Before the July 14, 2018 Ekiti Governorship election, many independent polls threw up the Peoples Democratic Party’s Kolapo Olusola Eleka, as the preferred candidate of the Ekiti people. The Point Newspaper’s online poll was also 65 per cent in favour of the PDP. But I refused to give in to the confidence of even some influential sons of Ekiti around me, that the professor candidate of the ruling party in the state would beat the All Progressives Congress’ Kayode Fayemi in a free and fair election.
Without being a politician, I have always been lucky to read, correctly, the direction of the invisible Nigerian political compass even when it favours an unexpected candidate. As an economist, I am confortable with applying the knowledge of differential calculus (a subfield of calculus concerned with the study of the rates at which quantities change) in analysing the interplay of potential influences, negative or otherwise, in the process of winning elections in Nigeria.
Any rational person, who might have queued behind him, not minding his shortcomings, for his strong opposition voice, especially in the face of the current government’s recurring political goofs, would, intuitively, rush out of the line, in reaction to the governor’s childish attitude of crying in public, and dragging the image of his powerful seat in the mud, in response to what many described as clear oppression by the Police and other forces
When I engaged a former Ekiti Deputy Governorship candidate under the PDP, whose name I would not want to disclose here, in a debate over the likely outcome of what has turned out to be about the most keenly contested governorship election in recent time, he enumerated key reasons Fayemi would not get to the Ekiti Government House. He pointed out the fact that the former Minister of Mines and Steel Development, who was also Governor Ayodele Fayose’s predecessor, was no longer popular with many of his perceived staunch friends and allies.
My highly cerebral doctor said Fayemi would neither take the telephone calls of these friends nor attend to any of their requests, whether selfish or sefless, and had, even, on some occasions, embarrassingly ignored their greetings at gatherings. This was when the controversial APC primary election was conducted in Ekiti. Just as we were talking, a former Manager at the United Bank for Africa Plc, also called, and I turned on the speaker, thinking that, being an APC supporter, he would differ a bit. But his words were more damning. He said, “Yemi, tell your friend, Fayemi, to leave us alone in Ekiti.” Yet, senior journalists from Ekiti also had their unpleasant tales to tell.
Would all the whining culminate in a loss for Fayemi? My answer was still no. And I based my conviction on a mathematical analysis of past keenly contested governorship elections, in relation to a situation where a ruling party wants to prove, at all costs, that it has the upper hand in the nation’s political affairs, and also credulously believes that losing an election would spell doom, especially in a state where the party is widely seen as unpopular, rightly or erroneously.
I mentioned differential calculus before. The essence of the calculus is the derivative (outcome), which is the instantaneous rate of change of a function (in this case, people’s choice) with respect to one of its variables.
A number of people may associate me with the Governor-elect because of his strong goodwill message on the backpage of my book, “The Making of an Oracle,” and, perhaps, because of a perceived good relationship with his intelligent wife, Erelu Bisi Fayemi. But my position on the outcome of the election, which was eventually won by the former governor, according to the Independent National Electoral Commission, was totally based on considerations relating to the former President Goodluck Jonathan administration’s widely reported “cut-them-off” strategy against the APC leaders, 48 hours to the 2014 Ekiti election, and the clear ability of the ruling party, at the centre, helped by other sitting APC governors, to change the ‘function’, positively, with respect to even more than one of the associated variables.
How? Fayemi himself managed to change, as much as he could, the narrative of being more ‘Oyibo’ than the white man, by moving closer to the grassroots; the APC strategically addressed the primary election confusion, which initially almost made the former minister an orphan in Ekiti State APC; while his media strategists succeeded in winning the majority of journalists and opinion shapers to their side (not necessarily through ‘brown envelope’).
For Fayose, who many people believed to be closer to the grassroots, his handling of the glaring and widely criticised intimidation by the Federal Government, which should have won sympathy votes for him, was, to be candid, disgusting. Any rational person, who might have queued behind him, not minding his shortcomings, for his strong opposition voice, especially in the face of the current government’s recurring political goofs, would, intuitively, rush out of the line, in reaction to the governor’s childish attitude of crying in public, and dragging the image of his powerful seat in the mud, in response to what many described as clear oppression by the Police and other forces.
The video of his candidate, Olusola Eleka, kneeling down before him as he prayed, with his hand placed on the former’s head, also put many people off. That painted the picture of a primary school pupil kneeling before his headmaster, and I was sure many stubborn Ekiti indigenes (forgive me) would want to resist the re-production of that “god-servant” picture in the Government House. This was aside from the fact that many disgruntled stakeholders teamed up with the opposition to take their pound of flesh against what they called the imposition of Olusola Eleka on the
party.
Though the outcome of the result has been contested, and not a few people, including independent observers, believe that it was manipulated in favour of APC, I would say, for the PDP in Ekiti State, the ‘function’ (people’s choice) reacted negatively to the unhelpful change in key variables as enumerated above.
BUHARI’S BAGGAGE
However, what President Muhammadu Buhari needs to drop, right now, is the heavy baggage of corruption surrounding an election involving a former member of his cabinet and prominent APC stakeholder. If Nigerian and international media reports could dwell so strongly on the reckless vote buying by the two major parties, even in the presence of almost everyone employed in the Nigeria Police Force, then the focus of the ruling party’s return propaganda – that corrupt Nigerians are the ones working against the President’s return – becomes very confusing.
Instead of pointing out tired politicians being courted by former President Olusegun Obasanjo, the National Chairman of the APC, Adams Oshiomhole, should strategise with his party on correcting the prevalent political and socio-economic vices in the nation, starting with a proper assessment of the allegations of vote buying in Ekiti State. Looking at the line-up of the core APC chieftains, right from the President, who is the leader of the party, to the former chairman, and Oshiomhole himself, it may be difficult to say which party parades the most tired
politicians!