Revisiting Ekitigate By Femi Orebe

Revisiting Ekitigate

If the giddiness of his office will not permit governor Fayose to forever seek forgiveness from God, we, as chroniclers of events, owe him the duty of reminding him of the events surrounding the 2014 Ekiti governorship election.

Sacrifices are paramount in the development of any society. However, it is nothing short of a scam to impose stiff sacrifices on the people when those who sit on their wealth live in ostentatious opulence. Fayose has not cut  his salary the way President Buhari  did, nor has he reduced his fleet of cars or the huge public burden of maintaining the state house where he lives like a  pampered and over fed king presiding over an impoverished people. Rather, he lives in filthy lucre, inflicting neck-breaking sacrifices on those he governs. It is all a ruse; a state-orchestrated deceit of the highest order. The imposition of tuition fees on Ekiti parents by an uninspiring leadership, with no economic vision, is just a plot to dis-empower the poor further.” – Wale Adeoye, a multi-award winning journalist.

That epigram popped up on the ekitipanupo web portal as I wrote this article. And how timely it was as, being a member of the Fayemi Education Task Force, and knowing what great work that committee of experts, with many professors of education, former vice-chancellors, school teachers, parents and administrators did only a few years back, I had no hesitation in concluding that the Fayose  Summit  was  just a  ploy to free state funds for the governor’s  unaccountable use as we have seen him do, wasting state resources, serially, on irrelevant advertisements. Otherwise, how could a governor in Nigeria’s Southwest impose school fees in the year of our Lord 2015,  some sixty years after Awo introduced free primary education in the region?

Incidentally, it was the reports from the summit that prompted this article. For instance, it was reported, and I hope he was misquoted, that the highly regarded Ekiti icon and respected legal luminary, Aare Afe Babalola, said he and Fayose are two of a kind. I am hoping all he said is that he will co-operate with the governor in developing education in Ekiti. That way, many of us, his admirers, will sleep easy.

Another, which is the leitmotif for this article is this, credited to Fayose: “I have not seen in the history of the state where a man gives an incumbent governor 16:0″.

If the giddiness of his office will not permit governor Fayose to forever seek forgiveness from God, we, as chroniclers of events, owe him the duty of reminding him of the events surrounding the 2014 Ekiti governorship election. And here, I shall rely exclusively on their own words as captured on the yet to be controverted Ekitigate tapes. None of those named in that show of shame has yet headed to the courts.

God is not man that you will deceive Him and He gives to all men according to the work of their hands. When President Jonathan instigated, approved and funded Ekitigate – Chris Uba came  to Ekiti with truckloads of naira drawn from the Umuahia branch of  the CBN – his intention was to test run the rigging plan for his forthcoming election; a  seemingly foolproof  plan Musiliu Obanikoro relied upon to predict the president’s unalterable victory. They obviously forgot that ‘there’s God o’.  So solicitous was the president about not being disgraced out of office that, according to the details of the Ekitigate tapes, he ordered the entire Nigerian army, through instructions to the Chief of Army Staff, to rig an election. I leave the reader to judge whether he succeeded in that vain hope. Ekitigate must, in its entire ramification, represent President Jonathan’s lowest point in office as no Nigerian alive could have thought that the day would ever come when a head of state would suborn the Nigerian army to such infamy or debauchery.

The Capt Sagir Koli tape features the following individuals:  Now governor, Ayo Fayose, Senator Iyiola Omisore, Brig General Aliyu Momoh, Senator Musiliu Obanikoro, Captain Sagir Koli and one Hon. Abdul Kareem.

I wish to specifically draw Fayose’s attention to these key quotes in the hope that if anything would ever make him sober, they should:

Musiliu Obanikoro: –

Jonathan’s Minister of State for Defence: “I’m not here for tea party, I am on a special assignment by the President.”

“That Daramola (Fayemi’s Campaign Manager) I want him picked up in the morning! “Look here, you can’t get promotion without me sitting on top of your military council – (has promotion in the higher ranks of the Nigerian Army become so cheap?). If I am a happy man tomorrow night, the sky is your limit” -(voice)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bO2SyPkk52w

Ayo Fayose: – PDP Gubernatorial candidate and now Ekiti State governor.

“We agreed in Abuja on the modalities to work, we agreed on a sticker, that any vehicle you see that sticker, you allow that sticker. That sticker is on those vehicles; his own was sent to him, mine was sent to me. The one by SSS – (the same SSS  Fayose  now daily moans about its so-called illegal use) – was given to me to give to them. There is

no vehicle that left this place without that sticker. The people you just disarmed had that sticker clear and clean.” “Today they went to “Efon”; they carry all the ….. where we are supposing (sic) to be collating THE THING INEC GAVE TO US – read RESULT SHEETS – soft copies we now PRINTED and everything, because they see INEC  on top of it. Why is my CONTACT MAN not with them? I said my contact man would be sitting in (sic) the check point PERMANENTLY. I convince this man to leave this people, they were said to sit in the sun. They packed all the COMPUTERS – (tell me what a candidate was doing with computers on the field on election day) – it took me more than 2 hours to get this man to release this people.”

“CHIEF OF ARMY STAFF CALLED ME and he told me, you are in safe hands, he [General Momoh] would perform and if you have any issues, call me. He told me that I have made it clear to him that I AM JONATHAN for this election.”- (Voice) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOce2g4O9XM

Brigadier General Aliyu Momoh: – Commander of the Nigerian Army’s 32nd Artillery Brigade, Akure.

“We have strike force, they just entered into the force. We can start arresting in the afternoon. There are about six special teams. “I have one “Strike force – Koro cuts in. “I have almost forty soldiers after deployment”. We have done a lot of arrest. Chief never believe me… he said OC mopol should handle them, we did. Now we have nothing less than 500 vehicles – (the same vehicles used in distributing the photocromic ballot papers Uba brought all the way from Igbo land) – with specific instructions”. It’s not because you are here sir. In fact if I start crying now….. No no no. (A General?)

Fayose: “Excuse sir, I told Chief Uba (Chris Uba – a bloody civilian Jonathan turned to an army commander?) that he should send me some soldiers that should go with me. The war is eminent (sic). I was in my house when CHIEF OF ARMY STAFF called me, and told me he has briefed him (Momoh), and gave me his number because I never met him before. He told me he would perform, and if you have any issues, call me. He told me that I have made it clear to him that I am JONATHAN for this election. He only called me WITH INSTRUCTION FROM THE VILLA”.

Now is that the election Fayose never stops breaking our ear drums about? Is that his licence to lead Ekiti to complete ruination? I think decency and penitence require that he stops these his funny jokes about 16: 0 20:0 or 30:0 and settle down to a modicum of governance.

There can be no stopping us drawing attention to these things as death will come when it will.

What remains to be done on the Ekiti governorship election, not for Ekiti, per se, but for the integrity of the Nigerian Army which for decades have been involved in peace keeping activities, mingling with armies from the civilised world, is for the Chief of Army Staff and the Director-General of the DSS to appeal to President Muhammadu Buhari to institute an in-depth investigation into this lowest levels both the institutions have sunk  so as to salvage something of their integrity and make their re-branding efforts a  success. Also, Captain Koli, a hero and a patriot of the highest order, should be promptly recalled and integrated into the service he gave so much for.

NATION

END

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