After the rescheduled Edo State governorship election that will hold on September 28, the battle moves to neighbouring Ondo where the opposition, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), holds sway. Editor, Politics/Features, Emeka Alex-Duru writes.
With the conclusion of Ondo State chapter of All Progressives Congress (APC) primary penultimate Saturday, the battle line for the November 26 governorship election in the state has been effectively be drawn. Former President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Rotimi Akeredolu, Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), emerged winner of the exercise, defeating 23 other aspirants.
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the ruling party in the state, had on August 22 held its own primary that saw Eyitayo Jegede, another SAN, as its flag-bearer.
Labour Party (LP), another political organisation with relative showing in the state, though referred to as Governor Olusegun Mimiko’s contraption, had also held its primary. But essentially, the November exercise is a straight race between PDP and APC. This is because the issues at stake go beyond casual interpretations.
Aside neighbouring Ekiti, Ondo is another state in the South West geo-political region that is not in the APC column. The party, incidentally, has never hidden its indisposition to this and has not hidden its desire to take over the state.
In fact, since the 2015 general elections in which APC disgraced the PDP at the national level and in some states, South West leaders of the party have been prancing about on how they would take over Ondo, at least to punish Mimiko for what they perceive as his arrogant disposition towards them.
They also see in winning the state a good strategy in boosting their bargain and consolidating their stature at the party’s national politics.That is why the party is expected to mobilise its human and material resources into Ondo in a bid to reshape the political direction of the state.
But unlike other states in the region, Ondo and Ekitihave proven to be of different make for the lords in APC. In Ekiti, Governor Ayodele Fayose, though largely unconventional and in some casesbrash, has successfully reduced the APC to a mere paper tiger, having bloodied the party at all segments of electoral process in the state.
This seems to be the scenario Mimiko seeks to re-enact in Ondo. The last time he had major clash with the then Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) that later fused with other parties to form APC, he came tops, running on LP platform, before crossing over to PDP.
Akeredolu, the current candidate of APC, was the flag-bearer of the then ACN. Though the governor is not going to be on the ballot paper this time around, it is not lost on him that the exercise is going to be a proxy war of sorts between him and those that have literally been asking for his head.It is, for example, the office which he had held for the past seven and half years that is the issue. And Mimiko knows what it means to keep or lose it. For him, therefore, it is in many respects a battle of life in which any slip would throw him into political oblivion.
It is likely on the consideration of this issue at stakethat informed the governor settling for Jegede, immediate past Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice in the state. Having been around with Mimiko for nearly eight years, Jegede cannot be said to be new to the politics of the state.
He is, thus, expected to run his campaign on continuing the good policy initiatives of the Mimiko administration that he is part of. He will, for instance, point at the developments that have taken place in the state in the past seven and half years that their administration has called the shots, especially in upgrading infrastructure in the education sector, as well as the health sector that is easily touted as the government’s trump card.
His personal attributes should also come handy. Reputed to be a good team player, Jegede can also count on his extensive network of contacts to give himself the needed push in the November poll. He is also from Akure, a section of the state that has cried marginalisation since the creation of Ondo. That may draw sympathy for him.
But there are some perceived controversial steps of the governor that may rub off negatively on Jegede. One of theseis his movement from LP to PDP. While in LP, Mimiko was seen by many as an elite that, on his own, chose to pitch tents with the masses. That accounted for his upstaging a seating governor (Olusegun Agagu) in his first term and relative ease in securing a second term. Crossing over to PDP has, however, portrayed him as having dumped the people. This perception of inconsistency is what Jegede may have to contend with.
And Akeredolu may cash in on this to deal the ruling party a deadly blow. For a man that has stood with APC right from its Alliance for Democracy (AD) days, he can flaunt the credential of fidelity to a given cause before the Ondo electorate.
Having also lost in his attempt to grab the job in 2012, Akeredolu must have learnt his lesson this time around. Part of what gives hint on this direction is his decision and, in fact, ability to assert himself in the primary of his party.
Four years ago, he was seen to have been packaged and presented to Ondo voters by Bola Tinubu, former Lagos governor and APC national leader. With the move which was interpreted as imposition from outside, he was flatly rejected by the people, making him come a distant third behind Mimiko and Olusola Oke of PDP.
To his credit, Akeredolu has tactfully avoided that controversial track in the current exercise. If anything, he even exhibited traits of a rebel to Tinubu in running against and dusting the godfather’s anointed candidate, Olusegun Abraham. That may present him before the voters as one with independence of mind and opinion.
That notwithstanding, Akeredolu has a burden of running on the ticket of a party which, since winning a national election last year, is yet to get is acts together. Aside internal crisis that has almost torn APC apart at various levels, the party is yet to come up with policies that can impact meaningfully on the people. With increasing difficulties in the land, the momentous applause that greeted APC one and half years agois increasingly turning to jeers whenever the party is mentioned, even among casual political observers. The ‘change’ mantra with which it won the heart and head of the people is now mocked as ‘chain’ against progressive movement of the country. The onset of recession, which, aside any other explanation, also calls to question the managerial capabilities of the handlers of the party, is also not helping its cause. These are issues that Akeredolu may be confronted with.
How he wades through them ahead of the November 26 governorship election in Ondo may determine the extent he can go.