Ekiti election as kinesics for 2019

The way the recently conducted governorship election in Ekiti state was won and lost together with all deafening shenanigans and boastful rhetoric that attended its prospects and outcomes may have offered a reflective barometric touchstone on which the presidential election of 2019 could be conjectured.
The first take away from the election is that the election being the latest in the sequence of electioneering schedules provides the basis on which the sophistication, resilience and dynamism of the critical mass of the electorate can be measured.
The Ekiti electorate were lucky enough to have witnessed governance under Dr Kayode Fayemi and Governor Ayo Fayose and were able to make informed comparisons.
The verdict of the election therefore was not based on some hypothetical campaign constructs or the ubiquitous federal might as being bandied by the ruling party in the state.
The Anambra state governorship election copiously puts a lie to such narrative.
Election observers’ claim of votebuying notwithstanding, the Ekiti electorate was able to reinvent a demographic nexus of intellectual proclivity with a collective determination to leverage political inclusiveness for a prosperous political destiny.
The overhyped popularity of the out-going governor, which almost stereotyped Ekiti as a pariah state, has no intrinsic developmental benefit.
The second takeaway can be viewed in context of Fayemi’s reconstructed body language, coming from his usual elitist aloofness, Fayemi seems to have re-learned the art of engagement with the electorate, a major political capital not just for his soon-to-beinaugurated political office, but a prospectus for a higher political office.
President Muhammadu Buhari must also re-learn this art if he contemplates a seamless victory in the 2019 general election.
For instance, a lot of efforts by various security agents to arrest the menace of herdsmen all over the country have been grossly underreported.
The President would do himself a world of good by engaging with Nigerians in a national broadcast articulating the efforts of his government so far and making the challenges overt enough for citizens to relate with.
However, if the President prefers to remain silent and only would come out to react to the opposition’s rhetoric on the herdsmen attacks without engaging with Nigerians on details, then it leaves very much to be desired.
However, Fayose can still redeem his image if he dedicates the interregnum going forward to governance and people-focused project completion rather than postelection empty shenanigans.
Bukola Ajisola, Victoria Island, Lagos