Here's why Fayose declared for president

It’s exactly what he wanted. It’s exactly how he likes it.

Fayose officially made his presidential ambition public in a room packed full with fawning supporters on Thursday, September 28, in Abuja. And he had all the major television networks, social media influencers and radio stations in the land, hooked on him for all of Thursday.

For all his bluster and empty braggadocio, Fayose is a smart politician who knows when to strike and how to strike. He knows how to milk the news cycle and you’ve got to hand him props for that. He’s regarded as ‘mad’ in certain circles, but there’s some method to Fayose’s madness.

Let’s cut to the chase. Fayose won’t be Nigeria’s president in 2019. He knows this deep inside of him.

But what he’s done in the last one year is make his political party and the rest of the nation begin to think that he stands a chance. He doesn’t.

Like the man himself has said, he can’t be waiting for his political party or all the other interested political aspirants to declare; with just 504 days to the 2019 general elections. “It’s possible that we don’t even have a candidate from the north”, Fayose declared. This is Fayose forcing his party’s hand and beginning the 2019 presidential election conversation—all by himself. Smart chap.

ALSO READ: 5 reasons why Fayose should become president

According to the man himself, he’s now made it clear that he’s ready for the nation’s top job. And for those who are going about dismissing his chances, Fayose has referred them to his previous political successes in his home State of Ekiti where he claimed the scalps of two incumbents and made stomach infrastructure into a political ideology.

He also gladly reminds the world that God has told him he’ll be Nigeria’s next president. Although we can recall that a certain Rev Chris Okotie also threw in the God card in 2003/2007/2011 and lost the presidential elections in that period with only a handful of votes to his name.

He’s a confident man, this Fayose. And that’s a good thing. He’s always been that way. Confidence is an integral part of the Fayose brand. But pragmatism says confidence isn’t enough in this case.

The PDP has zoned its presidency position to the north of Nigeria. No National Working Committee (NWC) member of the PDP was anywhere near Fayose’s ‘grand’ declaration. He doesn’t have the party’s backing and he won’t.

Fayose may have called the spokesperson of his party, Dayo Adeyeye, a “corrupt, selfish individual” for saying he should know better, but that doesn’t change the fact that the PDP will consider 10 politicians from the north of Nigeria to fly its presidential flag in 2019, before Fayose even gets a look-in.

The permutation in the PDP camp is to pick a northerner with some national appeal and clout to slug it all out with President Muhammadu Buhari who looks in fine fettle for another presidential run at the moment.

So, Fayose is only looking for trouble and attention. He knows he won’t win the PDP a national election. Heck, he won’t even garner enough votes across the Southwest where he hails. This whole declaration thing is Fayose putting himself on the shop window of his party as a possible vice presidential pick. He’s using the presidential declaration as a bargaining tool within the PDP. Nothing more.

This is Fayose telling the PDP that he’s got the ‘crowd’ to win a national election—even if we all know he doesn’t. And if zoning rules him out like it will, then he’ll tell his party that he should be considered as a running mate just so that he can ask this elusive ‘crowd’ to empty behind ‘northerner A’s’ presidential ticket.

Politics is a game of negotiations, horse-trading, permutations--and Fayose has set out his stall rather nicely for the 2019 presidential conversation. At least, when the PDP draws a shortlist of aspirants on its platform, he’ll be right in there with a shout.

It’s now on record that Fayose is the first politician to flag off his presidential campaign and that’s some record right there; as the politics of 2019 begins to engulf us all.

So, yes, Fayose is a pretty smart politician and he declared this week just so that we can all keep talking about him.

And here we are.

In the final analysis, there’s no such thing as bad publicity for brand Fayose and his camp.