Ekiti 2018: Revisiting the ‘Fayemi Question’

“Most people think they know the answer. I am willing to admit, I don’t even know what the question is.” — Arsenio Hall, an American comedian, actor, and talk show host.

Perhaps the best way to interrogate if a question—-or a set of questions—-with the propensity to coalesce into a larger question for an individual and/or his persona may be to first understand the definitional underpinning of the word. While not a few dictionaries have variegated, yet overlapping similarities in definitional terms to describe the word, the ones by Merriam Webster and Wikipedia suits this writer’s fancy the most. For the former, a “question” is, among others, described as “an interrogative expression often used to test knowledge.” It is also described as a “subject or aspect in dispute or open for discussion.” The latter, on the other hand, sees the word as a “linguistic expression used to make a request for information, or the request made using such an expression” whereby the “information requested is provided in the form of an answer.” The question, if it eventually fails to give birth to an answer, can metamorphose into further and larger questions in which the journey of the original “question” inadvertently becomes circuitous.

For a public figure who barged into the political landscape almost ‘unannounced’ and ‘uninvited’ and have made, and continues to make profound impacts on the polity in his political assignments, interrogating the ‘Fayemi Question’ every now and then as dictated by the prevailing circumstances that seems to accentuate his political trajectory with the hope of finding the answer that best describes him is a worthwhile exercise for those who may be worried about the verdict of history. So, it’s understandable if the locus of the ‘Fayemi Question’ finds a better expression in the comity of the political class (to which he belong), most specifically that of his state branch. This should be expected not only in view of the contest for political power that is inherent in the class, but the age-long hierarchical predisposition and principle to attaining power and prominence by which members are to strictly adhere that Fayemi may have been deemed to have violated with his emergence at the top of his state’s political ticket within a short spate of time. It may, therefore, be perfectly in order if members of this group are conflicted to the extent that certain questions are woven around him for whatever reason such as: Who is he? Who does he think he is? How old is he? What does he really want? Why is he very aggressive in his political ambition? What’s the best way to checkmate him? And so on.

Perhaps it was an attempt to find his own answer to the ‘Fayemi Question’ when, in the course of the Ekiti APC primary, one of the aspirants wondered (probably with pun intended) where Fayemi was in 1999 when he was already a senator of the republic.

Also, in an attempt to interrogate the Fayemi phenomenon the first time, one had observed that “there’s no one that has affected the politics of Ekiti state in profound ways (in a relatively short period of time) with the intensity and curiosity he generates since the state’s creation than Dr. Kayode Fayemi. And it is for this reason that, at intervals, one must interrogate what may have been responsible for a public personality with no history of political brigandage behind him [and who is also] not known for having any earth-shaking oratory prowess to have become an issue that has now transmuted into the ‘Fayemi Question.’ It is even imperative to revisit the ‘Fayemi Question’ in view of the Ekiti APC primary which was held twice, the first having been cancelled due to a disruption by some thuggish elements probably acting on behalf of some aspirants who, to their chagrin, saw their collective defeat by a man whom some of them had not only ganged up against, but who barged into the campaign less than a month into the primary victoriously coasting to the finish line.

If the ‘Fayemi Question’ (whatever it may eventually turn out to be) can be understood within the context of contestation for political power among the political class, perhaps, what befuddles is the same premium, if not more, given to the Fayemi phenomenon amongst his state’s intelligentsia (his first constituent) in—-should one say—-their unwillingness to understand the values and developmental blueprint with which the man happened on the state’s political landscape. Considering this group’s inability and/or unwillingness to come to his defence in the aftermath of the 2014 governorship election regardless of his refusal to dispute the election result even after the revelations of the most egregious and criminal rigging that ushered in the same man who, in his first coming, took no prisoners, desecrated the values and virtues for which the state was known, and made desolate the entire state is something one may never be able to live down for a long time.

If Fayemi had embarked on such an unprecedented shift in the state’s developmental paradigm in the mould of a “president Nigeria never had.” If he had demonstrated that he has the basic ingredients of a transformational leadership that Ekiti truly needs in his first outing in strategic visioning, selfless patriotism, sacrificial service, strategic leadership succession planning and gender inclusiveness (which may have been influenced by none other than his wife Erelu Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi, a professional heavyweight in Gender Equality) in leadership style to generate the groundswell of energies required for societal transformation, and all the intellectual community (which naturally should be endeared to these leadership qualities and to someone who has left no one in doubt of his eminence in these parameters) could give was a shrug after that election fiasco, one cannot but wonder if there was a better a developmental model they thought Fayemi should have implemented but did not. This is what makes the ‘Fayemi Question’ a lot more interesting.

Judging from the glaring aloofness in the aftermath of that election by the intelligentsia in particular and society at large, one wonders if Fayemi was being ‘punished’ for the pursuit of knowledge and scholarship—-which he relentlessly pressed into service in his first term—-by a group that should have done everything humanly possible to discredit that election on moral and constitutional grounds and call for its cancellation even if Fayemi had preferred not to challenge the electoral heist. This would have been the greatest paradox in a society that prides itself as the “Fountain of Knowledge” if this aspect of the ‘Fayemi Question’ were to be true.

It is no gainsaying that today’s Ekiti State under Governor Ayo Fayose best exemplifies the remarks of American President John Fitzgerald Kennedy (JFK) in Nashville, Tennessee at the 90th Anniversary Convocation of Vanderbilt University on May 18, 1963. He said that “If the pursuit of learning is not defended by the educated citizen, it will not be defended at all. For there will always be those who scoff at intellectual [and] seek to limit our educational system. They see no harm in paying those to whom they entrust the minds of their children a smaller wage than is paid to those to whom they entrust the care of their plumbing. But the educated citizen knows how much more there is to know. He knows that knowledge is power—-more so today than ever before. He knows that only an educated and informed people will be a free people; that the ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all….And, therefore, the educated citizen has a special obligation to encourage the pursuit of learning, to promote exploration of the unknown, to preserve the freedom of inquiry, to support the advancement of research, and to assist at every level of government the improvement of education for all Americans from grade school to graduate school. The educated citizen has an obligation to serve the public…He may be a civil servant or a senator, a candidate or a campaign worker, a winner or a loser. But he must be a participant and not a spectator.” In today’s Ekiti, Fayose scoffs at the intelligentsia to the extent that they’re confused about their role in society. He has largely succeeded in turning the people against their bright minds with his modus operandi. Fayose has been able to forge a new age of anti-intellectualism in the 21st century where ignorance is the new social order. He has turned the intelligentsia into spectators and has excluded them from the socio-economic and political conditions that affect their existence with his deliberate policy of subjugating society’s economic growth. Fayose sees no harm in paying those to whom society entrusts the minds of its children a smaller wage than he paid to those whom he entrusts the care of his legion of personal vehicles. This is the crux of his continuity agenda.

Since history has its own way of repeating itself, it remains to be seen to what extent would be the involvement of the intelligentsia in reversing the desolation to which Fayose has subjected the state now that Fayemi is once again in the contest. Although he’s not running, Fayose is desperate to plant his deputy in the Governor’s Office for his negative continuity that can only guarantee poverty and subservience for the people into the foreseeable future. One hopes that the puerile argument would not be made that Fayose’s protégé would be better than his boss because he’s a professor who would be his own man once he is in the saddle. Fayose will never grant him—-let alone anyone close to the power he can control—-the luxury to be his own man. Ekiti state is already in a socio-economic precipice. There’s simply no better alternative for the intelligentsia who must carry the burden of society’s socio-economic and political progression on their shoulders than to look in the direction of Fayemi to salvage the state not because he will be infallible, but because of their greater love for the state. Anything short of this would be highly uncivilized.

Femi Odere is a media practitioner. He can be reached at femiodere@gmail.com