Ahead of the governorship election in Ekiti State this
saturday, we at Ekiticonmagazine have decided to x-rays the campaign strategies
of the three major gladiators and their chances of victory in the election…
About three months ago, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) blew the whistle for the start of the electoral campaigns ahead of the June 21 governorship election in Ekiti State. In the contest are eighteen candidates of various political parties, three of whom are major contenders for the coveted office of the governor.
They are Dr. Kayode Fayemi of the All Progressives Congress (APC), who is also
the incumbent governor of the state.About three months ago, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) blew the whistle for the start of the electoral campaigns ahead of the June 21 governorship election in Ekiti State. In the contest are eighteen candidates of various political parties, three of whom are major contenders for the coveted office of the governor.
Others are Opeyemi Bamidele of the Labour
Party (LP)
and Mr. Ayodele Fayose of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).
The three parties announced the establishment of their campaign organizations with full complement of staff. Kayode Fayemi Campaign Organisation is headed by Congressman Bimbo Daramola, a brilliant smooth talker and political strategist, complete with another broadcaster, Dimeji Daniels, as the spokesman of the campaign group and Sanmi Omiata, a media strategist, as the Director of Communications.
Fayose picked Mr. Dipo Anisulowo as the director-general of his campaign team while Idowu Adelusi is his spokesperson. Bamidele appointed Rope Ige as the director-general of his campaign with Bolanle Bruce functioning as the director of media and publicity.
On the field, campaign strategies employed by the three candidates differ and reflect the seriousness each of the candidates attaches to the election. While Fayemi again remodels his Eight-point agenda as essential element of his campaign strategy to sway and win the support of the people for continuity of quality service to Ekiti people, both Bamidele and Fayose had no manifesto to show to the people. But much later, while Fayose appeared to rely on street shows with okada riders, eating and drinking by the roadsides with his supporters, the Labour Party candidate launched his manifesto but not with the publicity and elucidation that greeted Fayemi’s campaign programme launch. Since then, the APC candidate has been moving from one community to the other to explain what he has in stock for the people if he is elected.
Fayemi is strengthened by the level of works he has done in the state in the last three and a half years, for in all the 131 communities in the state, there is none he has visited that he could not point to at least three completed projects that these communities themselves preferred during his village meetings with the people before the annual budget preparation sessions.
He latched onto his well-structured and well-staffed campaign organization anchored on mass participation by other members who are combing all the nooks and crannies of the state in a multi-layer campaign strategy to sell his candidature.
Fayemi also raised formidable teams of party leaders in each local government. This is complemented in each town’s campaign committee while in the wards, other sets of campaign groups are raised to work with another campaign group at the unit level. This is complemented by the volunteer unit that moves about in house-to-house campaigns. This approach has kept the party busy in every community so much that no other party has the presence that APC registers across the state. This is made easy by the unity in the party unlike other parties that are bedeviled by factionalisation. While several members of these factions in PDP defected to APC, the party has never lost any of its members to PDP.
Top PDP members that defected to APC are former Governor Segun Oni, his commissioners and special advisers. Others who defected include former PDP Deputy Speaker in the House of Assembly, Taiwo Olatubosun; and Majority Leader in the House, Layi Oke; Majority Leader of the Assembly during Fayose’s administration, Kayode Babade; Bisi Aloba, Ben Oguntuase, Tunde Ajayi and several local government chairmen of PDP, who protested the hijack of the party by Fayose in active connivance with the national leadership of the party.
Other PDP leaders working at cross-purposes with Fayose include former Speaker Femi Bamisile, former governorship aspirants Yinka Akerele, Prof Adesegun Ojo and Ropo Ogunbolude, among others, who have vowed never to have anything to do with Fayose over his antecedents.
In the camps of Abiodun Aluko, Bisi Omoyeni and Caleb Olubolade, all of them governorship aspirants, mum is the word over indifference to the fate of the candidate of their party at the poll. In the last one week, Fayose has been completely off the streets while Bamidele’s campaign rallies recorded low turn-outs, even as various groups within APC are emerging everyday to add colour and strength to Fayemi’s chances.
In Labour Party, the factionalisation that rankled the party snowballed into large numbers of the original members and executives of the party defecting to APC. The few former members of ACN that defected to Labour Party over appointments made no negative impact in the party in their communities when the APC campaign train visited those communities, as more members of Labour Party defected to APC.
While the candidates of the Labour Party and PDP are the arrowheads of their campaign strategies dominating space in both the media and campaign podiums, APC’s campaign is anchored on a two-pronged approach coordinated by the governor leading an arm of the campaign and his wife leading the other, which gives an impression that APC has two governorship candidates in the election.
Observers argue that were the wife of the governor, Erelu Bisi Fayemi, to be a candidate of another party different from her husband’s, she stands the chance of winning the poll ahead of her husband owing largely to the novel strategies she has introduced to electioneering never witnessed in this shore since independence.
The wife of the governor, after accompanying her husband to all the 131 communities in the state, would return to these communities mobilizing and empowering women with life-lifting schemes, including donating working tools and cash for women to improve their businesses.
She anchors her strategy on the platform of her NGO called Ekiti Development Foundation, which she launched almost immediately her husband assumed duties as the governor of Ekiti State. She made effective use of the NGO right from the beginning of the life of the administration to reach women and taking care of the children in Ekiti communities.
During campaigns, she doubles her efforts promoting the ideals of her NGO.
In the farmsteads, Mrs. Fayemi provides for the needy, giving out cassava processing machines and stoves, grinding machines and several other households equipment. During many of her visits to the communities, many indigent women and mothers of multiple births became the beneficiaries of her generosity as she gave out baby items and cash to relieve the parents of these children. Her journeys that start as early as 8am end in the evenings, including weekends.
This is the strategy the wife of PDP candidate has tried to ape, but which has not made as much impact as that recorded by her APC counterpart, largely because of a seeming half-hearted manner in which Fayose is running his campaign.
As for the Labour Party, no one knows how Bamidele’s wife looks like, let alone coming face to face with her for succour to shore up support for her husband in realizing his governorship ambition.
Again, while APC enjoys programme appeal and a well-structured campaign team incorporating Administration, Media, Finance and Communications departments, PDP’s campaign is headquartered in Fayose’s private hotel where he personally directs affairs as the administration and campaign manager as well as finance director to the exclusion of other party leaders and members. This alone accounts for why party leaders stay away from his campaign activities. Observers are shocked to see Fayose present in all his campaign activities doing the talking all alone unlike other parties where credible leaders take the podium to address the people.
Most shocking and absurd is Fayose himself personally distributing rice and money to members and supporters on the queue in the premises of his hotel. At best, for now, what Fayose relies on for victory is the almighty Federal power, as he boasts about that the result is already concluded, saying “the President will do anything for me to win this election”.
While other candidates do not have evidence that they can deliver the goods to Ekiti people after Fayose had demonstrated beyond doubt that he represents nothing but cloudy way of doing things, Fayemi is armed with the compendium of his quality jobs in a tabloid production that has gone viral on the streets and in the social and print media.
With the old and the vulnerable that enjoy monthly social security benefit reportedly keeping their cards to vote Fayemi during the poll and other classes of beneficiaries of his programmes, including pregnant women and old people that enjoy free medical services, these are clear advantages for Fayemi in the election. This will be complemented by the students that are enjoying free computers and other classes of indigenes that are living witnesses to the rapid transformation that Ekiti State has witnessed in the last three and a half years. All these accomplishments, including unity in his party and his campaign strategy that is all-embracing, according to several opinion polls, are added advantages that
put Fayemi ahead of other candidates in the June 21, 2014 governorship election in Ekiti State.
The three parties announced the establishment of their campaign organizations with full complement of staff. Kayode Fayemi Campaign Organisation is headed by Congressman Bimbo Daramola, a brilliant smooth talker and political strategist, complete with another broadcaster, Dimeji Daniels, as the spokesman of the campaign group and Sanmi Omiata, a media strategist, as the Director of Communications.
Fayose picked Mr. Dipo Anisulowo as the director-general of his campaign team while Idowu Adelusi is his spokesperson. Bamidele appointed Rope Ige as the director-general of his campaign with Bolanle Bruce functioning as the director of media and publicity.
On the field, campaign strategies employed by the three candidates differ and reflect the seriousness each of the candidates attaches to the election. While Fayemi again remodels his Eight-point agenda as essential element of his campaign strategy to sway and win the support of the people for continuity of quality service to Ekiti people, both Bamidele and Fayose had no manifesto to show to the people. But much later, while Fayose appeared to rely on street shows with okada riders, eating and drinking by the roadsides with his supporters, the Labour Party candidate launched his manifesto but not with the publicity and elucidation that greeted Fayemi’s campaign programme launch. Since then, the APC candidate has been moving from one community to the other to explain what he has in stock for the people if he is elected.
Fayemi is strengthened by the level of works he has done in the state in the last three and a half years, for in all the 131 communities in the state, there is none he has visited that he could not point to at least three completed projects that these communities themselves preferred during his village meetings with the people before the annual budget preparation sessions.
He latched onto his well-structured and well-staffed campaign organization anchored on mass participation by other members who are combing all the nooks and crannies of the state in a multi-layer campaign strategy to sell his candidature.
Fayemi also raised formidable teams of party leaders in each local government. This is complemented in each town’s campaign committee while in the wards, other sets of campaign groups are raised to work with another campaign group at the unit level. This is complemented by the volunteer unit that moves about in house-to-house campaigns. This approach has kept the party busy in every community so much that no other party has the presence that APC registers across the state. This is made easy by the unity in the party unlike other parties that are bedeviled by factionalisation. While several members of these factions in PDP defected to APC, the party has never lost any of its members to PDP.
Top PDP members that defected to APC are former Governor Segun Oni, his commissioners and special advisers. Others who defected include former PDP Deputy Speaker in the House of Assembly, Taiwo Olatubosun; and Majority Leader in the House, Layi Oke; Majority Leader of the Assembly during Fayose’s administration, Kayode Babade; Bisi Aloba, Ben Oguntuase, Tunde Ajayi and several local government chairmen of PDP, who protested the hijack of the party by Fayose in active connivance with the national leadership of the party.
Other PDP leaders working at cross-purposes with Fayose include former Speaker Femi Bamisile, former governorship aspirants Yinka Akerele, Prof Adesegun Ojo and Ropo Ogunbolude, among others, who have vowed never to have anything to do with Fayose over his antecedents.
In the camps of Abiodun Aluko, Bisi Omoyeni and Caleb Olubolade, all of them governorship aspirants, mum is the word over indifference to the fate of the candidate of their party at the poll. In the last one week, Fayose has been completely off the streets while Bamidele’s campaign rallies recorded low turn-outs, even as various groups within APC are emerging everyday to add colour and strength to Fayemi’s chances.
In Labour Party, the factionalisation that rankled the party snowballed into large numbers of the original members and executives of the party defecting to APC. The few former members of ACN that defected to Labour Party over appointments made no negative impact in the party in their communities when the APC campaign train visited those communities, as more members of Labour Party defected to APC.
While the candidates of the Labour Party and PDP are the arrowheads of their campaign strategies dominating space in both the media and campaign podiums, APC’s campaign is anchored on a two-pronged approach coordinated by the governor leading an arm of the campaign and his wife leading the other, which gives an impression that APC has two governorship candidates in the election.
Observers argue that were the wife of the governor, Erelu Bisi Fayemi, to be a candidate of another party different from her husband’s, she stands the chance of winning the poll ahead of her husband owing largely to the novel strategies she has introduced to electioneering never witnessed in this shore since independence.
The wife of the governor, after accompanying her husband to all the 131 communities in the state, would return to these communities mobilizing and empowering women with life-lifting schemes, including donating working tools and cash for women to improve their businesses.
She anchors her strategy on the platform of her NGO called Ekiti Development Foundation, which she launched almost immediately her husband assumed duties as the governor of Ekiti State. She made effective use of the NGO right from the beginning of the life of the administration to reach women and taking care of the children in Ekiti communities.
During campaigns, she doubles her efforts promoting the ideals of her NGO.
In the farmsteads, Mrs. Fayemi provides for the needy, giving out cassava processing machines and stoves, grinding machines and several other households equipment. During many of her visits to the communities, many indigent women and mothers of multiple births became the beneficiaries of her generosity as she gave out baby items and cash to relieve the parents of these children. Her journeys that start as early as 8am end in the evenings, including weekends.
This is the strategy the wife of PDP candidate has tried to ape, but which has not made as much impact as that recorded by her APC counterpart, largely because of a seeming half-hearted manner in which Fayose is running his campaign.
As for the Labour Party, no one knows how Bamidele’s wife looks like, let alone coming face to face with her for succour to shore up support for her husband in realizing his governorship ambition.
Again, while APC enjoys programme appeal and a well-structured campaign team incorporating Administration, Media, Finance and Communications departments, PDP’s campaign is headquartered in Fayose’s private hotel where he personally directs affairs as the administration and campaign manager as well as finance director to the exclusion of other party leaders and members. This alone accounts for why party leaders stay away from his campaign activities. Observers are shocked to see Fayose present in all his campaign activities doing the talking all alone unlike other parties where credible leaders take the podium to address the people.
Most shocking and absurd is Fayose himself personally distributing rice and money to members and supporters on the queue in the premises of his hotel. At best, for now, what Fayose relies on for victory is the almighty Federal power, as he boasts about that the result is already concluded, saying “the President will do anything for me to win this election”.
While other candidates do not have evidence that they can deliver the goods to Ekiti people after Fayose had demonstrated beyond doubt that he represents nothing but cloudy way of doing things, Fayemi is armed with the compendium of his quality jobs in a tabloid production that has gone viral on the streets and in the social and print media.
With the old and the vulnerable that enjoy monthly social security benefit reportedly keeping their cards to vote Fayemi during the poll and other classes of beneficiaries of his programmes, including pregnant women and old people that enjoy free medical services, these are clear advantages for Fayemi in the election. This will be complemented by the students that are enjoying free computers and other classes of indigenes that are living witnesses to the rapid transformation that Ekiti State has witnessed in the last three and a half years. All these accomplishments, including unity in his party and his campaign strategy that is all-embracing, according to several opinion polls, are added advantages that
put Fayemi ahead of other candidates in the June 21, 2014 governorship election in Ekiti State.
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