In a few days time, the people of Ekiti State will be going to the polls in South West Nigeria. The process leading to these elections offers important lessons for the rest of Nigeria and indeed for many other parts of the continent. At stake here are two sets of tendencies: one concerns the values that guide society in the day-to-day life of its people; while the other deals with the set of values that underpin formal processes of governance, which reproduces the state and ensures smooth leadership succession. In this regard, Nigeria has been deliberate in its choice of democratic values. Those who occupy positions of authority in society and within institutions of the state are naturally looked upon as the custodians of these values. Invariably, they are moderators of the space of the application of values to ensure that they do not swing massively away from the pursuit of “common good” or “collective wellbeing”.
Ekiti people have for long prided themselves as a people who exemplify values of excellence, honour and integrity. Any young person raised by an Ekiti parent or grandparent as I was in rural Igbemo, just a few short decades ago, understood well that success depended NOT on quick accumulation of material wealth but on a “good name” built on hard work and character; and above all, the pursuit of excellence – all of which brought pride to one’s community. To be certain, this ideal was not the preserve of Ekiti people. One could easily locate such values with people in other parts of Nigeria and indeed across the African continent. But for a relatively homogenous agrarian society, which had little else going for it in the area of development, there was a near total commitment to this ideal. And it paid off. Its people rose to prominence through achievement of excellence in education and a continued commitment to principles of honour and good name. Ekiti people still boast of the largest number of Professors and PhD holders per capita in Nigeria although this is fast becoming a thing of the past. Other Nigerians readily recall with admiration and exasperation in equal measure, how Ekiti people could hold up processes in defence of high principles and values!
For John ’Kayode Fayemi, one of the many Ekiti indegenes raised on these values, these were not romantic notions when he decided almost a decade ago to leave his academic and activist career to seek the transformation of Ekiti’s political space in pursuit of a common good in what he first termed “Ekiti collective rescue mission”. Those of us who knew of his commitment and determination were concerned about the price he would pay for daring to pursue such a mission, not because it was not a worthy cause, but because the pendulum of values were shifting even in Ekiti State. The holders of the highest public positions, expected to be the very custodians of the space of values had polluted that space beyond recognition. It was against all odds that Fayemi became Governor of Ekiti State after four years of gruelling court battles. The last four years of his governorship have seen a worthy effort to moderate the space of values such that Ekiti’s societal core values of honour, hard work and excellence are brought back alongside democratic values. His government responded to the needs of the people through his “8-point agenda” that includes: governance, infrastructural development, modernising agriculture, education and human capital development, healthcare, industrial development, tourism development and gender equality.
As the cycle of election returns and Ekiti people are about to go to the polls to elect a governor to oversee the affairs of the state in the next four years, Fayemi is right to expect that in any democratic order, an incumbent should be judged on the basis of his achievement in the preceding four years. His campaign has made this case, systematically and consistently. And many in Ekiti do not dispute that he has worked hard and changed the face of the state in the past four years even if this is work in progress in some respects. This has been duly acknowledged in several quarters among which, was the award of “Governor of the Year” in 2011 after only one year in office. Additionally, one would expect that the opposition party’s choice of governorship candidate ought to make the re-election of Fayemi an open and shut case. In one of the most cruel manifestations of the distortions of values I had highlighted above, Ayo Fayose – a former governor of Ekiti State who left office disgraced following what many saw as his promotion of destructive values, has returned to vie for elections.
Interestingly, Fayose’s emergence as governorship candidate intersects with what was a quiet but persistent voice in Ekiti in the last four years of Fayemi’s governorship. That is the opinion of a number of people who acknowledge that while Fayemi has worked hard, built infrastructure in Ekiti State and recorded visible progress, he has failed to provide infrastructure of the stomach – a euphemism for regular cash hand outs and other rewards. This, alongside the view that Fayemi is too educated [in a state that has historically cherished education] has found synergy and resonance with Fayose’s re-emergence on the political stage.
A cursory look at the trends suggests that this opinion is rife among a core of educated people and not among uneducated or ordinary Ekiti indegenes. The message coming out of this tangible, but persistent advocates of stomach infrastructure is: “Don’t work hard, steal very well and distribute properly”. Strangely, the values of democratic governance, which Fayemi has cultivated alongside a societal value of hard work, excellence, are ideals, which belong in the text books and in foreign societies as far as adherents of stomach infrastructure are concerned. They do not guarantee election victory. This is the paradox of effectiveness – one does not need to be effective to win elections in Nigeria. Ekiti people are confronted by this paradox.
To be clear, attention to stomach infrastructure has been rife across Nigeria and Africa as whole. It is by far the easiest objective to pursue for those seeking public office who have no new ideas or change making agenda for their society. Its results are instant but short lived. Ekiti was perhaps the last bastion of resistance in Nigeria to this phenomenon, but it is clear that its corrupting influence has been taking hold in certain circles. The blind pursuit of selfish ends through destructive values that stand in stark opposition to the collective wellbeing is a growing threat to the wellbeing of ordinary Africans.
Fayemi’s battle against the phenomenon of stomach infrastructure is a real one and he has been persistent in his message that hard work for the common good is the only way to ensure that Ekiti does not succumb to mediocrity and relegated to obscurity.
The people of Ekiti State will do well to recognise that the forthcoming election is a titanic struggle between the pursuit of the “common good” on the one hand and “stomach infrastructure” on the other. The Pendulum of values must not be allowed to shift in favour of personal gains of a handful of unscrupulous elite against the pursuit of the collective well being of Ekiti people.
Equally important, Ekiti’s coming election will present a birds’ eye view of what is to come. Ekiti is a microcosm of the shifting landscape of elite-society relations in Nigeria and in many parts of the continent at large. In Nigeria, this election, which is months ahead of Nigeria’s general elections, will be a legacy check for President Goodluck Jonathan, who has taken a particularly keen interest in Ekiti’s election. It will send a crucial message about how the highest office holder in the land presides over the space of values.
‘Funmi Olonisakin, PhD. Director, African Leadership Centre, King’s College, London. Strand WC2R 2LS
