By Bisi Oladele, Southwest Bureau Chief
A total of 3,127 delegates are expected to cast their votes in the primary slated for Monday to determine who will fly the All Progressives Congress (APC) flag in the October 10 governorship election in Ondo State.
The party has settled for Indirect mode of election, meaning the election will hold at the headquarters of each of the 18 local governments.
Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu (SAN) looks ready to clinch the ticket again judging by many factors that may work in his favour. Others include Issac Kekemeke, Jimi Odimayo, Olusola Oke, Sola Iji, Olayode Adelami, Segun Abraham and Ife Oyedele.
First, the chairman of the committee set up by the National Transition Caretaker Committee to reconcile warring factions Abubakar Bello, has emphasised that APC was more interested in winning the election than massaging personal ego of warring leaders.
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He said the party would do whatever possible to ensure that only the popular candidate emerges. As things stand in the state today, Akeredolu looks like the most popular among the aspirants. The party may not want to take risk by supporting another aspirant against him.
Having steered the ship of the party for four years, Akeredolu has been instrumental to emergence of state, local government and ward executives. He was also instrumental to the victory of the four APC members of House of Representatives and majority of members of House of Assembly.
Classified as automatic delegates, others in this category include former Governors, Deputy Governors, Speakers and Deputy Speakers, the 17 State Working Committee members and the 72 extended state executive of the party.
The majority of people in this category appear favourably disposed to Akeredolu’s second term aspiration.
As for the local government executives, they were installed by members of the State Executive Council from each local government.
Virtually all other aspirants were also against Akeredolu in 2016 when he won the governorship ticket. The support base of the aspirants has also obviously been depleted by the number of their supporters offered political appointments by the governor in the last four years.
Besides, the power of incumbency, buoyed by the support of the national and regional leadership for Akeredolu make him stand a better chance than other aspirants. The Governor, therefore, may garner majority votes in more than half of the 18 local governments in the state.
Already, The Nation reliably gathered two of the aspirants, in a last-minute move, have met with Akeredu, signifying their willingness to work for him. Part of their demands is to be picked as Deputy Governor to garner political strength for 2024 election.
Nonetheless, it may not be an extremely smooth run for Akeredolu as other aspirants also wield some good level of influence and grassroots popularity.
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