Ekitigate: A get-back scheme at Fayose?

Chilling and damning. These best describe the
revelations last Sunday of the alleged rigging of
Ekiti State 2014 governorship election for Ayo
Fayose. Like a man under a spell, ex Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP) secretary of the state,
Dr Temitope Aluko, regaled the nation with heart-
wrenching specifics of how ex-President
Goodluck Jonathan allegedly made $37million,
plus military might available for the victory of
Fayose.
According to Aluko, who was the chief returning
officer for Fayose at the poll, Jonathan gave
express directives to security chiefs to allow
Fayose function as the Commander-in-Chief (C-
in-C) on his behalf for the poll that he won in all
local governments in the state.
Based on this presidential directive, Aluko, who
headed the Security and Logistics unit for the
campaign, alleged that soldiers practically
received instructions from Fayose. The security
apparatus were compromised, leading to massive
arrest of chieftains of All Progressives Congress
(APC) and practical grounding of former
Governor Kayode Fayemi.
Independent National Electoral Commission
(INEC) workers were also bought over with
special polling units arranged for the PDP across
the state. With the water-tight ploy, Aluko said,
the election was already predetermined even
before voters left their homes.
But Fayose’s case is no
isolation. He is part of a
general electoral decadence in
the nation. This machination
has benefited elected officials
across party divides.
With opposition leaders in specially arranged
detention camps and only PDP voters mobilised
to the polling centres, Aluko pointed out local
and international observers couldn’t decode the
manipulative machination at work on the Election
Day. It was a clear case of the more you look,
the less you see.
On the whole, details of the rigging plot are
repulsive. It is a shocking reminder of how most
elections in the nation were concluded weeks
even before they took place. The voters, as it
mostly turns out, are just programmed to
actualise the scientific manipulations of their
civic obligation.
Sadly, as in Ekiti State, even forensic experts and
the brightest legal luminaries are unable to prove
the insidious machination. That way, Elections
tribunals and even the Supreme Court are left
with nothing, but to invalidate the mandates
stolen from the voting public.
Seventeen years of democratic experience in this
present dispensation, and Nigerian voters are
still subject to the situation in which desperate
politicians hijack the system to install as it were,
candidates other than a popular one.
Many Nigerians are of the view that Aluko’s
revelations should be a wakeup call for the need
to strengthen institutions and the electoral
system, to guide against atrocities of the kind he
alleges took place in Ekiti State.
On the whole, details of the
rigging plot are repulsive. It is
a shocking reminder of how
most elections in the nation
were concluded weeks even
before they took place.
Getting back at Fayose?
But the Ekiti revelations create some doubting
holes. They are clearly targeted at Governor Ayo
Fayose, whose election has been ironically
affirmed by the Supreme Court, and Nigerians
expectedly are incensed for the quantum of
desperation and backroom manipulations that
brought Fayose to power.
But observers are wondering if the revelations
are not motivated by Fayose unrelenting
criticisms of President Muhammadu Buhari and
the APC-led government. The controversial
governor has effectively turned himself to the
opposition arrowhead for the current
administration. He has criticised every policy,
every move and every decision of the federal
government.
He has become the ‘bone in the throat’ of the
APC government, a real pain in the neck whose
statements send cold shivers down the spine of
federal government officials. Nobody takes up
such a delicate job without a fight-back. So, are
the Ekitigate revelations aimed at getting back at
Fayose?
It is very suspicious Aluko chose to wait for over
a year to reveal the insidious plot. Could he have
been incited by the ruling government, bothered
by Fayose’s scathing criticisms to spill the bean?
Could Aluko, who confessed he was outplayed
by Fayose in the power-sharing ratio, and the
federal government found a common enemy in
the Ekiti State governor?



The truth is that the nation’s
electoral system is still very
far from where it should be,
and a lot more still needs to
be done to make electorates’
votes count.
According to his confessions, Aluko participated
in the rigging scheme because he was hoping to
be made Chief of Staff. Had the sharing formula
worked as planned, will Aluko be singing like he
is now? Won’t he have shut up and enjoyed the
prestige and resources that come with the high-
profile position?
His revelation is more suspect, his person
seemingly untrustworthy given that the same
Aluko had painted a different scenario on the
Ekiti governorship poll while under oath at the
Election Tribunal, when he was called as a
witness by the PDP and Governor Fayose.
But Fayose’s case is no isolation. He is part of a
general electoral decadence in the nation. This
machination has benefitted elected officials
across party divides.
It is doubtful Fayose will be on the spotlight like
this if he had chosen to be silent like other PDP
governors. Had he defected to the ruling APC,
will the revelations come to be? It is hard to
dispel the perception that Fayose might have
been a victim of his opposition views and
politics. No matter how hard government
explains it away, Ekitigate is not an exception in
the atrocities that accompany elections in the
country.
And no matter how much Nigerians try to crucify
Aluko for his part in the drama, or his reasons
for coming out, the truth is that the nation’s
electoral system is still very far from where it
should be, and a lot more still needs to be done
to make electorates’votes count.