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Kayode Fayemi —That gist about occupying Aso Rock in 2023

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I met someone over the weekend and we had a long conversation on Nigerian politics. He is a Nigerian from the diaspora who has come back to work with the subject of this article in Ekiti. The discussions first started from externalities but inevitably went straight to his principal, Dr. Kayode Fayemi.

Stoking him, I fired the first salvo,’ I hear your man is looking set for a Presidential run’. He replied matter of factly ‘yes,’ he is your next president m, and I laughed and screamed Tinibu will beat him. How will he emerge when the Lion of Bourdillon, his purported master, is known although severally denied to be interested in the same seat.

My friend countered, ‘Fayemi is a better candidate. He is amiable, accepted by all power blocs and would bring freshness into the seat.’ He continued, ‘see what he has done in Ekiti with education, health and social welfare.’ He added that all we needed as a nation was for a structure that would cascade these nationwide.

I responded to his allusion that the north would support him owes to the fact that he appeared amenable in my estimation, came across as someone that could be ‘used’, hence this purported acceptance by the very powerful northern block, if that was even true in the first place.

But my host refused, claiming that Dr Fayemi was bringing tremendous value to the table from a long line of experience in public service.

I shouted, what exactly has he even done in this so-called long line? He was practically invisible at the Ministry of Solid Minerals, and that Ekiti State is not exactly an Eldorado even in the areas that has been mentioned. I just see a brilliant strategist who, perfectly understanding the fault lines and the divides that is the Nigerian political terrain, has taken advantage by positioning himself to be used by contending forces.

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A Fayemi presidency, I continued, will be another wobbly and shaky contraption like the ones before him that will pander to the vagaries of so many centrifugal forces leading it to an inevitable inertia and doom. This, I concluded, was not what we needed in the country at this point.

By this time, it was clear I wasn’t going to get a drink from my host. I continued, what we need at this point of national quagmire are fresh voices, strong legs and a practicality that can only come from an immured ethos from the hubris that is the dementia of public policy in Nigeria.

All this was certainly not Fayemi. But having this discussion in itself, and in so many other places that I reckon, the possibility of this run is becoming real and the only advantage that I see in this is the fact that in a Fayemi we will see an urbane gentleman who will not rely on his Executive powers to unconstitutionally haunt down opponents and would better understand modern economic dynamics.

Furthermore, unlike his Lord in Bourdillon, he doesn’t cut a divisive personality. May be an unknown quantity in the villages of Akwa Ibom and the Sahel but could produce a quality that could easily be sold.

But like I have said, it is not Fayemi. We do not need this particular soldier but sadly we may have to push for this soldier because the alternative from what I am seeing will not be palatable.

Author: Joseph Edgar…


Articles published in our Graffiti section are strictly the opinion of the writers and do not represent the views of Ripples Nigeria or its editorial stand.

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