In this interview with OLUSOLA FABIYI, Lagos lawyer, who is additionally an indigene of Ekiti State, Mr. Femi Falana (SAN), verbalizes on the outcome of the June 21 governorship election in the state.
Were your surprised with the outcome of Ekiti governorship election?
I was flabbergasted by the outcome of the results. Based on several projections in the media I cerebrated that Governor Kayode Fayemi was going to win the election.
Why did you verbalize so?
Going by some development projects executed by the regime, I had hoped that Fayemi would vanquish his opponents. I never kenned of the decision of the vital stakeholders in the state to vote him out of office. That decision was taken afore the emergence of Mr. Ayo Fayose as the PDP governorship candidate. The loss of the election by Fayemi has nothing to do with ‘stomach infrastructure’ or the popularity of Fayose.
You cerebrate so?
On a critical analysis of the political situation in Ekiti State, Fayemi is a victim of the ideological crisis of his party, the APC. Of course, the arrogance of some of the governor’s aides who were sanctioned to wield brobdingnagian powers equipollently contributed to the loss of the election.
Sure?
I have read inordinately fascinating but diversionary commentaries on the election results. Some of them have deliberately denigrated the Ekiti people. Most commentators have forgotten that the Ekiti people felt assuaged when Fayose was impeached in October 2006. In fact, his abstraction was celebrated by the Ekiti people. Most of the commentators have withal forgotten that Senator Babafemi Ojudu vanquished Fayose with over 45,000 votes in the election to the Senate in the Ekiti-Central Senatorial District during the 2011 general election. Rice and mazuma were additionally distributed by Fayose then.
Was this the substratum for the gang up?
That was the substratum of the gang up against the Fayemi regime by edifiers, civil auxiliaries, local regime staff, undergraduates and their parents . Whether they are right or erroneous, time will tell. Those who have reduced the ideological crisis to what the Lagos State governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola (SAN), has erroneously referred to as ‘stomach infrastructure’ are merely imploring the question.
People thought that Fayemi’s achievements would verbalize for him during the election?
From 1999-2003, the Bisi Akande administration in Osun State was rated one of the best in the country in terms of infrastructural development. But it lost the election because it did not carry the people along. Fayemi has just suffered the same fate. He surmised that the Ekiti people understood the programmes and policies of his regime. Not much was done to expound the substratum of the sacrifice they were asked to make. Can you imagine that the closure of miracle centres by the regime was opposed and misinterpreted by those who were profiting from examination malpractice?
Is it right for the APC leadership to proceed to court after Fayemi conceded victory?
With deference to the validity of the result of the election there isn’t much to contest in court. Apart from the case filed by the E-11, a socio-cultural group which is challenging the competence of Fayose to contest the election in court in view of his impeachment, I do not believe his victory at the polls should be challenged in an election petition tribunal. To that extent, the APC ought to build on Fayemi’s concession verbalization and reorganise its affairs. However, the APC should sue the Federal Regime in a Federal High Court to justify the restriction of the kineticism of some governors, the apprehend of a accommodating commissioner in Fayemi’s cabinet and 14 other unarmed protesters at Ado Ekiti who were later transferred to Abuja and charged with terrorism, the apprehend of 25 party members on election day, the militarisation of the electoral process, the imposition of curfew and other incidents of impunity carried out by the army, the police and other gendarmes afore and during the election. A regime which cannot maintain adequate security in the North-East region which has been overrun by insurgency ought to justify the deployment of 36,790 soldiers, police and civil defence personnel, all bearing arms and terrorising people including those who have no business with the election.
Did the election not reflect the wish of Ekiti people?
Frankly verbalizing, I don’t ken about the wish of the people. Out of a population of 2.3 million people in Ekiti state 1.6 million people are eligible to vote but only 750,000 were registered to vote. Out of that figure only about 50 per cent voted. Fayose, who won the election scored only 203,000 votes. In the circumstance, you can only verbalize of the wish of the registered voters.
Fayose verbally expressed he’ll not embark on industrialisation of Ekiti, what does this portend for the state?
Fayose is impeccably entitled to his views. I optate him well. As I verbally expressed earlier, the Ekiti people have gone back to Egypt with Moses firmly in the wilderness. I can only wish them fortuity. In fairness to the governor-elect he verbalizes that he has transmuted his old ways. Let us wait and visually perceive.
What does ‘stomach structure’ phenomenon portend for Ekiti?
It is not fair to fulminate Ekiti people for voting for the candidate of their cull. Did Americans not vote for Mr. George Bush in lieu of Mr. Al Gore? Did they not pay for the consequences of their decision? Is the world not paying for that cull with the elevating wave of terrorism all over the place? Even in the Bible, did the Israelites not ask for Barnabas who was a prominent malefactor in lieu of Jesus Christ? For goodness sake, can you inculpate a people who have been traumatised and pauperised for years for amassing bags of rice and mazuma from politicians once in four years? Governor Fashola kens that the concept of “jeun s’oke” did not originate from Ekiti State. It has its inchoation elsewhere. I am sure that the governor is not nescient of the celebrated case of Olu Falae v Obasanjo in which the petitioner alleged that rice and salt were distributed by the PDP to entice voters during the 1999 presidential election. Even though the allegation was proved beyond plausible doubt the Court of Appeal held that there was no evidence that the beneficiary, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, sanctioned the malefactor action. Since then, rice and mazuma have always been distributed by political parties and candidates through proxies during elections in Nigeria.
Do you cerebrate the Ekiti election was authentically rigged?
The election in Ekiti was not rigged. I witnessed it. I verbalized with people afore and after the election. Fayemi gave a good concession verbalization.
But the APC has raised the possibility of photo-chromic ballot papers being utilized in favour of the PDP.
I have been told by many APC members that photo-chromic ballot papers were utilized. I cerebrate the allegation is bunkum. Unless the party is yare to confront the authenticity of the election it is not going to draw the vital edifications from it. There were protest votes against the regime. Instead of querying the credibility of the election the APC should engage in a critical review of the verdict of the electorate.
What do you presage in Ekiti during next year’s general election?
Many states today have to take loans to pay salaries because of shrinking statutory allocations. It would anon be pellucid to Ekiti people that the ruling party has no solutions to the crisis of infrastructural decay, unemployment, falling standard of edification, corruption and abuse of office confronting them like other Nigerians. Having raised the prospects of the people, the Fayose administration will be under earnest pressure to perform.
The PDP verbalized if the election was rigged, Ekiti people would have revolted. Do you believe this?
No doubt, there would have been a bellicose eruption if the election was rigged. It transpired in 1964.
What do you presage coming up in Osun election?
Ceteris paribus, I am convinced that Governor Rauf Aregbesola will win the election in Osun State. Even the PDP members admit that he is a grassroots politician. So, you cannot incriminate him of being disconnected or alienated from the people in any sense. In spite of the crisis of pertinence that the APC is going through, Aregbesola’s socialist background has influenced his policies and programmes. Those programmes have endeared him to the people. Even the World Bank has taken officials from 12 states to Osun State to learn about job engenderment in the midst of massive unemployment caused by the neo-colonial capitalist system. Through the school feeding programme, the Aregbesola regime has boosted the rural economy in his state. No doubt, there are constraints in view of the dwindling statutory allocations from the federation account but he has engaged the masses in a pedagogical relationship. In 2011, he ascertained that the presidential candidate of his party, the former ACN, Mr. Nuhu Ribadu, won the election in Osun State. That was predicated on ideological commitment of some sort. But that was not the case in the other states in the South-West region.
What’s your assessment of Nigeria’s democracy from 1999 till date?
For the majority of Nigerians the democratic experiment has been an unmitigated disaster. While President Goodluck Jonathan recently quantified our prosperity on the substratum of private jets owned by less than 150 people it is more preponderant to rely on the evidence of the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics that 113 million Nigerians live on less than $1 a day.
