2015 Chapter four ! Oyo: Clash of the titans. The 2015 governorship contest in Oyo State will be a contest like never before, an age-long second term jinx will either be broken or another incumbent governor will suffer bloodied nose as usual but with more damaging electoral impact and a completely new man could gain access to the Agodi Government House. In more ways than one, the outcome of the 2015 governorship contest among the APC; Accord Party; PDP and the latest entrant, SDP, will be a landmark for future elections in the state. In the state’s 38 years history, governors have always failed in their re- election bid, with the late Chief Bola Ige, who governed the state from 1979 to 1983 setting the record, which has proven too difficult to break by successive governors. The late former governor of the state, Lam Adesina also fell short in his bid to govern the state for another term in 2003, while former Governors Rashidi Ladoja and Adebayo Alao-Akala also failed woefully to convince Oyo electorate on why they should be re-elected in 2007 and 2011, respectively. That jinx, however, appears set to be broken in the 2015 election, as the duo of Ladoja and Alao-Akala on the platforms of the Accord Party and Labour Party will slug it out with the incumbent governor and APC candidate, Senator Abiola Ajimobi, with watchers of political developments nothing that one of the trio might win the heated contest that is to come. But no one can say this with absolute finality, as the PDP and its candidate and former Senate Leader, Senator Teslim Kolawole Folarin, cannot be wished away in the state, while SDP’s Seyi Makinde’s style of politics will surely catch the eye and make an accurate prediction on the eventual winner quite difficult. One phenomenon common to three of the parties in the contest, namely; PDP, APC and Accord is the issue of internal wrangling, and this appears to have given the LP and SDP a leeway ahead of the epic battle. The internal crises in PDP and APC have made them the most vulnerable, with hundreds of party faithful moving out of both parties in protest in the last one year, while a reported lack of internal democracy in the selection of national and state assembly candidates in the Accord Party might also prove to be its undoing ahead of the poll. The top gainers in Oyo State politics among the parties are the Labour Party and the SDP, which have not only absorbed aggrieved members from other parties but have also given them their governorship tickets. Alao-Akala and Makinde only recently abandoned the PDP to pick tickets in the LP and SDP after failing to get the ticket of the party, but this development, analysts have said, might affect the PDP’s chances. On the other hand, the Labour Party is largely-peopled by APC outcasts who left the party because of the governor’s alleged high-handedness. Their exit less than a year ago, it was said, will make winning a second term a tall order for the APC. Of the five political parties in the governorship race, bookmakers have predicted that the proliferation of Ibadan indigenes in the race would alter political permutations in favour of just one, just as it will create a never-seen- before dimension to the contest. The past governorship contests in the state had always been largely determined by the tilt of Ibadan votes, being the capital of the state and the zone with more than half of the voter population. But the present situation where Ladoja, Ajimobi, Folarin and Makinde will lock horns for Ibadan votes, leaving out Alao-Akala believed to be a strongman in his Ogbomoso home base as well as in some parts of Oke-Ogun, is certainly going to generate interesting outcomes. However, going by the 2011 elections performance, the Accord Party (AP) is believed to be holding the ace in the contest in Ibadan, with Labour Party (LP) set to have a good showing in Ogbomoso and Oke-Ogun. The ruling APC is banking on the performance of Governor Ajimobi to win the 2015 contest, with the party likely to command a huge presence in Ibadan and Oyo, as well as some parts of Oke-Ogun. For the PDP, its stronghold remains Oke-Ogun and Ogbomoso, cutting across Oyo North and Oyo Central Senatorial Districts, where it has two senators and some members of the House of Representatives, as well as Ibarapa, where it is expected to get a huge chunk of the vote, with the hope of making inroads into other parts of the state also bright, having once been the ruling party before internal wrangling destroyed its chances. The SDP, observers note, have a huge task ahead if it intends to make any mark, with its late entry into the race said to be its major albatross. Do you agree with this analysis? More to come . Stay tune!
Posted on: Sun, 21 Dec 2014 07:37:49 +0000
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