Former Ekiti State governor, Mr. Ayodele Fayose has been described as a very hard-working but stubborn man who took after his similarly stubborn father.
Isaac, a younger brother to Oshokomole, as the former governor is fondly called, stated this in an interview he granted BBC News Yoruba on the frosty relationship between him and his elder brother, Ayodele Fayose.
He described his brother as someone who works very hard but who is very stubborn. “They said all Ekiti people are stubborn, but Oshoko’s stubbornness is too much. He’s a very hard like a rock, that’s why they call him Oshoko. He’s very tough and stubborn, but he loves people so much; he loves the Ekiti people. Our father was also a stubborn man; it shows that he (Ayodele Fayose) is not a bastard,” he said.
He noted that both of them were not on talking terms, and none of them had made any move to reconcile their differences. Isaac attributed this to his elder brother’s relationship with his siblings as one who had been a governor in the past.
“I have more siblings and I’m sure that when we get tired of quarreling, we’ll talk again even if it takes 5 or 10 years. And if we don’t talk here on earth, we’re talk in heaven. He’s the one that is older than me, I’m the younger one. Whenever we meet, I’ll bow to greet him and it’s left to him to answer or not. I’ll proceed with my business.
“But for me to be calling or him calling me, no. I don’t even have his number again, I’ve deleted it on my phone. I’m not ready to call him,” Isaac Fayose said.
Speaking on the relationship between him and his other siblings, the younger Fayose he enjoys cordial relationship with them, but noted that some of them have also not spoken with the former governor in the past 5 years.
“He always feel that he’s greater than all of us because he was a governor. ‘You amount to nothing’, maybe that’s how he sees it to say he won’t talk to someone before his death. I used to tell him that ‘If you don’t talk with us till death, are you God?’ That’s why we also stay away from him,” he said.
Regardless of their dispute, Isaac said he will still support his brother should he declare to become the president of Nigeria someday. “If my brother says he wants to become the president of Nigeria, I will support him. In the last election where he participated, we didn’t talk for 5 years, but during that election, I still spent my money for our people to vote for my sibling.
“We started talking two years before the end of that administration due to the stubbornness of both of us. My feud with him is not about death, it’s still about love.”
He scored his brother high on his performance as the Ekiti State governor. “If we go to Ekiti today, all great projects that you can point at were executed by Fayose. When my brother was governor, he worked like there’s no tomorrow; he constructed the first dualised road, the highest building, the first overhead bridge, among others.”
He also clarified that he did not benefit any contract under the administration led by his brother. “I’m not saying he did wrong by not giving me contract; I’m just letting the people know because when they see me glowing, they think I’m spending the government money.
“When your brother is in the position, you have some friends that know how to build houses, some that know about road construction who will meet you to plead with your brother to give them contract. If you now talk to your brother to consider such a man and he declined, you’d now become a bad character to your friends who often think one is suffering from selfishness.”
He vowed never to become a politician. “May God not let me become a politician, may I not become a governor, a president, house of representative member or senator. I know that if I decide to vie for any position, my brother Peter Ayodele Fayose will not even support me. We have siblings that contested that he didn’t support.”
