The race for Ogun State governorship gets tighter as the April election date draws near, Assistant Editor (South West), MUYIWA OLALEYE, writes.
Ahead of April 11 governorship election in Ogun, the leading political parties in the state are set to slug it out in the race for Oke Mosan Government House.
Interestingly, each of the parties believes it has the people’s support and the capacity to win the governorship poll, given its spread and popularity across the 20 local government areas of the state.
Candidates of the leading political parties are Governor Ibikunle Amosun of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Gboyega Isiaka of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the senator representing Ogun West, Akin Odunsi, for the newly-registered Social Democratic Party (SDP).
Even with demonstrable presence of PDP in the state, some argue that the race will essentially be between APC and SDP. They argue further that the battle to get re-elected may be tough for Amosun, given that his party, the APC, has lost some of its prominent supporters to the SDP.
In recent time, for instance, the three senators representing the state, five House of Representatives members and some APC supporters had defected to the SDP following the crisis that rocked the ruling party during its last state congress.
A former governor of the state, Olusegun Osoba, led the three senators – Adegbenga Kaka (Ogun East), Akin Odunsi (Ogun West) and Gbenga Obadara (Ogun Central) – to the SDP after what they considered as factionalisation of APC leading to the emergence of parallel executives at the ward, local government and state levels.
Amosun’s deputy, Segun Adesegun, had also dumped the APC for the SDP over irreconcilable differences.
Explaining why they dumped the APC, Kaka had explained: “Our protest, appeal and demand for justice from the national leadership of the party had yielded no result. Rather, the faction that flagrantly flouted the party guidelines was given recognition by the APC national executive.
“We gave a very long rope. We felt that we could not be looking for peace when the other members involved in the illegality were not interested in peace.
“Our supporters were getting restless and the deadline for submission of forms was closing. We could not continue to wait endlessly.
“We had waited for over two and half years to even have an interaction with the governor, but he avoided us.
“We had explored all channels to resolve the crisis without success. Maybe the leadership of the party thought otherwise about us. The tendency for impunity and injustice led us to where we are today.”
SDP had also ratified all its candidates for the poll as part of the strategies to unseat the governor. Specifically, all members of the House of Assembly who recently left APC for the party were given automatic tickets.
Given the exodus, analysts had argued that the governor might need to work harder to weather the storm constituted by the opposition party in his re-election bid.
Though the PDP has named Isiaka as its candidate, the crisis rocking the party after its just-concluded primary has yet to be fully resolved. It is therefore feared that the party may suffer defeat as it did during the 2011 general elections over its inability to resolve its internal squabbles.
The state chapter of the party is, for instance, said to be torn along two major divides headed by Chairman of the PDP Mobilisation and Organisation Committee in the South West, Buruji Kashamu, and former Governor Gbenga Daniel. Kashamu’s camp is said to have upper hand in the struggle for the control of the party.
The renewed rivalry between the two leaders of the camps has not helped matters for the party.
But Daniel, who may have recalled the defeat the PDP suffered during the 2011 general elections, has expressed fear that the current internal crisis among its fold may mar the party’s chances of winning the next poll, if not controlled.
Expressing his dissatisfaction over the activities of some leaders of the party, the former governor urged them to desist from discussing party’s political developments in the media, insisting that such actions negate the PDP constitution.
According to Daniel, “internal disagreements, which are supposed to be necessary ingredients of democracy are, on daily basis, being externalised. This smacks of indiscipline and must be discouraged by all lovers of democracy, especially at this crucial period when we inch towards a major election that will shape the future of the nation.”
Like APC, PDP may approach the next governorship election with divided house, it has been estimated.
Two factors are counted in favour of SDP. One is the popularity that trailed it because of Osoba’s role in its formation. The party is also planning to reap from the crisis rocking the APC.
In fact, a chieftain of the party, Supo Olowu, who spoke in Ijebu-Ode, had described the APC crisis as a good development for the SDP.
“It is a good development for us. What we are experiencing right now is what we have been waiting for because SDP is representing the preferred option, especially in Ogun State,” Olowu had said.
While the three leading political parties get set for the next elections, the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) governorship candidate, Rotimi Paseda, and his counterpart in Labour Party (LP), Sina Kawonise, also offer themselves as better alternatives to the people of the state.
Paseda had, after the UPN primary held in Ijebu-Ode, said that his emergence as the party’s candidate was history in the making, pledging that he would lead by example.
The LP flag-bearer had also expressed confidence in winning the next governorship election in the state. The state chairman of the party, Olabode Simeon, stressed further that the party would contest election into all the elective offices in the state.
“Contesting this time is not a jamboree. We are contesting and we are confident of winning the elections. By the grace of God, our party will win the 2015 elections and we will rule this state. My humble advice to all party members is to remain calm and focused, as the journey to victory is always rough but we will surely get there”, he said.
On the other hand, an APC stalwart, Samuel Adebiyi, said despite the popularity of the three major parties, the APC seemed to have an upper hand because of Amosun’s performance.
Adebiyi told TheNiche that going by the presence of the government in all the three senatorial districts of the state, the people would re-elect the governor.
“Governor Amosun is having a full grip of Ogun Central as his support base, so, he is likely to win more votes from other senatorial districts,” he said.
He, however, predicted fierce battle for the control of Ogun West between PDP and SDP because the governorship candidates of both parties are from the senatorial zone.
“SDP is banking on the popularity of Osoba as its only strategy to win the election, while the PDP depends on Daniel’s political family,” he added.
