Return of House of Representatives member, Opeyemi Bamidele, to APC sets the tone for gradual build-up for Ekiti governorship election in 2018, Assistant Editor (South West), MUYIWA OLALEYE, reports.
Even with the Ekiti State governorship election clearly three years ahead, the race for the top shot is gradually but steadily assuming interesting dimensions. The race picked more notches during the month, especially with the defection of the 2014 governorship candidate of Labour Party (LP), Opeyemi Bamidele, to the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Bamidele, member of the House of Representatives, has his roots in APC, having entered the legislature on the platform of Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), one of the legacy parties that fused into the party.
Since APC lost the governorship election in Ekiti on June 21, 2014, it has been stumbling from one electoral loss to another. The party appeared not to have come out of its shock when the 2015 general election came. Its woeful performance in the national and state assembly elections left it further dazed, with many observers agreeing that it needed urgent intervention.
To keen followers of developments in the state, the defeat of Kayode Fayemi by Ayo Fayose in the election seemed to be the factor still holding the APC down in Ekiti, especially as the party has failed to record any major electoral victory since then.
Even at that, the insistence of majority of the party’s lawmakers in the House of Assembly to impeach Governor Fayose has not helped matters.
In the ensuing confusion, the APC in Ekiti now has two factions namely: the mainstream APC led by Fayemi and the Action Group being propelled by the outgoing senator representing Ekiti Central, Babafemi Ojudu. The two groups have, in recent times, engaged in struggle for control of the party machinery in the state.
The return of Bamidele, who represents Ekiti Federal Constituency I in the House of Representatives, may therefore be a signal of the rebuilding process for the party. He had all along refused to join the party from the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) on which platform he was elected a member of the House of Representatives, citing irreconcilable differences with the leaders of the party in Ekiti State and their alleged undemocratic acts as his reason. However, he retained his tentacles among the leaders of the party at the higher level while he went to LP to pursue his governorship ambition.
Bamidele, despite severing relationship with the APC before the 2014 governorship election in the state, formed an alliance with the party for the presidential election. He declared openly when national leaders of the APC visited him in his Iyin-Ekiti home that his supporters and members of his political group, Ekiti Bibiire Coalition, should vote for President Muhammadu Buhari in the election.
Many interpreted this move as a pointer to his political re-union with the APC, considered to be his true political home. Recently, he formally joined the party, when he addressed newsmen that he had joined the APC with his supporters and members of the Bibiire Coalition and LP. This move has set the tone for another kind of scheming in the APC in Ekiti. He looks like the beautiful bride in the party because by the estimation of numerous observers and commentators in the state, Ojudu hasn’t got the support base in the party in Ekiti, while Fayemi’s electoral value has, at the moment, taken a nose-dive.
Pointers to his acceptability in the APC were seen when he made a surprise appearance at the rally held for Buhari and his running mate, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, at the state pavilion, Ado-Ekiti, during the presidential campaign rallies. Bamidele was given a rousing welcome to the podium, though he had not announced his defection to the party. In addition, he formed an independent campaign group with a former Minister of Aviation, Professor Babalola Borisade, christened Buhari/Osinbajo Campaign Group.
He had justified his action by saying that Buhari’s project and agenda went beyond party politics. Specifically, Bamidele had described it as “a movement to save Nigeria from imminent collapse”.
He had also noted that his aligning with APC was like rejoining a political family, adding: “We share the same ideology which is deeply founded on progressivism. I am ready to support any cause that will bring Nigeria out of the woods.”
Despite his falling out with the powers-that-be in the APC in his home state, he had remained a rallying point not only in the APC but among the political class in Ekiti and among the commoners and elite. Among the things that had endeared him to his admirers was his display of sportsmanship after the recent House of Assembly election in Ekiti, when he visited the home of the winner of the election in Irepodun/Ifelodun Constituency 1, Omodara Olamiposi of the PDP, and gave him N500,000 to mark his victory. Similarly, he extended the gesture to the candidates of LP, Opeyemi Dada, and that of the APC, Bisi James, giving each the sum of N250,000. He said their reward was for “displaying maturity during the poll”.
According to him, “the decision was taken to cement the tie of brotherliness in Iyin-Ekiti and to prove a point that politics should be a game to unify the people and not an avenue for a town to be ripped apart all in the name of power contest.”
Both the PDP and the APC candidates are from Bamidele’s native Ibedoyin Quarters, while the LP candidate is from Oke Ilawe, all in his Iyin-Ekiti community.
The argument in Ekiti APC by Bamidele’s supporters is that the entry of the lawmaker into the party will make it more competitive, especially given that Fayemi, who lost power to Fayose, has not been actively involved in local politics of the party unlike him.
“Fayemi has been more of a national politician, having served as the chairman of APC National Congress Committee, which produced Buhari as the presidential flag-bearer of the party,” said a party source in Ekiti.
Also, given his urbane disposition, the local politicians are unsure if Fayemi would be prepared to play active role in the state’s politics in the nearest future. All, therefore, seems to be working for Bamidele.
Some key chieftains of the APC, however, argue that it was essentially Bamidele’s ambition to govern the state that contributed to the party’s loss in the June 21, 2014 election and its subsequent downward slide.
“So, we believe that he has no role to play that will be meaningful because he cannot reap where he has not sown,” one of them insisted.
There are, however, party members who insist that the return of Bamidele to the APC fold is expected to fill the vacuum they said had been “created in the party by its floundering leaders”, adding that “the timing is right before it is too late”.
