Adewale Adeoye
Like an epic battle between a lion and a tiger, Nigerians are anxious for the 2018 elections in Ekiti, a small but significant ancestral state. Since 2003, Ekiti has seen a star actor on the national stage. Sitting like an incubus is Ayo Fayose, 49. His opponent know this: elections with Fayose is like the fight between a professional boxer who adheres to conventions and a notorious chief thug of the ghetto whose rules are drawn from the barbaric, riotous instinct of a swamp dwelling brute.
The 2018 battle has started. An array of arrows is fashioned against him, he insists his shield is awesome. Daily, Fayose continues to develop fresh wits to counter the flood of attacks. He has turned the state TV and radio into maverick propaganda tools, boasting that he will humiliate his opponents in the next rumble in the jungle. What are the sources of his strength? Let us admit, he has strategies and tactics ignored at the peril of his adversaries. He came to power in a swooping whirlwind in 2003. His stay was marked by deadening controversies leading to his impeachment and exit in 2006. His reemergence in 2014 as the governor in a disputed poll where he “won” all the 16 Local governments remains the most shocking in the state’s electoral history. If his first coming was like the swoop of a falcon, his second coming was like the swift precision of the hawk. I have had opportunity of “spying” at one of his pre-election rallies. Fayose is an orator, captivating and a maestro of red district vocabulary. When he launches tirade of attacks with his cynical remarks, he would then convert his rhetoric into captivating songs to the rapturous trance of his faithful. His policies are shrewd, designed to court personal favour. In a poor state, this draws fanatical loyalists. His development projects target one thing: sustaining the euphoria of the public. He understands the facts and figures of elections; he invests only where his political gains are immense. He plays on the sociology of immediate needs, the desperate passion and poor judgment of the uneducated among the voters.