BY OUR REPORTERS
Former Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose, may have decided to support the presidential ambition of a southern candidate, presumably the candidature of the All Progressives Congress’ (APC) standard bearer, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, in the 2023 presidential election.
In a cryptic tweeter message on Wednesday, 29 June, 2022 which appears to show that Fayose was disappointed with the emergence of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar as the presidential candidate of the opposition People Democratic Party (PDP) and the Ekiti ex-governor’s next political move, Fayose channeled an innocuous statement made by Tinubu recently which the latter’s detractors have seized on as demonstrative of an entitlement mentality – “Emi lo kan” (Yoruba for “It is my turn”) by tweeting:
“The current President of Nigeria is a 2-term Northern Presidency, thus implying that it MUST be a Southern Presidency in 2023 or NOTHING. Awa ‘South’ lo kan’. Nigerians should await details soon.”
Tweeting further, Fayose appeared to have been disappointed in the decision of the PDP not to respect the party’s constitutional provision of rotational presidency, which to him would have meant that the presidential candidate of the party should have come from the South since the PDP fielded Atiku in 2019.
Thus, Fayose tweeted: “The PDP Constitution provides for a rotational Presidency. Section 3(c) provides that the Party shall pursue its aims & objectives by “adhering to the policy of the rotation & zoning of Party & Public elective offices in pursuance of the principle of equity ,justice and fairness.”
Further pointer to where Fayose is headed politically in 2023 was also provided by another tweet on the day showing the Ekiti Governor-Elect, Mr Biodun Abayomi Oyebanji paying a “thank you” visit to the Lagos residence of former Fayose.
And in an earlier tweet thread, Fayose also too a dig at a PDP chieftain and former National Chairman of the defunct National Republican Party (NRC) in the botched Third Republic, Chief Tom Ikimi, over the PDP loss to the APC in the just-concluded Ekiti gubernatorial election, a loss Ikimi reportedly blamed Fayose for in part:
Fayose tweeted: “Age they say comes with decorum and maturity not only grey hairs. It appears that reverse is the case with Chief Tom Ikimi,who is ranting on matters of Ekiti. Apart from being Chairman of NRC, a party he led to electoral defeat in 1993, has he ever contested or won a state election?
“If this latest vituperation of Ikimi is a fallout of my support for Gov Wike during the PDP presidential primary, then he should match his age with numbers and recall that this same Fayose gave PDP 16/0 over APC in 2014 and defeated Niyi Adebayo, an incumbent governor in 2003.
“To this end, if Ikimi is seeking relevance with Atiku, he should do same more decently. He should allow the sleeping dog to lie and save the PDP from unnecessary shootouts and fireworks at this time as we approach the general elections.”
“He should also be reasonable enough to understand that the same PDP that lost election in Ekiti on Saturday to various factors, had in the past, won elections and will still win elections in future.”
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