Ayo Fayose has already sealed his legacy. In his middle age, he has lastingly defined himself as the rogue who abused a holy book as an apparatus of electoral fraud. The crook who used a copy of the Bible to bind his rigging partners to an oath of secrecy!
Fayose professes Christianity. But the villain uses the veneer of piety to cloak his criminal persona.
After he ‘won’ the June 21, 2014 governorship election, seven and half years after Ekiti State House of Assembly impeached him for stealing funds earmarked for a poultry farm, Fayose held a thanksgiving service at Deeper Life Campground in Ado Ekiti. When it came time to testify, Brother Fayose made a show of his modesty and meekness: he prostrated!
When he rose up, he said, ‘’If this time has been in Bible days, my name would have been one of the names to be recorded as those who God gave a second chance.’’
Then he added, ‘’My return to government is not common in history. It is a rare miracle…’’
That uncommon disruption in the pattern of history, the beautiful accident never seen before, the epic wonder Fayose claimed that God performed on his behalf, has now been proved, irrefutably, to be a product of manmade magic. The victory he attributes to the benevolence of God and the ministry of a legion of angels has been exposed to be a rape of the social order. The most outlandish feat in the story of the rigging of governorship elections in Nigeria!
But Fayose is a Christian: As religious as former Plateau State Governor Jonah Jang. Jang was the loser who escaped with the winner’s trophy.
Rotimi Amechi, then Governor of Rivers State, bested Jang in a peer election where Nigerian governors elected Chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum. Jang polled 16 votes against Amechi’s 19 votes. But Jang, who scored lesser votes, claimed victory –victory over the authentic winner, arithmetic and democracy. And Jang was fortunate –then President Goodluck Jonathan recognized the vanquished as the victor!
Jang, thrilled by this fate, swept into Jos. He rushed a victory lap with the props of a Christian thanksgiving service. When it was time to testify, Brother Jang, a thousand strands of gray hair on his head, told the worshippers at Faith-way Chapel Church that he had come to praise 'God' for giving the underdog an incredible victory. 'God' prospered his dark art. His rigging would have been futile if God had not blessed it!
Fayose went to church in that same spirit. He went to church to thank 'God' for diverting the polls. The god of rigging who makes a mockery of the polls!
Two key actors in the plot have come forward to demystify Fayose’s ‘’rare miracle’’. Their confessions go to show that God did not author the Ekiti heist. Human agents did.
Captain Sagir Koli, a soldier in the Intelligence Corps, blew the whistle. He was present at the clandestine meeting where Koli’s commanding officer, Aliyu Momoh; then Minister of State for Defence (Army), Musiliu Obanikoro; then Minister of Police Affairs, Jelili Adesiyan; Iyiola Omisore, and Candidate Fayose scripted the strategy to twist the Ekiti governorship polls to a predetermined outcome. He recorded the conspiracy and released it.
The VIPs implicated by the tape sent death threats after Captain Koli. He fled into exile. They caused his younger brother to be arrested and tortured in secret custody.
Koli returned to the country. He presented his case to an army panel constituted to investigate allegations of the manifest partisanship of Nigerian soldiers in the elections. Seeing the strength of his evidence, the panel commended him for his professionalism and courage and recommended his immediate restoration.
Last weekend, one of Fayose’s closest cronies, a key figure in the election game plan, came out to bolster the credibility of Koli’s tape. Tope Aluko, the former Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Ekiti State, dumped in the press documentary exhibits that showed the method and the madness of the rigging that crowned an impostor the governor of Ekiti State.
The papers and their contents beggar belief. They show the price tags of all the critical human factors bribed. Fayose’s signature was visible on many of them!
Aluko asserts that Fayose obtained 37 million US dollars from President Goodluck Jonathan through Sambo Dasuki, Jonathan’s National Security Adviser, to buy the polls. And Fayose bought 203, 090 votes: 182 dollars per vote. Fayose ‘won’!
Fayose replied Aluko. But Fayose did not deny Aluko. Fayose did not claim that he had never collaborated with the stranger. He challenged the motive of his estranged friend.
Aluko was the sole witness called by Fayose and PDP at the election tribunal. Aluko had affirmed, under oath, that the governorship election was conducted in accordance to the law.
Fayose averred that Aluko was a wounded telltale. The revelator is aggrieved. Fayose did not appoint him Chief of Staff. Aluko is on a mission to exact vengeance. Aluko is a politician scorned!
In the very least, Fayose corroborated Aluko’s story!
Fayose and Aluko were partners. They were yoked together by the lust for power. Fayose was angling to be a governor again. Aluko hankered after a niche in Fayose’s gubernatorial paradise.
Aluko himself conceded that he was out to disgrace Fayose. Fayose had failed him. Fayose had sworn on the Holy Bible to appoint Aluko Chief of Staff if they rig themselves to victory. Fayose disappointed him. Fayose used him and dumped him.
Aluko would not have spilled their shared occult secrets if Fayose had fulfilled the covenant. Aluko would have kept the secret buried if he was Chief of Staff. It was even for the hope of securing his reward that Aluko appeared before the tribunal, swore with the Holy Bible to tell the whole truth, and then, lied that the elections were conducted in accordance with the law!
This says a lot about Aluko’s character: He has none!
Fayose explained why he declined to honor the word of their bond. He said he had to abandon Aluko ‘’because he could not be entrusted with such a sensitive position.’’ Aluko was ‘’ somebody with great lust for money…’’
Maybe Fayose truthfully described Aluko. Fayose was Aluko’s friend. So Fayose knows enough about Aluko to proffer a testimonial.
The reverse is plausibly valid too. Aluko knows Fayose so personally that Aluko could be telling the truth about their joint enterprise.
But one thing is sure: The thieves executed a successful robbery. They quarreled over the sharing of the spoils. And the one who felt shortchanged alerted the neighborhood –nineteen months after the fact!
The title, ‘’Dr’’, is hitched to Aluko’s name. I find it hard to imagine that he earned a PhD. If he had attained such education, his learning had little effect beyond his spoken English. He is too a big disgrace to pass as an alumnus. A PhD seeking pity because a self-confessed ‘’motor park tout’’ scammed him!
It’s a shame Aluko undertook to introduce his naked face to a live television audience. Worse, he evacuated his memory of his criminal adventures with Fayose. He worked hard to convince the civil world that he was a moral activist come to out Fayose, the felon!
The strange thing is that Aluko spent more than one hour on primetime television crowing about his role in electoral fraud. He told the story with bluster and daredevil temerity. In a sane clime, the police would have marched into the studio, interrupted the broadcast, and arrested him.
Aluko walked back home: A hero, for those who count audacity the preeminent virtue.
Aluko would later scream that his life was under threat. He needs police protection. The man who volunteered an account of his horrible role in a vote theft and provided a sheaf of papers to back up his tale is asking to be made the apple of the eye of the police!
Fayose is covered with the carapace of immunity. Aluko, his partner, is not. Yet, the police Aluko have yet to arrest and prosecute the self-advertizing election rigger.
There is a possibility the Nigerian state may even grant Aluko his wish. Some policemen may be detailed to guard him day and night. He has become a potential asset to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
Fayose when he ‘’testified’’ at the thanksgiving service told the congregation that his wife, Feyisetan, had prophesied about his second coming to the Government House. Fayose felt compelled to enforce the prophecy. And he used the Bible.
Christians all over the world read the Bible as a life manual. People of other creeds recognize its value as a moral compass. They teach their kids its commandments and parables.
Brother Fayose would use the Bible differently. He would use it to scam his rigging team with an oath. He would use it to rig elections.
What a beautiful use of the Bible Fayose has discovered!
Email Emmanuel at [email protected] or follow on Twitter @emmaugwutheman