The Minister of Solid Minerals and Steel development, Dr. John Kayode Folorunsho Fayemi, aka JKF must be an enigma. Reason, ever since his first term tenure as the executive governor of Ekiti state between 2011 and 2015, he has remained a major issue and a political colossus in the politics of the state which prides itself the fountain of knowledge.

Anyone who is familiar with the pedigree of the Isan Ekiti-born political gladiator would readily attest to the fact that JKF is no stranger to struggle; neither is struggle a stranger to him. An accomplished scholar and renowned human rights activist, JKF actually struggled hard to reclaim his initial victory at the polls through a legal tango with then rival and former governor Oluwasegun Oni, hitherto of the Peoples’ Democratic Party, (PDP) in the state.
This call to service inspired Fayemi to put in his best while in the saddle.
Available records reveal that his sterling performance and quality leadership turned around the fortunes of the state which was hitherto in a state of quandary and stunted economic growth and development.

During his tenure in office, he literally transformed and repositioned the state such that the state got high ratings in terms of efficiency, transparency and competitiveness amongst the states of Nigeria, even as the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business’ report put Ekiti among the five leading states that had made remarkable progress on all indices of doing business with ease.
While the state had been ranked 34th before his administration came on board, Fayemi’s Midas touch gave the state the needed fillip that catapulted it to the fifth position on the progress index. However, his re-election bid was thwarted by the “famous electronic rigging” that brought the current governor Peter Ayodele Fayose to power.

Again, Fayose who had once served half term as governor of Ekiti under PDP, got his first term tenure truncated through an impeachment. Now that the administration of Fayose is about to eclipse, JKF has again indicated his intention to recontest with the hope of finishing up the tasks he had earlier set for himself before the Fayose interregnum.
As it were, his attempt at a second coming has not only sent jitters down the spines of the opposition political party, PDP, the expression of interest to contest the election has become a major ache for political rivals in the fold of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state.
Notwithstanding that JKF belongs to the same political party with his rivals, he has not been spared the bitter bile of political players in the state, many of whom saw him as a pain in the neck because of his political prominence and inimitable political structure at the grassroots level. It is in view of this that there have been strident calls on him not to contest the forthcoming governorship election in the state.
Whereas the constitution allows him to contest for the exalted office of the governor of Ekiti State, most of his critics have been dubiously canvassing against Fayemi’s bid for a re-election.
These rivals have since dominated both the social and traditional media in the desperate move to prevent or at best discourage the human rights activist-turned politician from exercising his constitutional rights.
What is most ludicrous about the arguments and explanations on why the self-appointed critics would wish JKF not to contest is the fact that they love him so much and would not want him to be rubbished at the polls by the same Ekiti electorates whom JKF served meritoriously in his first term.
One of the critics once wrote in an article bereft of logic and reason when he argued “each time I write, I never doubted the quality and competence of Fayemi to govern Ekiti state again and again, and that is never reflected in my arguments…..I write this as someone who admires Fayemi and thinks he has had a distinguished career in Nigerian politics”.
Not done, the critic argued, “I have been particularly concerned about the timing (of recontesting) I see Fayemi as deeply soaked in hostilities this time around and a lot of arrows darted towards him and his ambition to govern Ekiti again. And I see Fayemi as too suave and too strategic but too naïve to face the attack. I therefore strongly wish he doesn’t swim against the tide this time.”
Judging from the aforementioned, it appears most of the critics of JKF have no issues they could hang on his neck other than their hidden agenda to coerce and possibly force JKF into a lazy submission to their whims and caprices.
Aside the mischief that hallmarks critics’ over-worn melodies that Fayemi should not contest, impeccable sources have revealed a deep seated fear and apprehension amongst some hitherto friends and ex-political aides who fear that JKF’s second coming will probably relegate them and permanently condemn them into political oblivion.
The fear, which those who are very close to JKF and his humane nature have dubbed unfounded, emanated from the series of betrayals and conspiracies which some of these old friends and associates had earlier wrought against their former principal and benefactor. Political pundits can readily attest to the politics of betrayals behind the under-currents of APC crisis in Ekiti state long before now.