a demonstration of the fact that the people of Ekiti State have rejected the antics of the APC.” To him, “they presented themselves as a progressives’ movement but when they came on board, they were patronising people from outside Ekiti. The contracts and all the patronages went to strangers, leading to capital flight that impoverished the people of the state.” The chieftains of the APC have spoken on the election and their views tally with the thinking of numerous people in the state. What the national leadership of the APC will do with their thoughts on the election and sundry issues will be seen in the coming weeks.
Posted on: Mon, 07 Jul 2014 23:50:04 +0000
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