Written by Wole Olaoye
The ink had barely dried on my article, “Jonathan as hostage”, last week when undiscerning newspapers published a scandalous piece of trash authored and sponsored by Ayodele Fayose, the stomach-infrastructural political technician who occupies the Government House in Ekiti State.
For a man whose HND polytechnic certificate has been mired in controversy for years, and whose first tenure as governor was rife with massive scandals, the ruling PDP dug really deep into their political cesspit to exhume Fayose and unleash him on the people a second time.
As I write this, Ekiti State is the only section of the federation where the House of Assembly is run by the minority; where judges have been physically assaulted; where violence is an official policy of state; where the governor is not ashamed to advertise his use of money to pervert the social order.
Fayose’s advertisement to the effect that Buhari was likely to die in office like Murtala Mohammed, Sani Abacha, Umaru Yar’Adua, was not just in bad taste but highly tendentious. Those who are philosophically minded would probably just dismiss the new low to which PDP and its leaders have sunken in their bid to stop General Buhari from emerging the next president. But the posters authored by Fayose and advertised in major newspapers were so base, so utterly lowlife, that even known supporters of Jonathan have distanced themselves from the embarrassment.
With the passing of each day, the PDP’s desperation is leading it to break every rule of decency, propriety and cultural taboo. How do you wish anyone dead - even if the struggle is over the presidency of the Federal Republic of Nigeria?
From the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. Fayose wishes Buhari dead. By extension, he was speaking the mind of the president’s party, the PDP. One of my teachers, whenever he was in an expansive mood, used to say, “Ornithological specimen of identical plumage invariably conglomerate to the nearest proximity”. In other words, birds of a feather flock together.
Contrary to the president’s pronouncements to the contrary, it appears that the main strategy his party has in the prosecution of the 2015 elections is cheap, vile, blackmail. Their style is no-holds-barred. No limits. Nothing is sacrosanct. Anything to neutralise the opposition. Now, Buhari actually looks as if he was the incumbent seeking a second term and Jonathan the opposition candidate. There is so much lack of grace in the Jonathan campaign that listening to them you wonder where they have been these past five years.
Each time they open their mouth, they widen the chasm between their candidate and the people. For instance, many Nigerians have been reacting to the divisive text messages being churned out by the PDP dirty tricks department by saying that if all Jonathan depends on to seek re-election is the fact that he’s a Christian; he’s a southern minority; he has a PhD (which has not been borne out by his below par performance); he is an in-law of Anambra people (as recently pleaded by his wife in Onitsha); he is the south’s revenge for the several years of mis-governance under some northern military leaders, as canvassed by some of his brothers from the creeks; etc … then he is in the wrong race.
Instead of telling Nigerians what he will do differently if returned for a second term, he is avoiding concrete issues and depending on blackmail by some Niger-Delta militants to wage war if he loses the election. No election in Nigeria has ever been won by blackmail or threats of violence. None ever will.
The 2015 election will be about whom among the 14 contestants is perceived as the most competent to lead Nigeria in these very challenging times. We need a president who knows that it is better to be a lion when necessary than to be a sheep all your life.
PDP’s incompetence even shows in their uncoordinated campaigns. In a bid to make a case for the postponement of the elections the party’s operatives have resorted to recruiting youths to throw stones at the president (as happened in Bauchi) with the hope that APC would be blamed for it and reprisal attacks on APC candidates would follow in the southern parts of the country. We have the word of a PDP governor, Isa Yuguda on it:
“I am sure, and let the world know, that the people who did this thing were PDP members and those politicians in Abuja were the ones behind it; they were not APC members. They found these youths on the road and gave them brooms and they instructed them that when the president was passing they should raise the brooms and pelt them at him.
“They did that so that the president would think that Isa Yuguda is against him. They have been telling him in Abuja that we are not supporting him… We were not aware of the plan ahead of the rally. They took us by surprise.
There you have it: PDP members hired thugs to stone their own presidential candidate with the hope that Buhari would be blamed for it. After failing in their bid to discredit Buhari’s academic qualification; after failing to impress Nigerians with their un-African derision of old age; after failing in their manipulation of security agencies to bring trumped-up charges against Buhari and his supporters, they are now stoning their own candidate! What manner of party is this? How many other crimes have they committed that we are not aware about?
Back to Fayose. Beware what you wish for others. Remember how somebody mocked Zik’s old age in 1983? How did the mocker end up?
Fayose’s poster reminds me of an old tortoise story. Tortoise was enjoying a sumptuous meal at a funeral party. There was plenty to drink. While others at the party were commiserating with the family of the deceased, Tortoise blurted out: “I pray that God should bless us with funerals like this every weekend so that there will be regular parties with plenty to eat and drink.”
Other guests were aghast, but it would not be for long. The following weekend actually recorded a death as prayed, but it was the Tortoise himself that died. His prayer had been answered in a way he could never have predicted.
Tell that story to Ayo Fayose and Femi Fani-Kayode both of whom operate from the putrid recesses of PDP’s political latrine.
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