Monday 23 June 2014
Femi Fani-Kayode: Ekiti – some hard lessons for APC
There are three things that Ayo Fayose told me during a lively
and prolonged discussion in my hotel suite at the Ideal Nest
Hotel in Osogbo, Osun state a few months ago. The first was
that I would eventually leave the APC and that the reason that
I hadn’t left at that time was because I didn’t know them yet.
In order to prove his point he told me about what they had put
him through when he left the PDP and joined their ranks a
few years back (they were known as the ACN at the time) and
how after a series of betrayals, misunderstandings and insults
he had no choice but to go back to the PDP where at least
”freedom of expression and differing opinions were
welcome” as he so aptly put it. He said that he gave me just a
few more months and that after that I would ‘’come back
home’’ to the PDP just as he had done before.
The second thing that he told me was that he would become
the flagbearer of the PDP and that he would defeat my brother
Governor Kayode Fayemi in the upcoming governorship
election in Ekiti state. He concluded by saying that this would
mark the beginning of the end of the APC in the south-west
and indeed in the whole of Nigeria.
I did not accept
any of his
projections and
predictions but it
is self-evident that
he has been
proved right in all
three. Not only did
I discover, albeit
the hard way, what
the APC and it’s
self-proclaimed
‘’owners’’ were
really like and
what their real agenda was, but I also left the party and ‘’went
back home’’ to PDP just a few months later.
He also made good his threat, won the PDP primaries and
went on to defeat Kayode Fayemi in the governership election
of Ekiti state a few months later. He has been proved right on
the third count as well because the signs of ‘’the beginning of
the end’’ for the APC had already started appearing long ago.
With the way in which many notable leaders of the party have
jumped ship in the last few weeks and months, including
Ibrahim Shekarau, Attahiru Bafawara, Marcus Gundiri, Dele
Belgore, Buba Marwa , yours truly and a number of others
and with the quiet grumblings from within by a handful of
notable and more respectable figures like Tom Ikimi , Ali
Modu Sheriff, Kashim Ibrahim-Imam, Segun Osoba, Niyi
Adebayo and a number of others who have rightly expressed
strong reservations about the way that they have been treated
by the ‘’powers that be’’ from within, it is clear that the APC
is not only finished but that after the special convention for
it’s Presidential primaries takes place in November it will
explode in a very dramatic manner. Fayose appears to have
had the gift of foresight in all these matters.
Once again I offer a hearty congratulations to him and to the
entire leadership of the Ekiti state PDP on their historic
victory in the governorship election that took place in their
state on 21st June 2014. The people of Ekiti have spoken and
their choice MUST be respected by all.
My heart goes out to my brother Kayode Fayemi who fought
gallantly but lost the election and who remains not only a man
of honour and unimpeachable integrity but also one of the
finest minds in the country. He is certainly one of the most
cerebal, disciplined, compassionate, accomodating and
civilsed leaders that the APC has within it’s ranks and one of
those that gave it a semblence of integrity and credibility.
His state broadcast
where he
conceded defeat to
Fayose proves my
point and it speaks
volumes. He is a
first class
gentleman and a
good sport. Unlike
most of those in
his party he knows
when to call it
quits and he
respects the choice
of the people. That is worth commending and it is worthy of
emulation.
By that single act alone Fayemi has guaranteed a place for
himself in the future of yoruba and Nigerian politics and if he
can only change parties and leave the Almajiris he will still
go very far indeed. For him the future is still very bright and
the sky is the limit. I salute his courage and commend his past
efforts for Nigeria and for his state.
Yet the truth must be told. And that truth is that whether they
want to accept it or not the people of Ekiti state sent a very
strong signal to the national leadership and stakeholders of
the Almajiri People’s Congress during the election.
The rejection of Fayemi at the polls had as much to do with
the disgust and opprobium that most people in the south west
and indeed the country harbour and hold for the tiny cabal of
dictators and demi-gods that constitute the APC leadership as
much as it does for anything else. Their message is simple and
clear and it is as follows:
1) They should stop playing religious politics, stop being
petty and stop trying to implement a muslim agenda in our
country.
2) They should stop behaving like a primitive cult where only
the opinion of one or two leaders matter and where dissent
and differing opinions have no place,
3)They should stop trying to demean others and stop treating
them with contempt,
4)They should stop arrogating all knowledge and all power to
just a handful of people at the top that have clearly lost touch
with reality,
5)They should stop taking others for granted and stop calling
our yoruba oba’s ”useless”.
6)They should stop telling people the most disgusting,
hateful, shameful and monuemental lies about others.
7)They should rid themselves of their slave mentality and
stop playing second fiddle to those that believe that they own
Nigeria.
8)They should stop trying to enslave their people by
returning the hegemonists to power through the back door in
Nigeria.
The simple truth is that God has turned His back on the
Almajiri’s People’s Congress. This is because of the atrocities
that are being committed by a few of their leaders right at the
top, because of their evil, covert and subterreanean agenda,
because they wish to turn the yoruba, and indeed the entire
southern part of the country, into perpetual slaves and
because of their patently and unapologetic anti-christian
agenda.
Given the history of our country and the suffering of the
people of the south west over the last 53 years since we
gained independence from the British, no true yoruba
nationalist should have anything to do with them.
I say this because to say that you are a yoruba nationalist and
at the same time you are working day and night to hand over
power to a die-hard, ultra-conservative, hegemonistic, brutal
dictator and despot like Mohammadu Buhari, who believes
that Nigeria was bequethed to him and to his people by God
and his forefathers, is a contradiction in terms.
Anything and anyone is better than that and no self-
respecting yoruba man, southerner or indeed middle-belter
would ever do such a thing. Let those that have slavish souls
continue to attempt to turn us all into the slaves of our
collective oppressors and throw us into perpetual bondage:
the rest of us will stand against them, expose them, resist
them, defeat them and flush them down the toilet where they
belong.
God has rejected the Almajiri People’s Congress and the
sooner they accept that hard fact and bitter truth the better it
will be for them and for Nigeria . Yesterday it was Ekiti.
Tomorrow it will be Osun.
We will not rest until every inch of yorubaland and, indeed
Nigeria, is freed from the grip of the Almajiri People’s
Congress and their insidious and desperate Haramite allies
from the north. The days of fooling the people and winning
elections by propaganda, intimidation, lies, threats and
coercion are long over.
The people of Ekiti have spoken and soon the rest of Nigeria
shall speak as well. For the Almajiri People’s Congress and
their Haramite allies, it is all over.
A new era for Ekiti begins today whilst another one ends. Yet
everyone appears to be smiling and that is precisely how it
ought to be. There also appears to be a distinct atmosphere of
hope in the air and a new-found, refreshing and distinct sense
of unity of purpose coupled with a firm resolve to allow peace
to reign and to let bygones be bygones.
This is a classic example of what the late Waziri Ibrahim of
the defunct GNPP labelled as ‘’politics without bitterness’’
and it is very refreshing.
I was particularly touched by Ayo Fayose’s declaration that
there was ‘’no victor and no vanquished’’ after the election
and by his promise to work with Kayode Fayemi and the
Labour Party gubernatorial candidate Opeyemi Bamidele to
‘’move the state forward’’. I salute his magnaminity in
victory.
I also salute the sheer courage of Fayemi and Bamidele to
accept defeat in good faith and I commend them both for
stretching out their hand of friendship to the winner of the
election.
All three of these gentlemen are well known to me and they
are my friends and brothers. They are also proud sons of the
Yoruba who have proved to the world that politics in the
south-west can be played without any violence, rancor and
bitterness. I wish them all the very best in their future
endeavours.
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