BY RANTI ADEBISI
When the gods are bent on killing a soul, the first thing they do is to make their victims deaf to reason. It happened to the biblical King Nebuchadnezzar and it formed the very lethal therapy culminating to his ignoble end. The Ekiti State government under the leadership of Chief Peter Ayodele Fayose has chosen same track.
Our programme for the epochal declaration of intention to run as next governor of Ekiti State by our Lead Compatriot, Senator Babafemi Ojudu, was articulately planned and painstakingly mapped out to achieve the desired success without rancour. We wrote a prior letter to Governor Fayose to inform him of the date and also asked for protection as the Chief Security Officer of the state. We meant well.
The atmosphere wore a clement look until the night we adorned the capital city, Ado Ekiti with colourful banners and posters of ‘Ojudu for Governor’. Opposition lived up to its name. We got feelers minutes after that Fayose had ordered some thugs to remove all our banners from the highway. We mounted resistance by revealing their plans to appropriate authorities. They were checkmated.
The devil will not willingly go to sleep. The following day, Thursday, March 8, 2018, the Ekiti State Signage Company woke up with a bill and brought it to the Director General of Ekiti Rebirth Organisation, ERO, the campaign arm of ‘Ojudu 2018,’ Chief Oluranti Adebisi. In the bill, the state government was demanding for a payment of six hundred and twenty thousand naira (N620,000.00) and gave up till March 14, (Wednesday), to redeem the payment.
We discussed mutually and they moved from Chief Adebisi’s office to meet Senator Ojudu at his residence where agreement was reached that the payment would be made before the expiry date.
But we are miffed that on Monday, few hours after Senator Ojudu stepped out of town, the governor issued directive that all the banners should be mowed down, parked into a van and be ferried to an unknown destination. Nothing could better describe a jittery governor who has lost all popularity and integrity with the people.
The ERO view the action of the governor as a step taken too far and therefore warn that any attempt by governor Fayose to adopt illegal means to impose himself on the Ekiti people through his stooge, Prof Eleka, would be adequately resisted. We will not allow the reign of terror to rear its head in Ekitiland again; we will not allow humiliation, an abhorrent of democracy, to thrive on our land. We shall raise up in arms with the enemy of the people and fight a good fight to liberate our people from the shackles of oppression and economic seizure with enthusiasm. We shall win so victoriously.
Democracy, all over the world, create a level playing ground to exercise fundamental rights by all without fair or favour. We refuse to see reason in why the governor is trying to turn Ekiti State into a personal estate and one party state where only his candidate, Eleka, has the unfettered freedom to litter the entire state with leaflets and posters at no cost.
Ekiti has never been this ruled in the past. We are a people with history of tolerance, civility and decorum. Any act outside of these can only be traced to a parasite, a usurper who is not a true born of our land.
We are hereby warning for the last time that the governor should embrace civility so he does not incur our wrath. Fayose should be ready to swallow more bitter pills that would soon consume him as people delight and shout for joy, preparatory to their pending defeat over the gadfly that has pestered their lives so horribly in the past years.
A stitch in time, at times saves more than nine.
Chief Ranti Adebisi is the Director General, Ekiti Rebirth Organisation (ERO)
