UNTIL a few weeks ago, the two leading parties expected to trade tackles in the November 26 Ondo State governorship election were the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). But shortly after an unending stalemate sprouted from primaries marred by irreconcilable differences in the two parties, the otherwise two-horse race became a three-horse race. The third horse is of course Olusola Oke’s borrowed party, the Alliance for Democracy (AD), an old party in new wineskin, and an old flame of the Southwest’s political elite. With the publication of the final candidates’ list, Ondo appears poised to go to the poll to elect their new governor. The ruling party in Abuja, the APC, hopes to galvanise enough national clout and goodwill to get their candidate, Rotimi Akeredolu, a lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), elected. The state’s ruling PDP under the capricious Governor Olusegun Mimiko also hopes to muster enough muscle and familiarity with the local terrain to get their candidate elected.
But there all signs of normality and common sense end. There is nothing close to normality in the APC after their hotly disputed primary produced a fractured party and bitterly divided aspirants. Alleging a rigged delegates’ list, three leading aspirants in the party challenged the victory of Mr Akeredolu in the primary. The embittered aspirants, Olusegun Abraham, Ajayi Boroffice and Olusola Oke announced that except the primary was redone, there would be no reconciliation. The primary was not redone, and will not be. Professor Boroffice has since retreated into glumness of the most severe kind; Mr Oke, a seasoned grassroots politician, has huffily migrated to the aforesaid AD, hoping to re-enact the magic that propelled the old party into renown; and Mr Abraham, a businessman, is perched on the horns of a dilemma unsure whether to embrace what he considers galling robbery or betray his own party in sweet revenge.
Should both Professor Boroffice and Mr Abraham lend clout and support to Mr Oke, their erstwhile colleague in protest, Mr Akeredolu’s goose would be instantly cooked. There would be no stopping the AD. So far, however, there is nothing to suggest what schemes or treason the unhappy former aspirants are plotting. They will not stay undecided for long. In the next one or two weeks, they will decide one way or the other, obviously with telling effect. Ondo voters will also sympathise with the duo for the brutal dilemma they face: whether to overlook the robbery they alleged they suffered during the primary and thus give victory potentially to the APC, or punish the robbery and give victory to the AD, thus changing the face of party politics in Ondo for a long time to come.
The situation is no less complicated in the PDP. In fact the ruling party in the state under the controversial leadership of Dr Mimiko is proceeding from a very disadvantageous position on account of the governor’s poor record and unstable political flirtations. To compound the disadvantage, the PDP is also fractured in two between the Ali Modu Sheriff and Ahmed Makarfi national factions. Both men were governors and senators, and they wield enough charisma and clout to wreck multiple ambitions as they wish. The Senator Makarfi faction, allied with Dr Mimiko, conducted a primary in Akure under the watchful gaze of INEC and produced Eyitayo Jegede. The urbane Jegede, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) like Mr Akeredolu, would have caused a huge stir in the election had the APC itself not been divided. On the other hand, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has finally decided that it agreed with Justice Okon Abang’s Federal High Court, Abuja judgement to legitimise Jimoh Ibrahim’s candidature. The high-spirited Mr Ibrahim is a publisher and businessman. But the primary that produced him was held in Ibadan, making his legitimisation by INEC almost a stupefying conjuration. Ondo briefly seethed with protest and rage in some sections when news of his candidature broke.
If no court can be found to overturn Mr Ibrahim’s candidature, and INEC still stands pat, the feisty publisher will face Messrs Akeredolu and Oke on November 26. But whether Mr Ibrahim is unhorsed or not, both the APC and the PDP look set to go into the poll divided and desperate. The AD’s Mr Oke will hope that neither of the two leading parties will be able to hammer out an agreement to close ranks and face the common enemy. Though there was a little misgiving in the AD when party apparatchiks rushed in the more electable Mr Oke to supplant their own dour initial pick, Akin Olowokere, the creases have since been ironed out and the party will go into the poll united and determined. The same cannot be said of the APC and PDP. If the unity in the AD holds and the divisions in the other two parties are sustained, the outcome of the election may not be as close or controversial as many fear.
Ondo State, like Kano State, plays implacable politics that makes it difficult for election manipulators to disenfranchise voters. As their 1983 reputation showed in the Second Republic, Ondo voters fearlessly defend their vote. Having been provoked by a dithering Dr Mimiko and a quarrelsome and abrasive APC, they may already be in too foul a mood to suffer electoral fools gladly. Whichever way they vote in November will be so clear to the world that it would be no use attempting to challenge it or, worse, undermine it.