Oyo guber race: Still too close to call: FROM YINKA FABOWALE, IBADAN Who becomes the next governor of Oyo State after the February 28 election? Well, the answer to that question blows in the air, as two fresh bloods slug it out with veterans of the gubernatorial contest, the incumbent, Isiaka Abiola Ajimobi and two of his predecessors – Rashidi Ladoja and Adebayo Alao- Akala. Observers believe the 2015 governorship election race appears reminiscent of that of 2011 in which Alao-Akala, Ladoja and Ajimobi battled themselves for the coveted prize that eventually went to the latter. But the emergence of youthful Senator Teslim Folarin, former Senate Leader and billionaire businessman and oil engineer, Seyi Makinde who represent the promise of a generational change, as well as the dynamics within the candidates’ various political parties have created a state of flux that makes forecasting an uncertain and potentially embarrassing gamble. In the build-up to and aftermath of the parties’ shadow elections to pick their respective standard-bearers, there had been massive inter-party defections and realignments of political forces across the state due to different internal strifes that beleaguered the major parties vis: the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Accord Party (AP) and hitherto fledging Labour Party (LP). In the APC was the intense, albeit covert fight between Governor Ajimobi and his loyalists on the one hand and the followers of his late godfather and former governor of the state, Alhaji Lam Adesina, who played crucial role in his election, for the control of the party’s machinery and lever. The tussle reached a head when the “Lamists” as they are called, who felt short-changed in award of appointments and patronage, allegedly cornered by the governor’s favourites, especially members of the Senator Abiola Ajimobi Campaign Organization (SENACO) with whom he crossed over to Adesina’s defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) to contest the governorship, began to leave the party and flock to other parties. The beneficiary opposition parties were the LP and AP. Many of the governor’s aides including commissioners and special advisers deserted the APC and quit the government to hitch up with and swell the LP and AP. Among them are Sarafadeen Alli, former Secretary to the State Government and Chairman of Odua Investments Company Ltd; Chief Lowo Obisesan, who served as Environment Commissioner under Ajimobi and his Water Resources, Agriculture as well as Commerce and Industry counterparts in the same regime – Sunbo Owolabi; Peter Odetomi and Kazeem Adedeji, Nurudeen Akinyo, Special Adviser on Local Governments and Wale Murphy. The biggest blow hit the party when few months ago, two of the three senators in the state elected on its platform – Senator Ayoade Adeseun (Oyo Central) and Senator Olufemi Lanlehin (Oyo South) also dumped the party and moved to the PDP and AP respectively, accusing Ajimobi of exclusively running the party like a fiefdom. Unknown to many is the fact that the young turks enjoyed the backing of party elders such as Chief Michael Koleoso, former Secretary to the State Government and second in command to the late Lam, Pa S.A. Adelere, an awoist with formidable following in Oke-Ogun zone; Pa Titilade Awakan in Oyo and Chief Caleb Oyaniyi in Ogbomoso among other prominent party chieftains. Although, for years, they silently operated behind the scene, some of the party chiefs recently came out to show they were the driving spirits behind the LP, which gained in strength with the recent defection of Alao-Akala and his supporters to it. The development has no doubt haemorrhaged the APC, although the party chieftains would disclaim the defectors as no big loss. Ajimobi’s Special Adviser on Political Matters, Dr. Gbade Ojo told SWM that for every one member that left, the APC has gained scores more, as members of the other political parties, impressed by the APC administration’s sterling performance, kept decamping to the party. The PDP, which arguably is the next largest political platform and likely to wrest power from the APC, which opposition propaganda has tainted as “anti-people” however, has been wrecked and dismembered by implosion arising from endemic power struggle amongst its leaders. The same rivalry and power tussle had divided the party making it lose the governorship to the rival ACN in 2011, as some of the aggrieved chieftains opposed to the second term of Alao-Akala either left the party or worked insidously against his reelection. For the almost four years after, series of efforts were made to reconcile feuding camps and restore peace to the party. Although the various stalwarts in their public utterances and posturing claimed to have forgiven and put the past behind them, the atavism of desperation and hostilities even in a fiercer form as the governorship race gathered momentum, indicated that like the Bourbourns of ancient France, the PDP politicians had learnt and forgotten nothing. After the acrimonious ward congress and an ordered rerun to elect delegates who would pick the governorship candidate, former Senate Leader, Folarin eventually emerged the party’s gubernatorial candidate in a controversial congress, boycotted by three of the 10 leading contenders for the party’s ticket – Alao-Akala, Seyi Makinde and Femi Babalola (Jogor). Alao-Akala clinched the LP governorship ticket while Makinde took similar step, reviving the Social Democratic Party (SDP) on whose platform he hopes to battle his more established opponents. While Alao-Akala and Makinde accused the PDP national leadership of unduly favouring and imposing Folarin and his camp, which they alleged were in the minority, Babalola flawed the process that threw the Senate Leader up, saying it breached the party guideline and a subsisting court injunction. Although he remained in the party, he had threatened to seek legal redress, even as the party hierarchy turned deaf ears to his cry of “injustice.” The exodus of the followers of the former governor, who commands an almost absolute control on the voting direction of his Ogbomoso zone, made up of five of the 33 local governments of the state with considerable influence in Oke-Ogun (with 11 local governments) and other parts of the state, as well as Makinde, who within a short time of coming into politics has built a huge state-wide political network of supporters under the name “Omi tun tun” (Fresh spring), is no doubt bound to affect the chances of the PDP in the election. However, pundits say that the fact that the former Senate Leader managed to install and sustain the present state party structure in office, despite several moves to have it dissolved since 2012 thus ensuring his emergence as the party’s standard-bearer suggests that he is a shrewd and calculating grassroots politician who may pull similar feat at the general election. Some sources are quick to recall that Folarin’s mobilisation drive and financial support aided considerably the election of Governor Ajimobi in 2011, for which some of his supporters were offered political appointments under the regime. Besides hailing from Ibadan where he is a chief and which has the majority of the entire voting population of the state (68 per cent), he is expected to split the ballots from the state capital with the other two sons of the soil in the race- Ajimobi and Ladoja. Also apart from having the advantage and appeal of the youth at his command, the former Senate Leader enjoys some popularity and sympathy which soared to the zenith among the people of the state, particularly after his perceived persecution and unjust incarceration over alleged complicity in the sensational murder of the late factional leader of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) in the state, Alhaji Lateef Salako (a.k.a Eleweomo). Some political watchers, however, believe that that rising profile may have plummeted lately by his rapprochement with his perceived tormentor, Alao-Akala, in the name of political ambition, prior to the duo’s latest stand-off. In the face of PDP’s atomisation and self-induced weakening, attention has shifted to the AP as the likely party to dislodge the APC from the Agodi Government House in May next year. The optimism would seem not misplaced. Since 2011, when it ran third in the governorship election and even won some seats in the state and national legislative assemblies, barely four months after its formation, the AP has been drawing throngs of new members including defectors from the PDP and APC into its fold, as it embarked on massive mobilisation drive across the state. The party which had pejoratively been dubbed an Ibadan party due to its winning only four local governments in its leader’s home base in the 2011 polls, ostensibly because of the short time it had to campaign has, however, fanned out to other parts of the state including Oke-Ogun, Ibarapa and Oyo. However, AP, which had for long enjoyed the reputation of being perhaps, the only major cohesive party under the leadership of Senator Ladoja, was recently rocked by crisis over allegation of undemocratic attempts by the party leadership to handpick elective office candidates for next year’s elections. Indeed, Ladoja’s Bodija home in Ibadan was besieged and attacked by irate party faithful who hurled missiles and abuses at the leader during a protest a fortnight ago. Some of the aggrieved aspirants, SWM learnt, have opened talks with LP and the SDP, newly floated by Makinde on the possibility of contesting the polls with the parties’ tickets. Although the LP also looks good to clinch the governorship seat with the combined forces of Alao-Akala, the Ibadan elements certain to cut their own slice of the votes of the city and its suburbs as well as Chief Koleosho and his colleagues in Oke-Ogun, the mutual suspicion by older members that the new entrants have come to hijack the party may work against the party. With the state of flux and continued flurry of cross-carpetting, pundits say it is difficult to venture to give the governorship prize to anyone of the political parties and their candidates as the prevailing situation merely suggested a balance of powers, with none having a clear cut edge over the others, due to inherent and potential weaknesses. A political observer, Chief Nurudeen Ajibike pointed out that with the constantly changing political landscape and splintering of the large established political parties, the governorship could go to any of them or even the new ones. What will be the major determining factor to sway the electorate, apart from well-oiled campaign strategies, he says, is the public perception and assessment of the candidates, especially those who have had the opportunity of ruling the state before. For them, therefore, 2015 is like retaking an exam by Ajimobi, Akala and Ladoja. It will be a referendum on their performance while in office and the people of the state have another opportunity to either endorse or reject them. As it were, while his two opponents might have an uphill task wishing away from the minds of the people, the grand achievements of the Ajimobi administration, especially in the areas of massive provision and uplift of social infrastructure, job creation as well as restoration of security and peace in the state, they have not failed in tar-brushing the regime as anti-people, cashing on public resentment and grievances over the demolition of houses and shops in the course of executing its urban renewal programme. Not a few complained of losing their means of livelihood to the exercise. Worse still, the state government failed to pay compensations to owners of the demolished structures, spurring further angst. Governor Ajimobi’s recent order that the first set of the affected victims numbering about 100 in Oyo and Ogbomoso be paid is seen as not going far enough, but mere vote-catching gimmick. This negative image coupled with the prevailing cash squeeze arising from dwindling revenue from the Federation Account, which has affected the state government’s ability to meet its obligations including paying contractors for completed and on-going projects as well as wages to workers, which is in arrears, are no doubt responsible for the renewed popular clamour for the return of Ajimobi’s predecessors, especially Alao Akala, by some sections of the people of the state, who argued that there was smooth cash flow and economic prosperity in his time. However, an albatross Alao-Akala and Ladoja, face is the insecurity siege that characterised their tenures when they variously held sway as PDP governors. This has formed the nucleus of the campaign message of the ruling party, which never failed to warn the people of the state of the dire consequences of allowing the old order to return. In view of the perceived baggage of the older contestants, who are all above 65 years of age, some opinions believe it is probably time to look in the direction of the youths to rescue and take the state to greater developmental heights. Fingers are pointing to Folarin and Makinde. But, while he has had rich political experience, observers note that the former Senate Leader may vicariously share in the burden of liability for the reign of terror and violence associated with PDP regimes, as a PDP chieftain. What more, his camp has been fingered as being involved in the spectre of political disturbances that reared their heads in the state recently. On the other hand is Makinde, an urbane, untainted, quiet gentleman whose lingo has been “politics without bitterness.” But, even though he has deep pockets, there are doubts as to the young politician’s capability to turn the new SDP into a winning political machine within the short time available to elections. For instance, beyond the burden of being sole financier, there is the challenge of making the relatively unknown party popular and accepted by the electorate in place of the dominant ones. This is the dilemma that faces bookmakers and the people of the state. But, the picture will, no doubt, get clearer as the contestants hit the road for campaigns now, because as one of the candidates, Folarin philosophised in a recent media interview: Everyone in the game is still shuffling cards. The coast will become clear by January. Original link Read More goo.gl/K5K09m (y) ✍comment ☏share
Posted on: Thu, 25 Dec 2014 01:04:13 +0000
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