Fayose/PDP’s distastefully despicable campaign tactics

For a party in office for the past fifteen years; a government in office for almost six years, this ought to be about achievements and selling a blueprint for moving the nation forward. However, if your five-year achievement can be enumerated in one minute, and you are required to speak to 36 states and Abuja, you don’t have much to say without sounding like a broken record. It is not shocking if your response to an issue-based campaign is to gather an array of foul-mouthed urchins to tackle your opponents.
Naturally, if a man could kiss and tell, you do not want to be at the receiving end of their vitriol. Fayose is in good company with the likes of Femi Fani Kayode whose diction reminds you of the paradox of a beautiful cemetery. But even as far as madness goes, Fayose whose victory over a debonair Kayode Fayemi last June epitomizes the preference of the Jewsih leadership of Jesus’ days when they asked for the release of a robber, Barabbas and the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. This is the supremacy of choice.
Unfortunately, both of these rabid attack dogs are Yoruba. Not only are the Yoruba urbane in demeanour, true Yoruba people live on lofty principles one of which is respect of elders and fairness in speech and conduct. A person professing to be Yoruba, yet denigrating these virtues is soon dumped in the refuse heap – the company of bastards.
Fayose is a gutter person incapable of exhibiting the rules of finesse. Grace is a virtue beyond his comprehension. Like his mentor in the game, Fayose has demonstrated the character of a man who loves public office but denies the responsibility it confers. A governor who could not pay civil service salaries found the money to place the most distasteful advert ever recorded in political history. Thank God for eminent Ekiti sons and daughters who rose in unison saying – not in our name!
The advert is particularly distasteful because General Murtala Ramat Mohammed, apart from being a national icon was married to a Yoruba lady who is the essence of daintiness. They were blessed with children one of who is today carrying the electoral banner of the ruling party after serving the same party at the federal level. The inclusion of Murtala in such a repugnant advert is not only seditious but also tantamount to assassinating him afresh in the minds of his family and the nation that revere him.
Umar Musa Yar’adua was Jonathan’s former boss whose untimely death paved the way for Jonathan. The advert came just days after Jonathan showed at the Yar’adua compound on his knees in the Katsina before the matriarch of that family. For no fault of hers, the woman has lost two sons to national service and the germination of democracy. It is an awkward position to be. It is shameful that Jonathan knelt before her while his attack dog was denigrating her sons. No cultural moral or religious teaching accepts such objectionable behaviour. That the president has nothing to say about this advert by his supporter says a lot about his moral company.
It is horrible to live in an era in which everything this system touches turns to dust. The media has never sunk so low. The police have moved from being a national organ to the party’s private guard. The military, a revered institution and the last surviving icon of the nation is openly partisan. All over the world, governments insulate its army from partisan politics, but under this commander-in-chief, the army lies, cheats and takes the bullet for the ruling party – from rescue to denial in Chibok, lies about not having arms to fight the insurgency when the insurgents display arms seized from them. With this mess over one of its own generals, it would take a while to rebuild trust and confidence.
Efforts have been made to tarnish the judiciary. The legislature is barely existent. The people are divided. This desperado government paints Buhari as an Islamic fundamentalist to southerners; and in the predominantly Muslim north he is portrayed as selling the nation to Christians – all on tape at rallies. Is there an institution left that would survive the tar of this regime with its integrity intact? The Nigerian Guild of Editors and the NUJ owe Nigerians an apology. The broadcasting commission should review these tapes and INEC must wake up and act as umpire.