By Cudjoe Kpor
October 16, 2014 was precisely eight years to the date Ekiti State Governor Ayodele Peter Fayose was impeached to end his first tenure in office. It was also the day he was sworn into office again at the 60,000 capacity-filled Oluyemi Kayode Stadium in Ado-Ekiti, the capital, amid deafening cheers from supporters and pageantry.
In retrospect, 16 months later, it all looks like his victory was a huge fraud.
At the swearing-in, Fayose even took time to blast his predecessor, Dr. Kayode Fayemi for plunging the state into N57.45 billion heavy debt dungeon because of wasteful and unproductive spending. Thousands of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governor’s supporters cheered him on. He concluded his address with a jeer at his predecessor, telling him the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) has died and was buried in the state.
The results Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) churned out after the June 21, 2014 vote in Ekiti State confirmed his assertion. They were more stunning than awe-inspiring. And the consistency of the PDP moonslide victories made Fayose more credible still. Certainly, the “illiterate Governor” Fayose beat the incumbent doctorate holder Fayemi like a primary school pupil who entered a reading contest against a university graduate – and won.
Fayose scored 203,090 votes or 68.63 per cent higher to beat Fayemi who scored 120,433, INEC declared a day after the ballot.
After casting his ballot, Fayemi, now Minister of Solid Minerals, had denounced then Minister of State for Defence, Musiliu Obanikoro, called the Inspector General of Police and Chief of Army Staff to complain about the activities of the military officers deployed for election duties. He could not reach the President or his chief of staff. He said he was compelled to reach the others over the violation of the election rules by Obanikoro.
In his words, “I haven’t been able to get Mr President or his Chief of Staff. I had cause this morning to speak to the Inspector-General of Police, not once, not twice, particularly about this minister of state who was violating the election procedure. I have also had cause to speak to the Chief of Army Staff about some untoward activities by his men on ground here,” he said. Unknown to him, he got his information accurately about the underhand activities of the joint PDP-military-security conspirators in cahoot with the Presidency.
Everybody was shocked beyond belief by Fayose’s victory. How did the illiterate governor achieve the feat? In his after-voting comment, Fayose had berated the use of money by his opponents to buy votes: “I have been in my house and I have left everything to God. Whichever way it goes, I have taken it as every good gift comes from God Almighty.”
And it appears Almighty God helped him abundantly. He won convincingly. Predictably, APC screamed blue murder: To the election petition tribunal they went, threatening fire and brimstone. All the way to Supreme Court, the illiterate governor floored the cerebral doctorate everywhere.
The subsequent state and Federal elections confirmed the dominance of Fayose and the PDP. In the presidential election in March, the following year, PDP beat APC by 176,466 to 120,331 in the state. In the State Assembly election on April 13, 2015, PDP won all the 25 out of the 26 seats.
The question remained moot: What really happened? How did he score such a stunning victory? Nobody had a plausible answer. If nobody has a plausible explanation, as the legalese says, beyond reasonable doubt, then the illiterate has won because he is a grassroots mobiliser, as his supporters laud him, while Fayemi is elitist, not on ground, as his critics blast him.
All went quiet.
Till January 31, 2016. Then came the whistleblower, Dr Tope Aluko, former secretary to Ekiti PDP. He was once Fayose’s right hand man. The fact that he had previously testified at the election petition tribunal that the election was not rigged makes it necessary for his exposes to be taken with a pinch of salt on his u-turn. But only God or a fool never changes his mind. Now that Aluko is blowing the whistle loudly because Fayose betrayed him, let’s check out his facts. Fortunately, he blew the loud whistle with the most damaging exposes: How Jonathan gave them $37 million and they changed it into N4.7 billion after deducting $2m.
On Election Day, they formed strike forces comprising military, police, DSS, NSCDC and mobile police, among others. Then Chief Chris Uba came with another platoon of troops from the East to bolster the strike force. They rounded up all influential APC chieftains in the 16 LGAs, detained them in primary school classrooms till voting ended; they used the corrupted strike teams to block entry into Ado-Ekiti for outside APC leaders, including the radical APC governors, or maybe especially because of them. They would make trouble if any of them smell a rat, like Adams Oshiomhole and Chibuike Amaechi; they recruited their men and planted them as the opposition APC party agents to ratify all the (fake) results from all polling units. (It is unclear how they got the INEC adhoc staff Youth corpers to also go along.) Then foreign and local election monitors came to observe “how peaceful, free and fair” the elections were; with their ratification of the process by both local and foreign monitors such as European Union, Fayose won squarely.
Fairly or fraudulently, we cannot ascertain yet. If Aluko is right, then Yoruba magomago at its extreme has gone into disgracing the country’s electoral process before the foreign election monitors who had represented the international community, again, as first class magomago rigging.
The expose was so explosive, I expected an avalanche of denials, protests and even direct insults which label Aluko as a madman. Politicians relish crucifying their opponents when they are hit below the belt. Only Fayose’s Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media Lere Olayinka was sent to Channels TV as one-man-riot squad to demolish Aluko with hearsay briefing. And he tried to make us believe that Aluko was an unstable character.
But there was no one else. The governor said pithily that Aluko was a bitter man because he was not made chief of staff. None from the PDP hierarchy in the state and, worst of all, nothing by the State House of Assembly who, as the so-called representatives of the electorate, should have expressed the righteous anger at the sort of fraudulent governor they served under.
Instead it was stunned silence. Obviously, Dr Aluko was telling a very unpleasant truth. Then add Nigerian Army investigators who poured encomiums on Captain Sagir Koli on January 11 this year. The Intelligence Corps officer’s video released to the media on February 6, 2014, first blew the whistle at the planning stage of the entire rigging by the top PDP officials.
Governor Fayose declared himself the Numero Uno in the video: “I am Jonathan for this election.”
In other words, by COAS’s endorsement, Fayose was the commander-in-chief representing Jonathan. The others did not object.
The others were:
* Osun State Senator Iyiola Omisore
* Brig General Aliyu Momoh
* Senator Musiliu Obanikoro – Ex-minister of state for Defence
* Captain Sagir Koli (the whistle-blower)
* Honourable AbdulKareem – Member, House of Reps
* Jelili Adesiyan – Minister of Police Affairs
Even after Koli blew the whistle in February and went underground, the plotters still went ahead to finish their rigging in June. No wonder the Army panel gave Koli commendation for “non-partisanship and professional conduct during the election period.” Two generals were believed to have been sacked for their role in the Ekiti scandal.
So, now we know or suspect we know. We have the information. But we are far from proof. Ordinarily, we expect DSS to tell us within a day or two what their investigations found, if anything. That is, if they are capable of investigating a fraudulent scandal in which their operatives also participated fully for a share of, again, Jonathan’s $37 million (N4.7 billion) loot.
So, what is to be done? INEC cannot withdraw Fayose’s Certificate of return without court order. So the investigation must begin. Ideally, INEC must summon back all the fake “APC polling agents” on duty on election day in 2014. The gutless ones would not show up; or the plotters would need to recruit fake new ones who cannot put the same signatures on the result sheets. Or if the polling unit Youth corpers do not recognise any new one, then the real story begins. Or of course APC’s election monitors may not know or vouch for any of the PDP recruits.
Otherwise, APC must start its own investigations. Since Aluko said all their influential chieftains in the local governments were detained in Primary school classrooms, that is a fact which can be verified by phone. If 8 of the 16 concurred, the story again reboots. They might not have talked about it because independently, none knew the others suffered the same fate. Then Aluko’s credibility takes the first notch up to warrant full investigation. Aluko must now have the opportunity to give details, in fact, turn state prosecution witness to spill all accurately: Names, dates, meeting venues and if possible, even agenda.
If SSS can investigate, fine. If not, since a betrayal of the Brigade Commander led to his removal, Military Intelligence must also be invited in case DSS decides to cover up in order to save their crooks who participated in the electoral fraud.
Ideally, with investigations completed, the normal step is for the state assembly to issue impeachment notice to Fayose for his disgraceful electoral fraud. But someone only hissed derisively that Fayose rigged all of them into the assembly except one as rubberstamps.
The Constitution does not immune Fayose against criminal conduct in office. So he can and must be investigated. If Aluko’s expose is true, then of course the Attorney-General must persuade the party leaders to advise the illiterate to quit. But he would not quit in order to face prosecution once the Section 608 immunity is gone.
By then, let him bribe as many journalists on his payroll. It would not change anything. This whole scandal stinks to high heavens. Crude rigging of elections by various other malpractices is bad enough. But this wily, cunning, untrustworthy, magomago lying by three conspirators who roped the President into the crude “sting” deception must not go unpunished. That is, if it is true and can be authenticated. Especially now that Dr Aluko has been arrested for court-ordered perjury.