Governor Ayodele Fayose please be gentle and civil

Editor’s note: Ekiti state governor, Ayodele Fayose is always in the news due to his constant criticsm of the administration of President Buhari. On several occassio he has been warned concerning his outburts. Fayose has however said he would not be intimidated into silence on account of his strong stand on national issues.

In this article by Balogun, the author consider’s Fayose’s rise to become the executive governor of Ekiti state and his constant criticism of the Buhari-led adminsitration. With the most recent been his letter to the Chinese government not to grant President Buhari’s loan as baseless. 

Governor Fayose’s letter to the Chinese government

I have just read your letter to the Chinese government not to grant President Muhammadu Buhari’s government the loan he is seeking. My distinguished ore, I consider that your letter as needless, directionless, unnecessary, and portrays you as a man who does not tolerate opposing views.  Early last year, during the campaigns, you made all manner of accusations against President Buhari. One of such was that President Buhari had no school certificate. I also remember you claimed that Buhari was terminally ill, among others. For me, I thought those were in the realm of political campaign and that when campaigns were over, common sense, not complex sense, would take over.

READ ALSO: How Gov Fayose became the April fool of the century

As I write this letter, I am genuinely pained and disturbed. I am extremely pained because joining issues with somebody I have always proudly seen and called as ore adugbo between 1982 and 1986, when Ayo, your humble self, your sisters, your worthy parents (anointed man and woman of God) and my small self, lived on the same street on Orita Challenge, Odo-ona Elewa, by Babalola Estate. I still remember, with nostalgia, your days at Ibadan Polytechnic, your danfo driving experience and eventually your travel out of the country in 1986, which you, yourself, Ayo, told me as I veered to enter our street on Odo-Ona-Elewa in my Peugeot 504, 2000 series brand. When you returned in 1990 or 1991 and began your Spotless auto shop along Ring Road before Iyana New Adeoyo Hospital, l prayed for your success and growth.

Fayose as governor in 2003

I relocated to Abujin  in 1999. I watched your inauguration as Governor of Ekiti State in 2003 live on television. With me that day, was a son of Ilewe Ekiti, an Assistant Director in the Federal Civil Service. People of my generation will still remember what transpired during the NPN/UPN crisis in the old Ondo State, which included the present Ekiti State in 1982. National Party of Nigeria (NPN) rigged out our Papa Michael Ajasin of the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), while Chief Omoboriowo was his Deputy Governor on the UPN platform. There was a reign of terror.

There was political upheaval. Many lives were lost and properties destroyed. That same Chief Omoboriowo, a three-month-old governor, was at the stadium where you, Ayo, as an omode, when that sad episode happened in 1983, was being sworn-in as an executive governor without a drop of blood, no live lost, no property destroyed. When that incident happened in 1983, cast your mind, in retrospect, where were you then? God has a way of bringing people out for glory and you are one of such privileged few. In 2004, I wrote a personal letter to you, my ore adugbo, which I asked an aburo from Ilewe-Ekiti to take to Ado-Ekiti and deliver to you. Did you get the letter?

READ ALSO: Fayose is the lone warrior Nigeria must protect

You cannot remember. The letter, essentially, was to congratulate and rejoice with you on your first anniversary into the exalted position of an executive governor of a state. Your fame had grown. You were very close to President Olusegun Obasanjo. I prayed that you acquit yourself well and that you are now, indeed, a role model (as at that time) to children from the down-trodden rung. People of older generation had assumed that only children from old Bodija, New Bodija, Bashorun area and, indeed, Idi-Ishin, can only ascend such Olympian position. But you demystified that position. You created a new meaning and conveyed an unspoken message that children from Bere, Yemetu, Iyana Church, Academy, Molete and such other places can, indeed, become the executive governor of a state.

God, in his own wisdom, had brought you out of Odo-Ona-Elewe, a son of an unassuming, gentle and easy-going man of God, of blessed memory, to that executive position, previously reserved for children of the big and mighty in the society. In that letter in 2004, I encouraged you to make a success of your tenure and of course, I believed you will make a success of it because I was reliably informed your wife is a Spirit-filled woman, who never took your matter lightly spiritually.

Fayose’s impeachment

I must confess, ore, the day you were impeached was one of my saddest days. I felt genuinely bad and betrayed. Why did these bad-belle Ekiti State House of Assembly members impeach this man? Question, question all the way but nobody could come up with an answer. Your attempt at the Senate was a relieve for me but it never worked out well. But unknown to man, God has a plan for you. You would return to Government House in Ado-Ekiti, though Dr Kayode Fayemi was not doing badly. A fine gentleman, with urbane approach and disposition to life and governance. Like joke, like play, ore, you returned to Government House.

Since you returned it has been one form of attack on Mr. President or the other. Like a disciplined military officer that he is, he had never, for one brief second, replied all your unnecessary attacks on his person and office. I often asked myself, would you, Mr. Governor, tolerate any local government chairman in your state who becomes so frontally unfriendly and disrespectful to you and your exalted office, would you tolerate such a LG chairman?

READ ALSO: Fayose is the lone warrior Nigeria must protect

All your previous attacks on President Buhari and his government were within the confines of the country but this letter to a foreign country, discrediting your country’s government with false information, I honestly think it is a huge joke carried too far Mr. Governor. Despite your constant attack on his person and administration, PMB has treated your state and matters relating to Ekiti with dispatch.

Finally ore, please be gentle and civil. You have not been particularly fair to Mr. President. You do not necessarily need to believe in his administration and policies but as a person, as an elder, he certainly deserves your respect. Just like you deserve my encouragement and support so that you carry the hardworking and industrious people of Ekiti to a safe haven.

This opinion first appeared in Nigerian Tribune

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