Since Thursday, September 28 when Governor Ayodele Fayose declared his intention to seek the ticket of his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), to contest the 2019 presidential election, agent provocateurs and mischief-makers have latched on the declaration to declare war on the Ekiti state governor. Many of these are people with an axe to grind with the governor but who think they have now found grand opportunity to hide under the guise of serving party interests to denigrate Fayose. Looked at closely and dispassionately, however, their utterances and actions, as ingenious as they may seem, inflict severe injury on the party they purport to defend or serve. The whole world knows that Fayose has been the one-man Riot Squad confronting the scantily-concealed efforts of the ruling All Progressives Congress and its government at the Centre, headed by President Muhammadu Buhari, to destroy the opposition, stifle our renascent democracy, and impose dictatorship on the country. Buhari, a military dictator that ruled this country with iron fists between 1983 and 1985, has left no one in doubt that he is bent on an encore, but for the courage and boldness of Fayose to stand up to him at every point and turn. The heroics of Fayose in this very important and indispensable respect are known to all.
The full weight of the coercive powers and apparatuses of intimidation that the Federal Government can possibly wield has been unleashed on Fayose, his government, and interests – the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, the Department of State Security, the Police, the Armed Forces, the media (social media, print, and electronic), a section of the Judiciary corrupted and co-opted into this sinister and dastardly plot; just name it – but the governor remains unperturbed. To punish Fayose, Ekiti State has been frozen out of its due in budgetary allocations in successive budgets under the Buhari administration. The same rights and obligations accorded other states of ther Federation by the Federal Government have been denied Ekiti – all in a bid to cower Fayose. Fayose has suffered so much for his principled and consistent stand in opposing impunity and the audacious disposition of the APC-led administration to kill PDP, intimidate and silence opposition members, ride roughshod over the citizenry, and truncate the democratic yearnings and aspirations of Nigerians. Their intention to take this country back to the Dark Ages of dictatorial rule and feudal oppression has been resisted with zeal and vigour by Fayose. Battle after battle, war after war, Fayose has remained resolute and unfazed by the tendentious lies and fascist methods of the Hitlerites that today hold power in Nigeria.
It bears no argument, therefore, that those recently emerging from the hide-outs that Buhari’s intolerance to the opposition and dictatorial tendencies had driven them, only to throw barbs at Fayose are not friends of PDP but its enemies; regardless of the posts or offices they may purport to hold. As it is said, the hood does not make the monk and by their fruits we shall know them. A friend of my friend is my friend; a friend of my enemy is my enemy, and the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Fayose is a principled and consistent opponent of impunity and dictatorial rule, which the APC-Buhari administration epitomises; therefore, the enemies or opponents of Fayose cannot but serve the interests of impunity and dictatorial rule. In a nutshell, they serve interests other than those of vibrant opposition and fulsome democracy.
The facts are there for all to see. Prince Dayo Adeyeye, the Publicity Secretary of the PDP National Caretaker Committee, who was the first to cast a stone at Fayose, had just lost the opportunity to have Fayose support his governorship ambition in Ekiti. The incalculable harm done to PDP by Ali Modu-Sheriff is known to all. In Edo and Ondo states, Sheriff and his co-travellers orchestrated the party’s loss in the governorship elections there. The whole world also knows that Kashamu Buruji is the right-hand man of Sheriff. The Supreme Court, which freed the PDP from their vice-like grip of Sheriff, said as much of these charlatans. Which party, then, is Buruji accusing Fayose of working against? The same PDP that Fayose fought tooth and nail to wrest from Sheriff? The anti-party agents; those who have consistently worked against the PDP; who shout PDP in day-time but hobnob with APC in the dark are known to all. When Sheriff finalises his negotiations with APC, Buruji and others of their ilk should follow him into APC and PDP will know some peace.
It is sad that PDP Northern Elders, respectable and honourable as they are, harbour unstable characters in the fold; people who speak from both sides of the mouth at one and same time; people who are chameleonic and you cannot rely on their vows; and people who jump at disparaging other PDP leaders but are mute when it comes to confronting the awesome coercive machinery of the ruling party and its government. How many of them have found the nerves and spine to speak out against the many failures of the Buhari administration? How many of them have stood up to be counted in defence of PDP leaders harassed by EFCC and DSS? But they are quick to jump at other PDP leaders’ throats! To put it mildly, this is not where and how to display chivalry!
Personal and selfish interests did the PDP in the other time; we should be careful not to fall into the same pit again. Those on the National Caretaker Committee with presidential ambition should come out in the open and pursue it; and not hide behind one finger like the grasshopper or play the ostrich. That was the challenge Fayose threw with his presidential declaration. Come out! Declare your intention! Speak for the party! Build the party! Take the same risks that Fayose is taking! Be man enough! Don’t hide and wait for others to prepare the party for victory only for you to step out and reap where you have not sowed! It is preposterous to accuse Fayose of anti-party activities. He has not defected from the party. He has not said he would. He is not seeking the platform of another party to pursue his presidential ambition. Indeed, if he so declares today, there is an avalanche of political parties that will beg him with their presidential ticket! He has not foreclosed discussion and negotiation, which are the hallmarks of party politics. While declaring, he had said it was “without prejudice to our party’s position” If anything, he has only submitted himself to due processes and the will of party leaders and members and, as a responsible and respectable party leader, will abide by their decision taken in a free and fair contest or at the table of negotiation freely agreed upon.
Adelusi is Chief Press Secretary to the Ekiti State governor
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