Assistant Editor (South West), MUYIWA OLALEYE, analyses leadership tussle in Ogun State chapters of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and likely impact of the development on the fortunes of the state in 2015.
Permutations and realignments take centre stage in different political parties in the run-up to 2015 general elections. In Ogun State, the situation is not in any way different.
As in many states, the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) are the political parties battling for supremacy. The two, incidentally, have their challenges and leadership crises.
The crisis in the state’s chapter of APC has, for instance, polarised the party.
The situation is similar to what happened to the PDP in the run-up to the 2011 general elections, that saw the party going to the polls as a divided house, hence creating room for the APC to sweep the polls.
The current disagreement in Ogun APC is very critical and may provide a leeway for the opposition PDP to realise its ambition of regaining the control of the state, many have feared.
The rivalry, which is centred around Olusegun Osoba, who is regarded as leader of the party, and Governor Ibikunle Amosun, has created disaffection among their supporters. Many, in fact, fear that unless they find a lasting solution to the crisis, it may have dire consequences for the party in the next election in the state.
According to one of the stakeholders of the party who pleaded anonymity, the animosity started back in 2003 when Amosun mobilised the PDP to dislodge the defunct Alliance for Democracy (AD) and Osoba, who was then the governor, from office. The mutual suspicion was rekindled when they found themselves in the same party, prior to 2011 general elections. The friction, it was gathered, was evident during the preparation for the governorship primaries, to the extent that the Osoba group vehemently rejected the choice of Amosun for the governorship. The source added that it took the intervention of some Ogun political stakeholders and eminent personalities before Osoba could soft-pedal.
At the end of the day, Amosun emerged as the party’s governorship candidate. But Osoba was given the privilege of picking candidates for the three senatorial seats, nine House of Representatives tickets, in addition to picking the running mate for Amosun.
The disagreement, TheNiche was told, resurrected over the choice of commissioners and members of the executive council in which the Osoba group felt short-changed.
In apparent move to pacify the former governor, Amosun picked some of his special advisers, chairmen and members of the board of parastatals and agencies from his group. Even then, there was the allegation that they were not given enough chairmanship and councillorship slots. The sharing formula, according to the group, was lopsided in favour of the governor and his supporters – a development that prompted Osoba’s followers to form a group known as “Ma ta gba mole”. The grouse of the group was that Osoba was not accorded his proper place in the scheme of things. This was even when the governor had always said that Osoba was his leader and that there was nothing going on in the party and the running of his administration that Osoba was not aware of.
Among those in the camp of the former governor is Senator Gbenga Kaka (Ogun East), who has accused the governor of not creating level-playing field for stakeholders in the state. He, for instance, made reference to the party’s congress, which produced parallel executives.
Amosun has, however, extended the olive branch to aggrieved party members, stressing that no politician would want to go into general elections with a divided support base.
The governor pledged to settle the rift between him and Osoba, adding that he is not in competition with the former governor.
Kaka believes the solution to the crisis lies with the governor. “If the governor did the needful rather than sending emissaries to beg Osoba, peace would have returned to Ogun APC,” he said.
The senator listed conditions for peace. They include: reorganising the party structure; ensuring all-inclusive government; and ensuring that each of the 20 local councils has a commissioner, instead of the current scenario where some councils have three or four commissioners and some have none.
He highlighted some of the ‘sins’ of Amosun, accusing him of failing to hold consultative meetings since the inception of his administration three and half years ago. According to him, the governor had carried out all programmes and projects of the APC-led government without consulting stakeholders. He said all he did was to do things in the name of the party, but without any of the stakeholders being able to defend it in the face of criticism by opposition.
“The people who worked for the party’s victory in 2011 were relegated to the background,” he further alleged.
PDP has similar problem, which may affect its fortunes in the state. There are, in fact, fears that the party is drifting to the situation prior to 2011 general elections when it was virtually in tatters.
At the heat of the crisis then, the principal actors who included former president, Olusegun Obasanjo; former governor, Gbenga Daniel; former Minister of Commerce, Jubril Martins-Kuye; major financier of the party, Buruji Kashamu; among other chieftains, did not see eye-to-eye.
On one hand, Obasanjo, who had fallen out with Daniel, had seized control of the party structure using his influence at the presidency to have his way. In concert with Kashamu, who invested heavily in the project, the former president ensured the emergence of Gen. Tunji Olurin (rtd.) from Ogun West Senatorial zone as the PDP governorship candidate.
Daniel, somehow, saw this coming and had an alternative plan. Having realised that he was losing grip of the party and, like most outgoing governors desirous of handing over to a trusted ally, Daniel had surreptitiously floated another political party, Peoples Party of Nigeria (PPN), a platform he used to ensure the emergence of his former aide and close associate, Gboyega Isiaka, as the party’s 2011 governorship candidate.
Though the PPN won some seats in the House of Assembly elections and at the House of Representatives, mostly from the Ogun West zone, its candidate and that of the PDP were defeated by Amosun of the then ACN.
With the 2011 election over, Kashamu, putting his wealth to maximum advantage, took control of Ogun PDP by facilitating the election of his supporters from the ward to the state levels. In the process, he fell out with Obasanjo, who also wanted one of his allies, Senator Dipo Odujinrin, as the state party chairman.
Several attempts to broker peace between the two warring camps were unsuccessful due to disagreements over the sharing formula of party offices. One of such reconciliatory meetings was held at the Lagos residence of Martins-Kuye, with a former senator, Lekan Mustapha, as well as Kashamu and other party chieftains in attendance.
With Obasanjo, having also fallen out with President Goodluck Jonathan, Kashamu soon began to call the shots in Ogun PDP and by extension a few other state chapters of the PDP in the South West.
Piqued by this development, Obasanjo’s camp became completely schemed out of the party and has kept a distance from its affairs.
Given PDP’s determination to make inroad into the South West to brighten Jonathan’s chances in the 2015 presidential elections, underground moves have commenced to bring former members of the party into the fold.
One of such members is Daniel, who had since berthed in the Labour Party (LP) and was installed by the national leadership of the party as the Ogun LP leader.
The former governor, who was formally received back in PDP few days ago, had earlier spoken of his desire to work in alliance with the party to ensure Jonathan wins the South West zone in 2015.
But his gesture was not welcome by Kashamu. However, the former governor refused to be bullied. In a statement issued some weeks ago, he described Kashamu as “suffering from political inexperience and over-confidence”.
Kashamu, who is currently the Chairman, Organisation and Mobilisation Committee of South West PDP, fired back, describing Daniel as “someone suffering from an overdose of political prostitution”.
The party chieftain, in a statement by his media aide, Austin Onyiokor, said: “It is Daniel that is suffering from overdose of political prostitution as a result of his serial defeat in the battle for the souls of the various parties he sought to ply his trade.
“It is laughable that a renowned political prostitute like Daniel can refer to someone who had defeated him several times as inexperienced and over-confident. What Daniel probably presumes to be his experience is how he uses party platform to negotiate and feather his own nest just like he did in 2011. The national leadership of our great party, the PDP, is wiser now and will not fall for such tricks anymore.
“Perhaps, he thought we have forgotten that it was the same Daniel who jumped from the Alliance for Democracy (AD) to the PDP and from PDP to PPN, now PPN to LP, after the PDP made him all that he claims to be today.”
Few weeks later, Daniel held separate meetings with Kashamu and Martins-Kuye preparatory to his formal return to the PDP, which he did last week.
The agenda at the meetings, it was gathered, was on the need to present a united front against Governor Amosun ahead 2015 elections.
It was, however, not clear whether concrete agreements had been reached by the gladiators on issues of sharing party offices and choice of governorship candidate.
TheNiche, however, gathered that one of the issues that may prove contentious within the new alliance is the choice of a governorship candidate and the state leader of the party.
But a former commissioner in the Daniel-led administration, who is a PDP chieftain, disagreed. He told TheNiche that the issue paramount among PDP leaders in the state is dislodging Amosun.
He said: “Nobody is talking about who will be the leader of the party in the state at the moment. The agenda right now is how to defeat (Governor) Amosun. And the only way that can happen is for our leaders, who are scattered in different parties, to unite. Anything short of that would spell doom for the party at the polls, because to defeat an incumbent has never been as easy task.”
While expressing optimism on the prospects of achieving unity in the party, he added: “Once we choose our governorship candidate, that person would serve as the rallying point for the party in the state.”
The list of the party’s governorship aspirants in the state include a third-term lawmaker, Abiodun Akinlade, who is also the Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Science and Technology, as well as two former federal lawmakers, Kayode Amusan and Sikiru Ogundele.
Former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dimeji Bankole, is also rumoured to be interested in the ticket, but sources disclosed that he is yet to formally declare his intention due to the “negative signals he is getting from leaders of the party in Ogun State”.
Bankole, according to a source, is wary of plunging head-long into the race unless he receives fool-proof assurance from party leaders to back his aspiration.
But those assurances may be hard to come by, as other aspirants, particularly Akinlade, has since taken off from the starting blocks in the race for the PDP 2015 governorship ticket.
In the last five months, the lawmaker, who hails from Ogun West zone, which is yet to produce the state governor since its creation in 1976, has been quietly mobilising party leaders from the three senatorial zones in the state in furtherance of his ambition.
Another thorny issue that may put the impending alliance in jeopardy is the alleged plan by Kashamu to contest the Ogun East Senatorial ticket against Daniel, who is also interested in the seat.
This development, according to a source, is a clear indication that Kashamu is not ready to cede his leadership status in the party to Daniel. Kashamu’s camp is afraid that if Daniel wins the seat, he could use his privileged position to assume leadership of the party, particularly if the PDP fails to unseat Amosun.
As the reconciliation process proceeds, it remains to be seen whether it would be enough to dislodge Amosun from the Oke Mosan Government House.
Daniel was once the arrow head of PDP, before he left for LP, while Buruji remained behind as the party leader. The question now is, with Daniel’s return, who is going to be the PDP Llader in Ogun?