Last week we started with the spat between former President Olusegun Obasanjo and former Ekiti State governor, Peter Ayodele Fayose. Fayose had invited Obasanjo to his 65th birthday celebrations, where the former president made statements that irked the celebrant. Fayose afterwards responded in kind to Obasanjo in a “Thank You” message where he took the former president to the cleaners. Obasanjo also responded by topping it up for Fayose!
Going down memory lane, we narrated how relations went from good to bad between the two leaders, hearing, as it were, from the horse’s mouth – meaning, Ayodele Fayose himself – in his unpublished autobiography titled “Peter the Rock: Autobiography of Dr. Peter Ayodele Fayose”, which was collated together with others and edited by this writer. Read on:
“Obasanjo returned from the USA on 17th June, 2006 and visited Ekiti on June 18th. He had quickly convened a meeting in Abuja in the early hours of 18th before coming to Ekiti. He was earlier scheduled to have visited Ekiti on the 17th and 18th. Realising that his third term agenda had been killed by the National Assembly, he quickly convened a meeting of the leadership of the party, denied the third term agenda, and called for reconciliation in the party. He then came to Ekiti and praised me to high heavens on the same day. Obasanjo assured the Ekiti people that I would be returned as governor and left. I later met with him at Ota in company with other South-west governors; he said he trusted me and believed in my judgment and, therefore, made me the chairman of a group that would search for his successor. He also reaffirmed his support for my second term bid.
“However, in late August of that year (2006), the then Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Nuhu Ribadu, in collaboration with my enemies who believed there was no way I would not win the 2007 governorship election, convinced Obasanjo that I was fraudulent and should be removed from office. Obasanjo bought into this and invited me to Abuja to ask me to step down as the governor of Ekiti state. I told him the step he was taking stemmed from conspiracy against my person. He finally said I should not contest for a second term as governor of Ekiti state, which was ludicrous. I was very much loved by my people who wanted me to continue in office; to be single-handedly short-circuited by one man was patently undemocratic. But unequal power relations made me succumb and we both agreed I should go to the Senate while they shopped for someone else to take my place. To avoid trouble, I said this was okay by me.
“Two weeks later, I was invited by the same Obasanjo to the Presidential villa and, in the presence of Chief Bode George and the then PDP chairman, Dr. Ahmadu Ali, the president said, ‘Ayo, you did not offend me but the powers-that-be in your state do not want you. So you have to resign now as governor.’ To my amazement, they brought out a letter on the letter-head of the Ekiti State Government, which they asked me to sign – a document I never prepared. I pleaded with the president but he insisted, in spite of entreaties by Chief Bode George and Ahmadu Ali. I then cleverly pleaded with him to let me go back home and tidy myself up so that I could leave honourably. He agreed. When I got back to Ekiti, Obasanjo called me to ask, ‘When are you bringing the letter of resignation?‘ He said, ‘If you think you can see light at the end of the tunnel, it is not with me! You better resign.’
“The ‘story behind the story’ of how I tactically dodged signing the resignation letter they prepared in Abuja was that I had been tipped off by Mrs. Mariam Ali, wife of Dr. Ahmadu Ali, whom I was close to. She had sent a message to me through Bukola Saraki and some other people that I would be invited to a place in Abuja to sign a letter but that ‘under no circumstance’ should I sign the letter. Had I signed the letter, I would have been arrested at the door of the Presidential villa by the EFCC. They would have used that letter in the media, saying that I resigned willingly after admitting that I was corrupt. With the Abuja macabre dance, I realised they had made up their mind to get me. The EFCC arrested everyone around me after they had withdrawn my Chief Security Officer, my ADC, etc…
“Initially, news of the collaboration of members of the state House of Assembly with my enemies came as a rumour. I summoned courage and invited them through the Clerk of the House. All entreaties to make them see reason fell on deaf ears. They made some unreasonable demands, obviously acting the script of their collaborators. During the heat, when it became obvious they were not ready to back down, having been coerced and at the same time mesmerised with outlandish promises made to them by their sponsors, I told them that if what they planned eventually happened and I was forced out of office; they, too, would sink with me. True to my courageous and prophetic pronouncement, the House of Assembly was suspended following the declaration of emergency rule.
“Stripped of my security details, I was naked and exposed security-wise. The next thing I saw was that my House of Assembly members were ‘arrested’ and taken over by the EFCC in an organised manner. They signed an impeachment letter at the EFCC camp, which they forwarded to me, and in the space of five days, they brought the ‘Honourables’ to the House of Assembly complex where the then (but now late) Speaker, Friday Aderemi, purportedly sacked the Chief Judge of the state, Justice Kayode Bamisile, which was beyond his powers and those of the House of Assembly, and got a consenting judge to act as Acting Chief Judge. The purported Acting Judge, JBK Aladejana, set up another panel after the first panel had absolved me of any guilt. After my acquittal by the first panel, that should have been the end of the matter, but the second panel then pronounced me guilty.
“The then Inspector-General of Police, Sunday Ehindero, who had a brother who was very close to me, phoned me that he had been ordered to effect my arrest and that lorry-loads of armed policemen were already on their way to carry out the order. He told me quite clearly that tipping me off was the very best he could do for me. If I waited and the men he had sent cornered me, he would not be in any position to assist me. His hands were tied over this matter, he told me quite emphatically. I had to run for my life. So, I escaped out the Government House in the night of 12th October, 2006 and went into exile”
How did Fayose escape from the Government House already surrounded by security forces? In the trunk of a jalopy car, disguised! And for the next eight years he suffered exile, later returning home to surrender himself to the authorities. He was incarcerated and faced trial but, in the end, he was exonerated and became a free man once again. Those travails must have been what Obasanjo referred to at Fayose’s birthday event; what he neglected to add, however, was that he, Obasanjo, was the chief architect of those travails! Fayose contested election again and was victorious, serving out his second term of office between 2014 and 2018. It was during the latter part of that period that our paths crossed, at his invitation.
The story that is yet to be told, but which Obasanjo alluded to in his controversial remarks at Fayose’s 65th birthday bash, is that it is the same Obasanjo – and Chief Olabode George – that was instrumental in Fayose becoming governor in his first tenure, in place of Obasanjo’s own personal friend, Chief SK Babalola. True, then, is the statement by Gen. Oluleye that Obasanjo has equal capacity to do both good and evil!
Politics is truly a dirty game! The same Olabode George, who played a key role in how Fayose upstaged Babalola, later became Fayose’s punching bag during Fayose’s second term of office when Chief George took positions that were diametrically opposed to those of the Fayose/Nyesom Wike camp of the PDP. Call it Karma or whatever, it is the same Olabode George who reportedly moved the motion to expel Wike, Fayose and other PDP leaders at the recent convention of a faction of the PDP at Ibadan.
Proverbs 30: 18 – 19 says: “There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not: the way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid” A fifth must now be added: The mysterious ways of Nigerian politicians when they engage in their dirty games!
Listen to how Fayose himself narrated the story of the helping hand he received from Chief Olabode George: “These people still did not give up, despite the fact that I had been given the flag. Again, they set up machinery and started moving around, saying that ‘When Obasanjo comes, we will now allow him to present the flag formally to Fayose in Ekiti.’ They said Obasanjo was going to present the flag to Chief SK Babalola…They were working against me until Obasanjo finally arrived…The night before he landed, Chief SK Babalola and Chief Bamidele Olumilua had sewn the same uniform for themselves and Obasanjo…And I was supposed to be the candidate!
“So, Chief Bode George told us in the afternoon of the night before, when he came to wait for Chief Obasanjo, and got wind of their plan, to quickly go to Oje market in Ibadan to get Aso Oke (Yoruba local fabric) of the same colour for me and Obasanjo and bring it to him. The fabric was done all night and we brought it to Ado-Ekiti before Obasanjo arrived. We now took it to Akure and gave it to Bode George…”
Fayose narrated how Obasanjo ditched a flabbergasted Chief SK Babalola right there on the podium and threw away his aso-oke, reached out for Fayose’s aso-oke, ordered him to the podium, raised up his hand and formally presented the flag to him as the party flagbearer!
After I heard the story of the role Chief Bode George played in frustrating the plans and plots against Fayose becoming the governor of Ekiti state in 2003 straight from Fayose’s own mouth, I marvelled each time Fayose mercilessly tore into the same Bode George when both leaders stood in opposing camps within the same party, the PDP.
One fateful day I held up a proof of his autobiography to Fayose and said: ‘Concerning your relationship with Chief Olabode George, don’t you think your own words in this book indict you?‘
Characteristically, he stared at me, but said nothing! Those who said I was responsible for Fayose not eventually officially launching the autobiography have a point; don’t they?
*Former editor of PUNCH newspapers, Chairman of its Editorial Board and Deputy Editor-in-chief, BOLAWOLE was also the Managing Director/Editor-in-chief of The Westerner news magazine. He writes the ON THE LORD’S DAY column in the Sunday Tribune and TREASURES column in New Telegraph newspaper on Wednesdays. He is also a public affairs analyst on radio and television.