by Demola Rewaju

Frankly, it would be a waste of time to study the Ekiti people and their voting pattern as Fashola, Fayemi and Lai Mohammed have uncharitably suggested – they are not strange. 

Still reeling from the shock defeat of the June 21st #EkitiDecides election, Gov. Raji Fashola and his band of APC southwest traducers are desperately looking to understand the reason their party lost in Ekiti even though the answer is right under our noses. Started by Seun Odewale, Dr. Kayode Fayemi‘s Personal Assistant, the trend now is to cast Ekiti voters in an uncharitable light of preferring ‘stomach infrastructure’. Lai Mohammed has said that Ekiti people need to be studied, Kayode Fayemi says a ‘sociology of Ekiti voters’ needs to be done and Fashola also echoes this. Before our academics fall over themselves, perhaps we semi-learned pundits can wade in and see if truly Ekiti is unique in its voting pattern or if it is not.

I am not an indigene of Ekiti but I spent five wonderful years there as a student of English under the tutelage of Profs Bamisaiye, Ibitoye, the eccentric Dr. Nwabuwe and the erudite Prof. Ashaolu. I hear the actor Kola Oyewo is now a lecturer in the same department. I fell in love with Ekiti people during my time there and always seemed to have a predilection for dating Ekiti ladies. I ended up with one – my wife is from Ode-Ekiti, my father-in-law lives in Lagos but votes in Ode-Ekiti so I cannot stand aloof while people like Raji Fashola, Kayode Fayemi, Lai Mohammed and others try to propose a new theory about how Ekiti voters are somehow different from the rest of us. The aim of this piece is therefore to show that the Ekiti voting pattern exemplifies all that the Yorubas stand for while Fashola’s Lagos is the state where a sociology of the people needs to be done urgently.

Since the beginning of our democracy in 1999, only one state of the six southwestern states has twice voted the same governors into office – Lagos. Of the six states, only two other governors have been voted into power for a second consecutive term – Otunba Gbenga Daniel and Dr. Olusegun Mimiko of Ogun and Ondo states respectively. From Oyo to Osun to Ekiti – the pattern has been so consistent that even performing governors need to go the extra mile to win a second term in office. When you compare this obvious facts with other zones, it becomes quite clear: the South-South for instance has consistently granted a second term in office to their political leaders: Lucky Igbinedion and Adams Oshiomhole in Edo State, James Ibori and Emmanuel Uduaghan in Delta, Peter Odili and Rotimi Amaechi in Rivers, Donald Duke and Liyel Imoke in Cross River and Victor Attah and Godswill Akpabio in Akwa-Ibom – two term governors from 1999 till date with Bayelsa being the exception: Diepriye Alamiesigha, Goodluck Jonathan, Timipre Sylva and Seriake Dickson were all at one point or the other governors of the state. The South East is close to the South West in changing leadership at the state level: Orji Uzor Kalu and Theodore Orji of Abia State, Sam Egwu and Martin Elechi in Ebonyi as well as Chimaroke Nnamani and Sullivan Chime in Enugu – all these governors enjoyed a second term in office from 1999 till date. The two exceptions are in Anambra where Chinwoke Mbadinuju, Chris Ngige, Peter Obi, Lady Virgy Etiaba, Andy Uba all held power at various points before a semblance of calm came to the scene and Peter Obi won a first and second term in office before handing over to Willie Obiano. In Imo, Achike Udenwa enjoyed two terms but his successor Ikedi Ohakim could not match the political strength of Rochas Okorocha so they’ve had three governors from 1999 till date. I would not want to go to other zones in the north for space constraints but the point would be clear if we look at the voting patterns: the southwest has the highest number of voting single term governors with the Lagos voting pattern being the exception.

The narrative actually starts from Ibadan where it is said that the people do not serve a king twice – applied to politics, Oyo has never had a governor voted back into office for a second term since it was created. The same narrative runs through most parts of Yorubaland with the exception of Lagos state, not Ekiti. Ekiti actually epitomizes this syndrome – Niyi Adebayo served only a term before being voted out for Ayo Fayose to come in but Fayose never saw his term to completion before being impeached along with his deputy Mrs. Abiodun Olujinmi for Rt. Hon. Friday Aderemi to take over. When all three leaders insisted they were the governor of the state, Tunji Olurin came in as administrator and handed over to the speaker Tope Ademiluyi to act as governor until the 2007 elections which Segun Oni was proclaimed to have won. Segun Oni was removed by a court judgement and Kayode Fayemi took over only to suffer an embarassingly heavy political defeat for an incumbent but the same trajectory runs throughout the southwest (with the exception of Lagos) and Olagunsoye Oyinlola defeated Bisi Akande in Osun with 493,509 to 237,041 respectively but that could be explained with the difference in age – Baba Akande was 64 at the time while Oyinlola was 52. Same with Oyo State where Ladoja pointedly referred to Lam Adesina as ‘Broda mi Lam’. In Borno also, the same could be said of Modu Sheriff who sent Mala Kachalla packing with 581,880 votes to 336,165. Kachalla had been the best man to Modu Sheriff’s father when he married his mother.

In a contest of youths, Kayode Fayemi lost woefully and I explained the reason in this piece I wrote last week. It was predictable for those of us who understand the southwest voting pattern – the Yorubas are most critical of their leaders and are most likely to change leadership rather than endure two terms – Ekiti only epitomizes this and any scholar who would undertake a sociology of the Ekiti people in terms of voting pattern will find that they are more in line with their Yoruba kin elsewhere…except Lagos.

Of course many reasons can be adduced for why only Lagos out of the six southwestern states is different in voting pattern – the mix of tribes and religions is one major reason and the sophistication of voters is another. The old boy clique where PDP and AD/AC/ACN/APC all meet is very comfortable with the status quo – PDP leaders in Lagos prefer to use Lagos as a bargaining chip in Abuja so APC gets the governorship seat but Lagos votes for the PDP at the presidential level and everyone smiles.

Frankly, it would be a waste of time to study the Ekiti people and their voting pattern as Fashola, Fayemi and Lai Mohammed have uncharitably suggested – they are not strange. It would be more interesting and scholarly to study the voting patterns of Lagos voters and the clannish mentality of the Lagos elite which Fashola belongs to.

Professor Lai Olurode was an active participant in the Ekiti elections and he is a fine sociologist but I doubt if he will be able to render his account just yet seeing as he was involved directly in the elections as an INEC staff. If all Raji Fashola took away from the Ekiti election is that the people exhibited ‘illogical behaviour’, then the insult to Ekiti people is far less than his political scholarship and proof that the APC is still locked in its arrogant ignorance. Fashola’s idea of governance is closer to geniocracy or noocracy than to democracy which is what we practice in Nigeria and why Fayemi lost. People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. You cannot impose your own ideas of development on a people no matter how smart or wise you think you are!

The big irony is that we’re not even in a perfect democracy which Tocqueville described as ‘tyranny of the people’ yet. If Fashola and the APC cannot cope with this one, they’ll never cope when we have a true tyranny of the people but Fashola can afford to be elitist as I wrote about in this piece, this one, this other one, and this one too: he has a Tinubu behind him and Lagos voters are a more forgiving lot than their Yoruba neighbours.

The Ekiti people have spoken in the truest voice of the peoples of Southwestern Nigeria: blessed be their voice.

————————-

Demola Rewaju blogs from www.demolarewajudaily.com

 

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.