I finally got around to reading Gov.
Fashola’s “take-away” on the Ekiti polls
. After going through it, I
shook my head in awe. The Governor’s intelligence is legendary, but on this
take-away, I thought he was simply disingenuous.



For instance, since when did it become a given that being
cerebral or a performing technocrat guarantees a win in an election? Just look
at Obama in his first and second term presidential runs and probe the possible
reasons why Senator McCain lost to him in the first and Gov. Romney the second,
and you may be tempted to stylishly abuse the Americans as Fashola appeared to
have done with the people of Ekiti. 


A few months back, I had cause to warn some of my friends
that they were in for a rude shock, when some of them sat down in their
editorial offices and projected a massive win in the Anambra election for
Senator Chris Ngige. You don’t need research to understand why the majority who
votes do not sometimes look at intelligence or technical ability of candidates
but rather concentrate on how, at election time, the intelligence and technical
ability have transformed their standards of living. Or was this not what we,
the pundits, were suggesting to Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala when it was announced
that Nigeria’s has become the biggest economy in Africa?  

Governor Fashola cleverly side-stepped all possible credible
reasons why my good friend, Gov. Kayode Fayemi, could have lost and
concentrated on things he knew may not have counted in the Ekiti governorship
contest. He also appeared not to have read other
credible
accounts of what may have prompted Ekiti to vote PDP
. In addition to these, we can
give the governor two other reasons why the Nigerian electorate in recent times voted against popular sentiments: the fear of
a powerful piper dictating the tunes from behind a governor may cause an
electorate to revolt (a là Ondo); the party that a governor is hanging out with
at the moment of election may also evoke fear and provoke a backlash (as
happened in Anambra).
To suggest, as Gov. Fashola does, that an electorate, including an enlightened one,
is always swayed by a rendition of impressive account of
stewardship is to fail to understand why, for instance, the late Chief
Obafemi Awolowo of blessed memory failed to clinch the presidency of Nigeria,
despite the general agreement that he was an excellent performer.


Governor
Fashola can be accused of anything but gullibility; he simply set out to be disingenuous.


Author

  • Ogbuagu Bob Anikwe, a veteran journalist and message development specialist, is now a community journalism advocate and publisher of Enugu Metro. Contact him on any of the channels below.

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