By Olabode Opeseitan

There is a prayer point many Nigerian politicians have conspicuously omitted from their devotionals: ”Lord, may I never invest in a political associate who will turn coat and spend the rest of his days trying to dismantle everything I built.”

Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, now President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, clearly never said that prayer before he threw his considerable weight behind Kayode Fayemi’s political ascent.

Their bond was forged in the crucible of exile. When the annulment of Chief MKO Abiola’s June 12, 1993, presidential mandate ignited a resistance movement, Tinubu and Fayemi were among those who refused to look away. Tinubu provided the funding; Fayemi and other foot soldiers implemented the strategies. It was the kind of shared sacrifice that creates bonds men carry to their graves, or so one would think.

Tinubu, ever a man who rewards institutional loyalty, did not forget. He favoured Fayemi above most political associates when choices had to be made. That calculus showed clearly in Fayemi’s emergence as Ekiti State Governor and in the pivotal role Fayemi would later play in the formation of the All Progressives Congress. Without Tinubu’s compass pointing in his direction at critical junctures, Fayemi’s trajectory would have looked very different.

When Gratitude Expires

On his return for a second term as Ekiti Governor, something shifted. Fayemi, it seemed, had concluded that he was now his own man, a self-made political colossus who could chase the same presidential ambition his benefactor was actively pursuing. He eventually stepped back and endorsed Tinubu at the 2022 APC presidential primary, but only after testing the waters himself. In that limited sense, he managed to outperform Professor Yemi Osinbajo, another man whose entire political career was essentially gift-wrapped by Tinubu’s influence and goodwill.

Osinbajo ran the presidential race to a dismal third-place finish and, by no credible account, ever formally supported the man who had made him Vice President. History records no such gesture. But that is a story for another day.

The Prodigal Who Never Quite Repented

But the ingratitude did not begin in 2023. It has a longer, more instructive history.

When Fayemi first became Ekiti Governor in 2010, after a bruising three-year legal battle to recover his mandate, few paused to ask who had bankrolled the original 2007 campaign or who had quietly picked up the legal fees through every exhausting round of litigation. The answer to both questions was the same man: Tinubu. Yet for the better part of his first term, Fayemi systematically decoupled himself from the man also popularly called Jagaban, conducting his governorship as though he had arrived at the table entirely on his own merits.

The universe, however, has a sense of timing. 

In June 2014, Ayodele Fayose of the PDP handed Fayemi one of the most crushing electoral defeats ever suffered by a sitting Nigerian governor, losing all sixteen of Ekiti’s local government councils to a man staging his own political resurrection. It was a humiliation of seismic proportions. Completely knocked down by the vicissitudes of political fortune, Fayemi did what pride had previously prevented. He went back to Bourdillon.

 Insiders who witnessed what transpired confirmed that Fayemi performed the dobale, the full Yoruba prostration of submission, before Asiwaju later in 2014, seeking forgiveness for years of deliberate political distance.

Tinubu, large-hearted to a fault, forgave him. In his characteristic let-bygones-be-bygones manner, he drafted Fayemi as Chairman of the 2014 APC Convention Committee, the very platform that produced Muhammadu Buhari as the party’s presidential candidate. It was a gesture of rehabilitation extended to a repentant prodigal.

What Tinubu perhaps did not anticipate was how quickly the prodigal would revert to type. A credible source who directly witnessed events at that convention told me that Fayemi wasted no time cozying up to Buhari the moment he emerged, almost immediately lobbying to be named running mate, a move transparently designed to exploit the contrived opposition to a Muslim/Muslim ticket, the principal target of which was eliminating Tinubu from vice-presidential consideration. Several media outlets documented the fierce lobbying through December 2014.

The intrigue ran deeper still. There were credible speculations that Fayemi was among those who commissioned British scholar Professor John Paden to write a book chronicling how Buhari became the first opposition candidate to defeat a sitting Nigerian president. The book was strategically crafted. It systematically downplayed Tinubu’s otherwise pivotal role in delivering that historic victory, while simultaneously claiming that Buhari personally chose Yemi Osinbajo as running mate, adding pointedly that he did so “despite significant pressure from Bola Tinubu, who wanted the vice-presidential position for himself.”

There was a school of thought that the architecture of the narrative was to project Fayemi, then Solid Minerals Minister, as the emerging intellectual and political leader of the Yoruba under a Buhari presidency, with Tinubu written out of the story he had largely authored. It is important to note that there is no published report directly linking Fayemi to Professor Paden. Until such a report emerges, his role in that enterprise remains a speculation, even though the signals that existed placed it firmly within the range of possibilities.

To Osinbajo’s enduring credit, in that rare instance, he publicly contradicted the book’s account of his emergence as Vice President and confirmed that it was Asiwaju who nominated him for the second highest office in the land.

A man who had prostrated for forgiveness in 2014 was, by 2015, linked to the groundwork for his benefactor’s political erasure. If that is not the textbook definition of a recurring pattern, it is difficult to know what else to call it.

The Steady Stream of Sour Grapes

Since Tinubu assumed the presidency, it has been a steady stream of sour grapes. If Fayemi is not granting pointed interviews criticising the APC, he is reportedly strategising with former Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi, on how to dismantle the administration. The irony would be almost poetic if it were not so predictable.

What makes the saga particularly revealing is Fayemi’s spectacular display of lily-liveredness.

When Amaechi publicly alleged in 2025 that both men were the architects of a coalition designed to remove a Yoruba man from power, Fayemi’s rebuttal was so breathtaking in its evasion that it must have left Amaechi staring at the wall in disbelief. The man who allegedly co-designed the blueprint suddenly could not locate his own fingerprints on it.

The Saint from Mars

In a recent interview with broadcaster Edmund Obilo, Fayemi lamented what he described as the death of intellectualism in the APC. He mourned the collapse of internal democracy. He condemned the consensus arrangement as a polished synonym for imposition. He spoke with the serene conviction of a man who had never once imposed anything on anyone. Fayemi spoke like a saint from Mars.

For those who lived through his tenure as Ekiti State Governor, the cognitive dissonance was almost physically painful. His administration operated less like a democracy and more like a well-run fiefdom. Candidate lists for elective offices were drawn from the Governor’s office with the quiet efficiency of a procurement exercise. Loyal party men and women who had spent their own resources, sacrificed weekends and sleep, and earned genuine grassroots support in their constituencies were discarded. They were not reassigned, not compensated, not even properly explained to. Simply discarded, like pieces of rag that had outlived their usefulness.

Allow me to share a direct account.

A friend of mine, a lawyer employed in the telecoms sector, decided to contest a House of Assembly seat in his constituency. For months, he made the Lagos-to-Ekiti journey almost every other week, hosting communities, listening to their concerns, representing them in legal matters free of charge, and earning the kind of organic political capital that cannot be manufactured. By the time the primary season approached, the constituency was unambiguously behind him. He had done the work.

Then the list came.

His name was not on it. He was quietly advised, in his best interest, to shelve his ambitions. No explanation. No compensation. No acknowledgement of the months he had invested. My friend was not an isolated case; he was merely one of many who discovered that in Fayemi’s Ekiti, democracy was a performance staged for external consumption.

What the Harvest Looks Like

Today, the same Kayode Fayemi has positioned himself as a champion of credible primaries and internal party democracy ahead of 2027. The irony does not merely sting; it burns.

Whatever political misfortune Fayemi may be experiencing now in his own dealings with the APC establishment cannot possibly measure up to the futures he quietly mortgaged for others. There is no credible evidence that everything Amaechi alleged is accurate. But between my friend’s direct experience and what has been extensively documented in the Nigerian press, Fayemi is simply not the most convincing advocate for democratic principles this country has ever produced.

In life, you reap what you sow. Sometimes the harvest arrives slowly, and you forget you ever planted those seeds.But the earth remembers. And karma, as it turns out, arrived sooner than anyone envisaged.

By Steve Osuji

This column has  determined that any leader who cannot reverse Nigeria’s drift  in four years may never be able to do so in 40 years.

Peter Obi, the frontliner of the National Democratic Party, NDC, has vowed repeatedly that all he needs is just a term of four years as a president and he will initiate a new Nigeria that will stand irreversible. He has also said over and over that he has both the capacity and acumen to change the current morbid trajectory of the Nigerian state for good  –  in only four years!

But his political opponents have mocked him saying his postulations are at best, a desperation for power. They say he will spend the first six months trying to understand the maze that is  Aso Rock, the seat of power and another six to set up his cabinet. Some of his kinsmen from the east are up in arms, saying they would not let him abridge the Igbo turn and tenure. They argue that other ethnic groups have had eight, even 16 years on the saddle as number one.

But Peter Obi insists that it’s not about the number of years one sat  on the throne, but the impact made. He says that governance is not rocket science; that it’s all about able and visionary leadership. He has continued to tell the world that he would simply set the current rudderless ship of state called Nigeria on the right course. He would wring critical institutional changes that would remain irrevocable and upon which a new Nigeria would be anchored.

TO DISLODGE A ROGUE SYSTEM

Many Nigerians are not listening to Obi. Many listen but are skeptical. Yet many more are inured by the rogue system which has prevailed since independence and gets worse as the years roll by. Many are they who are benefitting hugely from the now pervasive roguery and they fight the change.

This Column here encapsulates some of the points Mr Obi has been trying to explain.

ONE: FREE AND FAIR ELECTION IS EVERYTHING AND IT IS ACHIEVABLE

Imagine such a day when the Nigerian voter is the lord and the voter’s card is the ultimate instrument of democratic change? Obi believes that in four years as President of Nigeria, he can set the electoral law right and ensure electoral integrity in Nigeria’s democratic system.

We have seen how the Presidency and the ruling party resisted and actually sabotaged the will of the people during the recent review of the electoral laws.

Obi insists his presidency and his party will lead such a change and make the laws perfect for Nigeria’s democracy to thrive.

He also would work to ensure that Nigeria adopts a one-term tenure of five or six years for the president and State governors.

Once these two critical objectives are achieved,  Nigeria’s ruinous politics would become normalised as obtains in advanced democracies.

This is not an impossible task, the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua was on the verge of achieving this paradigm shift.

TWO: REDUCE CORRUPTION DRASTICALLY

A sincere leader who is imbued with integrity and is driven by the power of personal example doesn’t need eight years to curb corruption.

Obi says he and his family would shun corruption. That alone would have eliminated the canker by half.

Most importantly, fighting graft is not so much about chasing thieves all about the town but more about making sure thieves are preempted and therefore prevented from stealing. The system has numerous checks against official corruption (like the Office of the Auditor-General of the Federal) but the presidency and the ruling cabal stymies such checks. Obi says he can fight, and indeed curb corruption drastically without the current accompanying hoopla!

THREE: FIX ELECTRICITY

Obi believes that a sincere president who is not himself corrupt can fix Nigeria’s power deficit in four years. The major problem with the seeming intractable electricity snafu in Nigeria is corruption. Most of the funds budgeted for fixing this crucial problem are simply stolen. There’s a current example of Mr Mamman Saleh, a former Power minister jailed for siphoning N500 billion meant for the Mambilla Power project.

Obi believes that under his watch, such a project would have been delivered in less than four years.

FOUR: CUT COST OF GOVERNANCE

All around us, all we see in every aspect of governance today is a humongous waste of public resources. Over one quarter of Nigeria’s budgets at all levels of governance are deployed to frivolities. This huge sum would definitely be deployed for the development of Nigeria. In only four years, the difference would be glaring.

FIVE: DRIVE AGRIC PRODUCTION

Successive Nigerian governments have either neglected agricultural production or they don’t really understand what it means. The situation is worse under the incumbent.

The little gains made by his immediate predecessors (Good luck Jonathan and Mohammadu Buhari) have been obliterated. Nigeria is a net importer of food under President Tinubu. Huge investments made in rice production particularly, are being wiped away right now.

Obi thinks a perspicacious president can lay the foundation for semi-mechanised and mechanised agric production, processing and exportation in four years. Nigeria can actually leapfrog into a net exporter of foods and agro-based industrial needs. This will create massive employment.

SIX: GALVANISE SME GROWTH

Small and medium scale enterprises would be supported to sprout and grow.  This remains the fulcrum of industrial production and job creation.

SEVEN: DRIVE EDUCATION, FOCUS ON STEM, TVET AND IT

Education is of course, the driving force for any society’s growth and development. Intensive investment in STEM, technical and vocational education as well as information technology over four years would lay such foundations that would be difficult to dislodge by succeeding governments.

EIGHT: UNLEASH THE POTENTIALS OF NIGERIA’S FEMALE POPULATION

Nigerian women are among the most educated population to be found anywhere in the world but they are also the most relegated.  In four years, all the legal and institutional structure, holding down Nigeria great women population would be torn down to unleash the limitless potentials in them. This doesn’t require all of four years to achieve.

NINE: MAKE NIGERIANS BELIEVE IN NIGERIA AGAIN

Obi has always said that he will run a Nigeria where merit, equity and justice would be the abiding codes of government.

You don’t have to know a governor or senator to get a job in the CBN, NNPC or the Customs, for instance. Opportunities would be created for all and the very best among us will  benefit.  In just four years, Nigeria’s japa syndrome would be reversed. Nigerians will begin to believe in Nigeria again.

TEN: FIGHT INSECURITY HEAD ON

The only reason Nigeria remains among the top most terrorised countries in the world is because successive leaders have been shy from confronting the evil head on. A lack of will, corruption and all sorts of irrational reasons have allowed evil to thrive in Nigeria for nearly two decades. A serious government will simply set a deadline of two years to completely stamp out the evil of terror in Nigeria and properly rehabilitate the victims across the country.

These things are the basic minimum a president would be expected to achieve in four years. Any president who cannot pledge to these standards is really not fit to be.

■LAST LINE: N3 TRILLION METRO RAIL AND ECONOMIC GENOCIDE AGAINST IGBO

The APC government seems to have an unwritten genocidal agenda against the southeast. It’s genocide of the economic kind. If there was any doubt about this, the recent approval of a N3trillion metro rail projects  in the northwest and South west that excluded the southeast is a proof.

This pattern has been consistent since the time of President Muhammadu Buhari.

Southeast has about 70% of Nigeria’s gas deposits but the resource is piped and deployed in every part of the country but Igboland.

Cabinet appointments, federal jobs and just any opportunities and privileges that can be denied Ndigbo is brazenly denied them in the APC era.

It’s common knowledge that people of the southeast travel the most both locally and across the world. But the federal government have most wickedly denied these people a proper international airport. Even a cargo airport developed by Imo State for over 40 years is now being used for pilgrimages to Mecca and Jerusalem instead of the economic purposes it was developed for.

The entire southeast has been shunted from the national rail programme in the last 20 years. Knowing the importance of railways to growth and development, we can conclude that what’s going on is a predetermined ill-will against the southeast. This doesn’t augur well for Nigeria’s peace and unity.