Ekiti State governor, Ayodele Fayose, has said he will not hold any media chat via the social media with prolific blogger, Japheth Omojuwa, in what is likely the first of such public rejection since Omojuwa started his #JJmeets event on the micro-blogging site, Twitter.
Mr. Omojuwa had during the last Sunday installment of the event which he held with Lagos State governor, Akinwunmi Ambode, expressed his willingness to meet with several Nigerian governors including Fayose.
Yesterday’s #JJmeetsAmbode became an immediate sensation on Twitter, affording Ambode the opportunity to update Lagosians about his administration’s progress and challenges so far.
Governor Rauf Aregbesola was a guest of Omojuwa on #JJmeets on September 10 under the hashtag #JJmeetsOgbeni.
The event, which usually lasts between 90-115 minutes, allows Nigerians on Twitter to engage their political office holders on salient issues.
Shortly before Ambode joined Omojuwa, the blogger tweeted, “Governor Ayo Fayose of Ekiti State is on the cards #JJmeetsFayose,” while responding to another tweeter. Then during his engagement with Ambode, he reiterated his willingness to have Fayose on, writing, “Great. I will put this to Governor Fayose when I engage him soon #JJmeetsAmbode #JJmeetsFayose.”
But apparently not completely blown away by the online frenzy that usually accompanies #JJmeets, Governor Fayose has come out to publicly decline Omojuwa’s invitation.
“I won’t be holding any meeting on Social Media, especially JJ Omojuwa for now,” he tweeted this afternoon at 2:28.
It is not immediately clear why the governor declined participation, especially given how frequent he uses the medium himself, but observers said the decline may not have been unconnected with Omojuwa’s politics.
Omojuwa, 31, is hardly known for his charitable remarks towards Fayose, former President Goodluck Jonathan and the PDP as a whole. More often than not, he’s usually seen attacking PDP sympathisers on Twitter, with his exchanges getting extremely vicious at times.
During the legislative crisis that gripped Ekiti State last May, Omojuwa tweeted that he hoped Mr. Fayose is “gone by the end of the week.” He is also infamous for elevating a pig above President Jonathan on his Twitter page, a post that PDP social media backers still frequently use to hound Omojuwa online.
But a PDP social media consultant said Governor Fayose should not have looked at Omojuwa’s politics, no matter how vituperative he may have been in the past, because the governor also stands to benefit politically from such engagement.
“He shouldn’t have looked at his insults and curses at all, because there are so many youth on Twitter today and they will like to have direct discussions with the governor and I think Omojuwa’s platform is probably the widest,” the source told Happenings in an email.
Source: Happenings.com