Ekiti election result: A road map to 2019 general election ? – Godwin Etakibuebu

By Godwin Etakibuebu

Ekiti governorship election that held on Saturday 14 July 2018 is come and gone. While the winners [Dr kayode Fayemi and the All Progressives Congress] are dancing and counting their blessings, the losers [Professor Kolapo Olusola, Ayo Fayose and the People Democratic Party] are mourning in-between denial and objection to the results of the election as announced by the constitutional Umpire of the game in Nigeria – the Independent National Electoral Commission [INEC].

The number of votes that separated the winner from the looser was more than much, considering the fact that the total valid votes counted was 375,580. Given this number of votes, we can appreciate that the 19,338 votes that is taking Fayemi to the Government House while sending Fayose and his anointed successor; Kolapo Olusola, far away from the same House [until de-jury otherwise decided] is huge enough. Yes, the number is much because in election, one vote makes the difference and it is in search for this “one vote” that politicians do the “unthinkable” sometimes.

I congratulate Kayode Fayemi for “returning” back to that House he laboured much to build before he was sent packing by the People Democratic Party and Ayodele Fayose in 2014. He has returned to enjoy the fruit of his labour in what, for now, is looking like sweet victory. The dance of victory coming from the old man of the Villa in Abuja through Edo State; the home of Oshiomhole [a tested rascality in political abracadabra] to Ado-Ekiti, is worth it for now. Yes, for now until the fire of litigation, expected to follow, douses down.

And of course, l salute the resilience of loquacious Ayo Fayose, mostly in his brave battle of being the only man standing in the South/West when the ‘sword of Damocles’ hanged precariously on him. He tried his best in everything, which included giving his best in uncultured tactics and believing erroneously that he was a “Supreme being with the final say” in all events at most of the time. It was when l saw him crying on television so loudly, when the Inspector General of Police’s thugs exhibited whom the “master of the game in thuggery was”, that l was finally convinced that the man was nothing but a mere mortal who over-played the elasticity of his bravadoes.

Today’s exercise is in using the Ekiti State election’s result as perimeter of gauging what the 2019 general election will look like in results for the ruling party. This will be a worthy exercise because too many opinions have been voiced out from different quarters within the last two days of what Nigeria’s future elections; more of 2019 general election than Osun State governorship election coming up in a few months’ time, would look like.

Osun State election, with a die-hard Moslem Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola presiding as sitting Governor, is not most likely to be teargased by gang of thugs from one Idris from Abuja; known to be the “Master of the game of violence”, nor shall the campaign office of the APC candidate be “occupied by soldiers of fortune” when the issue of Osun State is to be decided. That is not to say that Osun State governorship election would be an easy run of the mill for the APC in the same manner it happened in Ekiti and this is for many reasons. We can only articulate a few at this point.

One, unlike Kayode Fayemi, who declared his complete readiness in making available to the Federal Government the largest geographical piece of land for cow ranching or “cow colony” [more appropriate for Audu Ogbe and the Fulani Militia] before the election, Aregbesola has spoken out that there shall not be an inch of land in Osun State for such exercise. The Fulani heard him [Aregbesola] clearly on this. The presidency with its toga of “give your ancestral land or die” heard him well enough. On this ipso facto, how much his religion [Islam] affiliation to the Nigerian Lords of the Jungle in Arewa would help him shall remain to be seen.

Two, is that Iyiola Omisore; a former deputy governor of that State, a former big wig of the PDP, who even won election to become a Senator of the Federal Republic while cooling-down in Agodi prison in Ibadan for allegedly being a principal suspect in the murder of Chief Bola Ige; then Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, who recently decamped from the PDP to tie up his lots with the Social Democratic Party [SDP] might prove to be a naughty opponent to be easily pushed aside by the APC. Aregbesola, with his political godfather from Lagos may be finding a difficult meat to chew in the person of Omisore – that is if he is played up by the SDP.

Third and last for today is the quality of interest Muhammadu Buhari will show on APC’s candidate in Osun, mostly if that candidate is of Ahmed Bola Tinubu’s creation or choice. I repeat that unless the candidate to succeed Aregbesola is of Buhari’s choice; and not that of Tinubu, the Nigerian State machineries would not be deployed to the battle [Osun State coming governorship election] like it was done in Ekiti because “those baba Buhari likes, the same he protects always with State equipment”. The case of Ondo State governorship election that produced Rotimi Akeredolu [have we forgotten that Tinubu interest of candidate crashed with that of Buhari in Ondo State?] may be happening in Osun State.

How that State [Osun]’s incoming governorship election shall play out will be seen in days to come. Whatever the format it is going to take, it cannot be in the same level of 2019 General Election, where the prestige and reputation of Muhammadu Buhari will be staked again, even on higher pedestal than 2015 general election. This is why the event of Ekiti election and its result becomes the necessary defining instrument of peeping into the future.

Already, congratulatory messages to the winner of Ekiti State election are being coated and decorated with interpretation of Buhari’s easier sailing into the presidency again in 2019. The presidency; in its congratulatory message to Kayode Fayemi, made it very clear and loud that the victory “represents acceptance of Buhari by the Nigerian electorate” and it expected same feat to be performed in 2019’s general election, mostly as it shall affect the president. The APC said that Fayemi’s victory in Ekiti represented the acceptance of Buhari programs and agenda by Nigerians. Others even ventured saying that the Ekiti election result is the road map to Buhari and APC victories, come 2019. Is that so?

Of course, Buhari could win 2019 presidential elections for the reason that 2015 general election, where Goodluck Jonathan lost out, marked the death of “free and fair election in Nigeria”. Otherwise, the APC and its cohorts out to have known that Nigeria is larger than Ekiti and that the pain of Nigerians in burying their dead every day for the past few years and across the six geo-political zones of the country shall unfailingly bring “a Daniel to judgment” and this “Daniel” is well-known to all.

Again, with the outflow of formidable loyalists from the ruling party [APC], the threat of “land for life or life for land” may not be enough to hold the Centre Point of the APC together anymore and as such, the breaking point of the ruling party and its leader; President Muhammadu Buhari, have been attained. It is only the Party [APC] that is not reading and interpreting the handwriting of events at the national level that it is the same route PDP passed into perfidy that resulted in losing out in 2015 that it [APC] has embarked upon. The fate that PDP met during its hour of total darkness is waiting for the APC even in a greater dimension.

What the result of Ekiti election should do for APC; that is if it is not a party destined for ruin already, is to go back to the classroom, re-evaluate current events vis-à-vis Ayo Fayose [outgoing governor of Ekiti State]’s personal contribution to his own “political demise” in the just concluded election against the background of its [APC] demonic atrocities all over Nigeria and use same for embarking on total restitution. Will it be willing to do this?

Let nobody embark on self-deceit that 2019 shall be easy for Buhari’s coming back. It is going to be such a miracle like finding a virgin in the maternity ward of any hospital or even a river flowing uphill. Even if APC elect to kill all Nigerians it might not secure Muhammadu Buhari a berthing anchorage at the Presidential Villa in 2019. Unless, and this comes with a very larger doubt, the APC can fight the gods of the land to a standstill.

That itself will be another titanic miracle.

Godwin Etakibuebu; a veteran Journalist, wrote from Lagos.

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