Dear Minister Fayemi,
I feel inclined to write you this letter hoping it will get to you and not prevented by any PA. I
must first of all thank you again for the opportunity you gave me to serve Ekiti under you. I
have always held you in high esteem and respect, as a result I feel I owe you this mail for a
deep soul searching thoughts.
My question is, what informed your decision to want to run for gubernatorial election?
What has changed in Ekiti from the time you lost election and now? Let us face facts and
forget about the alleged underhand practices in that election. Election can only be rigged
where the candidate is popular. What has changed since then?
Not much!!! The people are still the same, the hatred they developed and habour against
you are still the same. In fact MORBID HATRED. Whoever are the people telling you that Ekiti
people have forgiven you (for sins you didn’t commit in the first place) must be telling you
lies.
What have you got to prove to the people again as governor? Nothing really. You have come
and done your best, which in my own opinion was outstanding, but not good enough for
Ekiti. Why? Because you tried to make them work, block the leakages, provide welfare, and
create jobs, make civil servants and LG worker responsible and accountable, tried to
eradicate ghost workers through implementation of biometrics, tried to bring them to the
digital age etc.
If any Local Government or town was going to vote against you Erijiyan shouldn’t have been
part of them. You brought jobs to their communities with possibilities of several more by
virtue of expansion of the resort to include other things like golf courses, the water falls etc.
Bring tourists to their town to increase money in circulation of their economy, they were not
impressed.
Unfortunately they didn’t want these things. When you were building roads they asked
whether it was asphalts they would eat? The civil servants sabotaged you (I should know
this very well because we were the ones that worked with them daily) because you didn’t
allow them to continue short changing the states as usual.
Given the chance, what are you coming to do differently? Start eating corns on the streets,
visiting paraga joints and smoking weeds, building unnecessary infrastructures?
Unfortunately these are what most Ekiti local people still see as connection with grassroot
politics. I also doubt if you could be boarding okada all over the places, eating ofada rice at
motor parks with NURTW or RTWEAN.
A smart and intelligent person should know what Ekiti needs right now, and I believe you
are intelligent enough to know that. Serious surgical operations economically, like trimming
the already over bloated civil service draining the finance of the state. You only asked them
to be punctual the last time around, marking registers of absentees and you became Boko
Haram harassing workers, you only wanted to fill the competence gaps of teachers, they
became your enemy, so now how are you going to take the surgical knives to do what is
best for the states by trimming the work force to relieve the financial pressure on the State
finance, without problems from the workers?
The teachers still do not trust you? Neither do the civil servants who still believe you are
going to dismiss some of them? How are you going to convince them? These people have a
lot of influence where the votes go. Besides, with the present dire straits of the economic
situations in Nigeria and the bastardisation of the State economy by Fayose, any incoming
governor is always going to struggle to pay salaries. Turning the economy of the state round
is going to take more than four years, and will be a herculean task.
Redundant staffs would need re-skilling and retraining, where would the funds come from?
Now have you thought of or about the implications if you didn’t win the primaries?
Or if you lose the election proper?
You have a very impeccable CV: PhD, Governor, and Federal Minister, I am sure you never
want to add a serial election loser to that. No matter the guarantee you may have been
given, the chances of you losing are quite and are very high. I hope I am wrong though. I
should know this. We are the people on the streets, we got our ears close to the ground and
don’t deceive ourselves.
As things stand, with your impeccable CV, you have a chance to be nominated as a VP in
future, in the process become a President, Jonathan is a reference point. But once you have
marred your impeccable CV, you throw all the opportunities and chances away. No one
would want to do anything with a serial loser. Besides, your off spring might want to run for
similar post in future, he will swiftly be reminded his father was a serial loser who destroyed
Ekiti State despite your achievements. So like yoruba adage would say, “Ma je aiye omo re
pelu ti e o” Too much to lose. Seriously.
As it stands, you could with your impressive CV be an envoy in any of the international
institutions, such as the EU, AU, UN, UNESCO etc. But you could throw away all these things
by losing election one more time in Ekiti.
It will be ADIOS LOS AMIGOS to any relevance you might have in Ekiti and the nation at
large. You haven’t got anything to gain in this ill advised adventure at this time, but rather
too much at stake and too much to lose. Money is not everything though, as I believe you
could never want for that anymore.
Whoever might be or groups telling you that you are going to win, they are deceiving you
like most of them did the last time, when some of us already knew three years into your
tenure the prognosis were bad. But we were either ignored nor not let our voices reach the
top.
Above all, I am still not sure you realise what consigned you to defeat the last majorly:
POLITICAL NAIVETY and LACK OF STREET WISENESS. You were not street wise at all, that was
why most of the people around you ran riots, ran rings round you, spent money like fools,
while people watched in disgusts, and waited for the reckoning day for payback time.
The other major reason was GROSS ARROGANCE on display from top to down, also amongst
your commissioners, people haven’t forgotten this at all, based on latest research
conducted on the streets, within the ranks and files of the workers. They also don’t expect
much to change if you ever become governor again, and they are not willing to take this risk.
Have you also thought that if you lose the election you take the party down with you and
everyone else within the party, and become even more hated within the ranks and files of
the party members, from the local level up to the national level, in effect a persona non-
grata? Effectively, nailing the fate of the party completely in Ekiti, and jeopardise the party’s
chances in the National election.
Well I hope you will sleep over this and think deeply about it. Word of candid advise.
CONCENTRATE ON YOUR MINISTERIAL APPOINTMENT make a mark and let posterity do the
rest.
I hope no offences. This is my candid opinion and assessments of things. As difficult and as
bitter truths may be. Ekiti people still hate you very much and with a very BIG PASSION to
say the least. You also have people like Jarul, Adaramodu and some others I won’t mention
to thank for that, including yourself because the buck stops at your desk as the boss.
Well, if you are still bent on this adventure, I wish you good luck, and I hope I will be wrong
this time around, but I doubt it.
FREE AND FAIR ???? NO CHANCE!!!! DODGY AND DIABOLIC MEANS???? MAYBE!!! Then with
a possibility of overturning such victory in court. I think no one should know this better than
you. You have been down the lane before.
Best of luck,
From your erstwhile and truthful supporter
Tajudeen Afolabi
