Chronicles of A Political Party Musical Slogans in Ekiti Elections: Is There a Correlation Between Music and Election Outcome?

*EKITI is a state is in south western Nigeria, one of Nigeria(West Africa)'s 36 states. Ekiti Kete means Ekiti people in Ekiti dialect.

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It all started with a man Ekiti Kete (Ekiti people) call 'OMO ADEBAYO'-Otunba Richard Niyi Adebayo, 2003/2004. Niyi was the first man to administer Ekiti state in the current democratic dispensation. 'Niyi rode to Ekiti topmost office on the back of his father's good records in Ekiti history. Niyi's father, General Adebayo, did make Ekiti proud when he was a military governor of Western Region. The Western Region of those days included Lagos, Old Oyo, Old Ondo and Ogun states. Thus, Otunba Niyi did not struggle much to coast home victory in the 1999 elections.

Niyi's first term was smooth, if not for the occasional complaint of Ekiti Kete about his insufficient experience. Ekiti Kete complained that he gave his appointees unchecked opportunities to misappropriate funds, on account of inexperience.

Nevertheless, relying on his accomplishments, Otunba sought for re-election. In making this happen, he organized for campaigns and rallies. And, he created a unique fuse of strategy into the art of electioneering campaigns, first of its kind in Ekiti election campaign history, if not the first in the whole of Nigeria.

NIYI ADEBAYO(2004) AND 'KONKO BELOW'

'KONKO BELOW'(by Lagbaja): Mehn, Otunba Niyi was such a great dancer of Lagbaja's hit song of that time. At every political campaign or gathering, our Niyi would first 'go below' to Lagbaja's rhythmical instructions without missing a step. If you had seen him at Mobil station, Ado, where he killed Lagbaja's beats, you would have wowed how a sitting governor could've had enough time to coach Lagbaja how to accurately dance his (Lagbaja) song.

Well, Otunba Niyi's adoption of Lagbaja’s Konko below did not help in the long run.

Instead, Ekiti Kete's were like: "Wow, this governor is such a great thank God it’s Friday person. Now we know how he'll be making merry with our commonwealth".

To cut the story short, Otunba Niyi's Konko Below dance steps didn't endear Ekiti electorates’ hearts to him; instead, Niyi's display of dance skills gave rooms for Ekiti people to see him in other colors.

 Unfortunately, Niyi lost the election, but he got Ekiti electorate entertained.

 JFK(JOHN KAYODE FAYEMI), Mrs. JFK (2014) AND 'KODUROSOKE'

 Fayemi’s KODUROSOKE (by Olamide): JKF found his love with Olamide's rave of the moment musical hit-Kodurosoke. He adopted it as his campaign focus musical. 

Olamide Baddo himself graced many of JKF big campaign occasions, singing his hit song to entertain the audience. Most of the times, the program anchor would call on JFK and Mrs. JKF to slug it out with Olamide's hit, Kodurosoke, to assure the electorates there was ‘no shaking his victory’ at the polls.

 Each time an event compere called on JKF and Mrs. JKF to shake to Olamide's beat, Mrs. JKF always carried the show. Ostensibly, Ekiti people were not annoyed at this, for they excused JKF, an academician, Ph.D. holder, for not being as excellent as his wife in making dance steps.But,the impression this created still affected him somewhat.

The couple's acts of dancing together at rallies created windows from where Ekiti people measured Aunty Bisi (Mrs. JKF)'s personality metrics. Ekiti calculated that Mrs. JKF must be an avid party friendly and highly social person to have had such great dance skills in Olamide’s song.

Thus, the feelings were like “she could be having some overbearing stunts on JKF who appeared to be a reserved person."

Then, on account of that, Ekiti people were like "Mrs. JKF will be the one controlling us, indirect."

As if that was not enough. The last straw that broke the camel's back in Fayemi's 2014 campaign strategies was the coincidence his adopted campaign musical slogan(KODUROSOKE) and his OKEAYABA PROJECT.

Fayemi who Ekiti people saw, then, as too distant from the people, had constructed a new governor's house on one of Ado-Ekiti topmost hills-OKEAYABA.

Ekiti people summarized Fayemi's OKEAYABA new governor house project together with his campaign musical slogan (KODUROSOKE) in their heads and concluded that Fayemi was creating a God-like wall around himself.  They thought reelecting him would further make him distant from the people who he ought to be closer to. 

In spite of the fact that, they, Ekiti people, had watched him severally dance KODUROSOKE; they dribbled him with votes. The loss was massive, he lost all the state’s 16 local governments areas. KODUROSOKE, as used by Olamide literally, means to "stay put atop."

JKF(JOHN KAYODE FAYEMI,2018) AND LEGBEGBE(ONE CORNER DANCE)

Now, 2018, Fayemi's campaign musical slogan is the popular LEGBEGBE (One corner, or corner by corner dance) music in Nigeria.

 Fayemi yesterday's(July 10) mega rally was wild with LEGBEGBE beats, as JFK and Mrs. JKF bent one- corner- wise in sync with the beats.

The event compere added flavor, she usually employed Lagos phonics (Lagos-Yoruba Phonetics) to invite JKF onstage to the beat. "JFK, ee fun won legbe gbe"(JFK give it to them corner by corner!), the rally compere would always stylishly invited JFK to dance.

The D-day event is slated for the weekend, as the election is slated for this weekend.

 But now, how would Ekiti spectators define JKF's dance of LEGBEGBE, this time around? Would they say his LEGBEGBE dance steps could suggest how he would corner Ekiti commonwealth?

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