By Emeka Alex Duru
Three days to the Saturday, July 14, 2018 Ekiti governorship poll, it is apparent that the battle line for the exercise has been effectively drawn.
By last Tuesday, for instance, the All Progressives Congress (APC), the major rival to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state, had held a mega rally for its candidate, Kayode Fayemi. The exercise, saw President Muhammadu Buhari, governors on the party’s platform and key members of its leadership in attendance.
While the APC held its rally at Oluyemi Kayode Stadium, in Ado-Ekiti, the governor, Ayodele Fayose and his Deputy, who is the PDP candidate, Professor Kolapo Olusola, held sessions with transport operators in the state, in an exercise that affected vehicular movement in the capital city.
The two events taking place the same time in the same city, was seen by analysts as dress rehearsal for the Saturday titanic encounter.
The election, itself, is seen beyond a mere exercise of the Ekiti electorate choosing who will pilot the affairs of the state in the next four years. It rather means a lot to the various interests and tendencies in the state and beyond.
For Fayemi, immediate past Minister for Solid Minerals, who had once governed the state and lost in his re-election bid to Fayose, on June 21, 2014, going to the poll on Saturday for the same position, is akin to a return to a familiar path.
Same goes for Fayose, to some extent. Though the governor is not going for the election, he is seen as the face of Olusola in the encounter.
The election, thus, presents grounds for the unfinished battle between the two.
Some even see in it, a proxy war for APC and PDP over 2019 general elections. This is especially against the backdrop of the recent split in APC by an aggrieved segment of its membership on the platform of the Reformed All Progressives Congress (R-APC). The group, on Monday, July 9, signed a memorandum of understanding with PDP and 37 other political organisations under the Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP), to battle the APC next year.
Though the APC has dismissed the Coalition as a gathering of desperate politicians that lack electoral value, it needs to prove that it still has the clout and crowd to ward off the challenge. The Ekiti poll, therefore, provides ground for the test. The stakes, are thus high, over the encounter.
Fayemi, APC go for kill
For APC, winning the election, means a lot. Ekiti, presently is the only state in the South West that is not under its column.
Until recently when Ekiti and Ondo were outside the party’s sphere of influence, they were considered as huge obstacles to the region’s integration agenda.
But following the APC victory at the Ondo governorship election in November 2016, the party had not ceased at romanticizing over similar feat in Ekiti.
It is also in dire need of winning the poll, to shore up the dwindling perception profile of the President Buhari, particularly among his supporters in the South.
And for Fayemi, victory on July 14, is the only way he can convince observers that his allegation of being rigged out in the June 21, 2014 election, is not merely crying over spilt milk.
When the results of the exercise were then released, Fayemi, who was the governor, was initially quoted to have declared that if the outcome was a true reflection of the wishes of the Ekiti electorate, he would abide by it.
But following subsequent developments, he changed his opinion on the poll and contested the result. Though he lost at the various stages of the legal contest, he has maintained that the election was compromised in favour of Fayose.
He therefore has the forthcoming election to prove that even as he has operated from Abuja as minister since leaving Ekiti Government House, he still commands influence in the State.
To his credit, he has statistics of his job profile in his first coming and even as a minister to flaunt as the campaigns hot up.
Of course, riding on the so-called federal might – a euphemism for intimidating the opposition, Fayemi, aside his personal attributes and contacts, looks good at staging a come-back. This is especially as the Deputy Governor, with whom he is going to slug it out, cannot really be said to have had direct field encounter on election matters.
Olusola, Fayose, unyielding
But having the solid support of Fayose, places Olusola on good stead for the race. Largely seen as a stormy petrel of the state’s politics, Fayose has a hold on the Ekiti voters that many consider unprecedented.
Though he is not going to be on the ballot this time around, his support for specific candidates in various elections in the state in the past, had in most cases, translated to electoral victory for them.
Fayemi was even a beneficiary of the Fayose mystique at a time. Then, while Fayose’s first term was truncated mid-way by former President Olusegun Obasanjo, it took his exit from PDP and support for Fayemi, for PDP candidate, Segun Oni to lose the governorship election in the state.
At the 2015 National and State Assembly elections in Ekiti, he gave APC a sound beating, delivering two Senate seats and majority of the House of Representatives slots from the state to his party. At the state Assembly, it was a clean sweep for him and PDP.
His admirers expect him to perform the same feat for his deputy, with whom, incidentally, he has had good working relations, as against the trend in most of the states.
Even his ability to cajole or convince commercial transport operators who are not in the employ of the government to withdraw their vehicles and motorcycles from the road on Tuesday, is seen by realistic analysts as a major index of his influence on politics in the state.
But the challenge for PDP, this time, is that Fayose is not the candidate. There is therefore, a limit to which he can ask his supporters to support Olusola.
Besides, the euphoria that had trailed his election, four years ago, has gone down, considerably, on account of many developments.
His regular brushes with the operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), over allegations of poor management of the state’s finances, have, without doubts, impacted much on his previous standing even among his die-hard supporters.
There is also a campaign that his insistence on being succeeded by his deputy, is in his desperate search for someone that would shield him from being properly investigated.
This is aside the insinuation of the governor trying to hoist a political dynasty in the state.
These are issues, informed analysts, say, may work against Olusola in the election. But perhaps, what may haunt him most, is the sharp division that has crept into PDP in the state over his emergence as the flag bearer.
Before the primary, Fayose had advertised Olusola as the person that would succeed him – a declaration, TheNiche learnt, did not go down well with his party men and even supporters.
Biodun Adebiyi, an Ekiti indigene, had then, told our reporter that by that singular move, the governor gave impression of not properly understanding his people.
“He seems to have been carried away by sycophants around him. He should have known that an average Ekiti man or woman, is not somebody he can pull by the nose. By announcing to us, even before election that his deputy will succeed him, he has simply told us that our votes will not count. We are therefore, waiting for him and his magic”, he fumed.
This notwithstanding, Olusola, still has a good chance in the race,TheNiche was told. Aside his sound pedigree in academics and the loyalty he has extended to the governor, he counts on the incumbency factor that his party enjoys in Ekiti in going into the encounter.
The perceived elitist carriage of Fayemi and the overt desperation by the APC to carry the day, are also seen as factors the average rural Ekiti voters may take into serious consideration in settling for the PDP.