The much I know: Opeyemi lied by saying that he made Dr Fayemi the governor of Ekiti State. It is absolutely false to also infer that he introduced Dr Fayemi to Tinubu. As a member of Campaign for Democracy, CD, Dr Fayemi was one of our major pillars in the UK. I was in the core of CD and attended almost all the meetings at the home of Dr Beko Ransome Kuti. I was also among the covert revolutionary cadres in that historic movement for change. I know for sure that after the annulment of the June 12 election, Dr Fayemi became one of our most outstanding voices in the UK. Tinubu had left Nigeria for the UK in 1994 where himself and Dr Fayemi joined forces. We had emissary between the home and abroad radical movements. I was one of them. In 1996 when myself, Baba Omojola (who died few days ago) and another reliable comrade travelled by road for three days from Lagos to Ivory Coast, Dr Fayemi and Tinubu were some of the diaspora people that sent emissary to us for important political assignment which took us to Ivory Coast by road. Im aware of the series of meetings held in the UK in 1995, which had Tinubu and Dr Fayemi sitting together and working together on how to upturn the table against the despot at the homefront. In 2006, Im aware that the AC leadership was looking for a credible candidate in Ekiti and Osun to contest for the 2007 gubernatorial elections. The search actually began in 2005. Im aware that in 2006, after a meeting at the home of Tinubu, the decision was taken by the AC leadership to contact Dr Kayode Fayemi and convince him to vie for the post of the governor while a party was despatched to meet with Ogbeni Aregbesola who was then the Commissioner for Works in Lagos to also convince them to contest the elections. Im aware that three people were given the assignment to meet with Dr Fayemi. The three people were Rev Adetunji Adebiyi, Senator Babafemi Ojudu and Opeyemi Bamidele. At this period, the party had put across the name of Dr Fayemi. What the party leadership did was to send three people to convey the decision of the party to Dr Fayemi. It smacks of opportunism and clear case of infantile political disorder for Opeyemi to now distort this fact by saying that he made Dr Fayemi the governor of Ekiti. For me,this interview further portrays Opeyemi as a very cheap and dishonest person. The fact of the matter is that so many people played crucial roles in convincing Dr Fayemi to throw his hat into the political ring. And in essence, it was not Tinubu that made Dr Fayemi the governor of Ekiti, the people that made Dr Fayemi the Governor of Ekiti are ordinary people in Ekiti who were disillusioned by the deceit and misrule of governance under the PDP, women and men, artisans and the poor people in villages and towns who rose up in unison against an oppressive and blood-sucking system. Its too early for Opeyemi to be playing the role of a King maker or assuming the status of a tiny god. At the end of this road, his followers would have learnt bitter lessons about him- Adewale Adeoye wrote on Ekitipanupo Let us move from the ridiculous and the sublime, with a quick personal testimony: I met Tinubu for the first time in the company of Fayemi and Beko Kuti in Tinubus London house as far back as 1994 to review a Yoruba Agenda document, and we all four interacted constantly during the pro-democracy period 1993-1999. [Beko Kuti introduced Fayemi and I to each other in 1994 as London and US anchors/outlets respectively of his Nigerian pro-dem activities.] While died-in-the-wool politicians-turned-PDmers-turned-back-to-poiiticians like Tinubu immediately re-joined politics post-Abacha, most of the younger pro-democrats (Ihonvbere, Fayemi etc.. and to a lesser extent Ezekwesili, whose major pro-dem activity was to work for the release of Obasanjo after his incarceration in 1995; it was on that account that I met her in the US.) upon their return to Nigeria (by choice or by invitation) were DECIDEDLY not partisan at the early post-Abacha political space (w hich was 1999-2003, and a significant part of 2003-2007). They were just technocrats providing their expertise to a nation in need. So Fayemi could not have been introduced to Tinubu in 2006 by Opeyemi. If what he meant was that he was a strong supporter of Fayemi before his (Opeyemis) principal Tinubu (under who he as a Commissioner), fine. While Ihonvbere turned partisan PDP early (Special Adviser, and then PDP guber-candidate), Ezekwesili remained technocratic (Special Adviser then Minister then World Bank, and now critic), while Fayemi, despite Obasanjo many wooings, waited for his political time until AC (not AD, or ACD sef) under which flag he won the governorship in April 2007, but with delayed assumption till October 2010. AC became ACN and is now APC. [AD and ACD are still around, shells of themselves, but ACN is no more]..the rest is history, as re-election elections loom in 2014. And there you have it.....we shall see...- Professor Bolaji Aluko
Posted on: Mon, 04 Nov 2013 08:24:20 +0000
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