EVERY political party establishment has its own favourites for leadership positions. This may not be a universal practice but from all indications, civilized and advanced countries also indulge in this habit. Bernie Sanders may be a radical democrat, he may be very popular with the youths and some radical members of the party, but the party establishment, had their own choice of candidate in Hilary Clinton, a Senator and former Secretary of State. From the number of pledged and super-delegates garnered by Clinton in the party primaries, and the protest coming from the Sanders campaign team on the role and power of the super-delegates in the party primaries, it was obvious that Sanders suspected and believed that the party establishment had tacitly endorsed Clinton as the party flag-bearer in the coming general election, even before the Party convention in July.
Back home, some of the governorship aspirants of the All Progressives Congress (APC) warming up for the Ondo State governorship election later this year have strong reason or reasons to believe that the party establishment is secretly promoting Prof. Roberts Ajayi Boroffice as the party’s candidate for the Ondo governorship election. This assumption or suspicion may not be unfounded considering Boroffice’s intimidating academic profile and his relationship and closeness to some influential and powerful people in both the Buhari government and the party. I do not know the basis for this assumption when under the constitution of the party, the flagbearer of the party must emerge through a process of selection that will end with party primaries. Assuming but not doubting the possibility of the party establishment endorsing Boroffice as the party flagbearer, I want to discuss the Ondo election and Mimiko’s political trajectory.
When the leadership of a party decides to endorse an aspirant out of a multitude competing for a position, so many reasons may have been responsible. It is possible that the aspirant, in this instance, Boroffice, is a solid electoral asset that can clinch the governorship election for the party in the inter-party election. Second, the establishment candidate naturally enjoys the confidence and trust of the party leadership to deliver appropriately, the dividends of democracy promised the electorate by the party. Third, the aspirant obviously possesses intimidating political and academic profiles which his rivals cannot match. Fourth, the party leadership had probably carried out a secret poll in the state to know which of the aspirants was likely to win the governorship seat for the party without stress. Fifth, the party leadership would have scrutinised the manifestos of all the aspirants to know which of them has an agenda that aligns/agrees with that of the party. Finally, the favourite of the establishment may also be the anointed of providence.
So, how and why does Boroffice seem to enjoy the backing of the party establishment? In every party, there is politics of zoning or strategic distribution of elective and political offices. Roberts Boroffice is a native of Oka Akoko in Ondo North. For the governorship election, from all indications, the APC seemed to have settled for Ondo North taking into consideration the elective and political offices occupied by people from Ondo Central and Ondo South both at the state and federal levels. Of all the aspirants from Ondo North jostling for the position, Boroffice is the only one that has never lost any election in his political career. He had won the Senate seat on two occasions, defeating political heavyweights like Chief Bode Olajumoke of the PDP and Dr. Olu Agunloye of the Labour Party. During the 2012 election, Boroffice won his local government for the APC at a time the party gubernatorial candidate, Mr. Rotimi Akeredolu, lost his own local government.
In his 5 years in the Senate, the number of people that Boroffice has helped through his welfarist programme has grown in leaps and bounds. For instance, during this period, he gave out 22 cars and 50 tricycles to some of his constituents for commercial use. This does not include some other palliatives he has given to his people. The bottom line is that his welfarist programme is ideologically in tandem with what the APC promises the electorate.
Besides, Boroffice, a two-time Senator, is one politician with impressive and massive relationship with the grassroots. His first major electoral contest was as a Senator against experienced politician like Bode Olajumoke whom he trounced soundly in the election. Ever since that victory, he has been unstoppable in subsequent elections. He was to contest for the position of Chief Whip in the Senate but he was persuaded by the Party leadership to step down for Prof. Dayo Adeyeye. Boroffice’s political triumphalism is a complement to his academic profile which is intimidating by whatever standards you may define success and accomplishments. Having excelled in his primary and secondary schools education, Boroffice emerged the best student in Zoology in 1971 at the University of Ibadan. Boroffice, who got his Ph.D degree in Genetics in 1975, became a Professor of Zoology in 1986 at the Lagos State University. Prior to his movement to LASU, he was a Senior Lecturer at the University of Ibadan. In view of his outstanding academic achievements, he was appointed the Pioneer Director-General and Chief Executive of National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA). While at NASRDA, Boroffice superintended the successful launch of a Low Earth Orbit Micro Satellite code named Nigeria Sat 1 in 2003 which was the first of its kind in the Black world. A similar feat was performed in the successful launch of Geostationary Orbit Communication Satellite Code named Nigcom Sta-1 in 2007. Senator Boroffice, an Officer of the Order of Niger (OON), has received many awards given to him for his academic excellence and service to his community, state and nation.
It will be politically naïve for any progressive oriented party to ignore or be contemptuous of a man with a portfolio that is rich in success, attractive in contents, assuring in quality and alluring in laurels.
Leaders who choose to give their support to a particular aspirant could not have done so without being sure that there is no disconnect between the aspirant they are supporting and the people of the state. I am very sure that people who call the shots at the party must have found out that there is beneficial and productive interaction and understanding between whoever they are supporting and the people at the grassroots in order not to make the mistake of 2012 when it imposed a complete “stranger” on the people and without hesitation, the people crucified the APC candidate on the day of the election. Surprisingly, Mr. Akeredolu, who was a beneficiary of the 2012 imposition, is now protesting vehemently against imposition having gotten the feelers that Boroffice may likely be the anointed one. In a press statement issued by the Aketi Media Group, Akeredoulu said: “…The era of candidate imposition was over in APC. A free and fair primary was necessary for the party to have a successful outing at the poll. Such internal democracy and transparency engenders loyalty, confidence and commitment among members”.
Akeredolu’s statement is a tragic manifestation of man’s self-centredness and egomania. Here was a “stranger” who was “imposed” with impunity on more qualified candidates like Olu Agunloye, Segun Ojo, Roberts Boroffice, Tayo Alasoadura and Tunji Abayomi, now protesting bitterly against imposition. Why is Akeredolu whining now about imposition when providence is beckoning on another man to be the beneficiary of what he had earlier enjoyed? What Boroffice is enjoying is what I will call “establishment grace” not imposition.
To say that Ondo State is in a serious mess financially, socially and politically is an understatement. I sympathise with the people of the state who thought that Mimiko was the political Messiah to come. Almost eight years in the saddle, there is nothing messianic about Mimiko.
Mimiko claimed that he was unable to pay workers’ salaries for six months because of the dwindling allocation coming from the centre. This cannot be true. Kashim Shettima has been the governor of Borno State for five years now. Borno State bas been grappling with Boko Haram insurgency, issue of IDPS and other distracting problems, yet, in a recent meeting with Borno Elders, this is what the governor said:
“The Borno State Government has not owned salaries in 5 years despite grappling with the Boko Haram insurgency. Ordinarily, I don’t consider payment of salaries as achievement because salaries are debts; people worked and should be paid. However, in today’s Nigeria, payment of salaries has become rare and this makes it an achievement especially for a state like Borno that has been battling with serious security challenges and spending billions over that. Well, we have sustained payment of salaries for an economic reason”.
What then could be Mimiko’s justification for not paying workers’ salaries for six months if his colleague in Borno State does not owe his workers a dime? What has Mimiko done with the N71b that he collected from the Federation Account in just one year (May 2015 May 2016)? What did Mimiko do with the N38b left in the coffers by Segun Agagu in 2009? What has Mimiko been doing with the 13% derivation for the state through OSOPADC since he came to office? Street figures put the total amount at N166billion to date? What has Mimiko done with the project funds of about N4.8bilion coming from NDDC every year? And so on and so forth!
Agreed that through his caring heart agenda, Mimiko has been able to define the concept of governance from the structuralist perspective by constructing and building structures and monuments in and around Ondo township, but the costs of most of these projects are mind-bogging. Mimiko elevated the quality of life being lived by the artisans in Ondo State through his special transformative artisan repositioning, built an international events centre called The Dome, constructed beautiful garages/motor parks, about 51 mega schools and other touristic monuments were renovated and resuscitated. But when you look at the price the Ondo people have to pay for some of these things, you will understand why they are angry with the government. In the name of all that is modest, why should a state government spend N10b on an event centre or spend billions on building international automarts and motor parks in a state where workers are owed six months’ salary? At the end of the day, the governor himself is afraid to say how much the state owes. Even the Speaker of the Ondo State House of Assembly, Mrs. Jumoke Akindele confessed to workers and pensioners who came to protest at the Assembly that the Assembly itself has no idea of the finances of the state. This is disturbing.
If and when eventually Boroffice finds himself in power, he should remember that his first and major task as the governor of Ondo State is to re-design the economic architecture of the state from being a borrower-state to being a lender-state. This can only be possible through strategic re-positioning of the state’s revenue-generating programmes and aggressive and massive industrialization of the many natural resources of Ondo State, particularly bitumen. The reason this should be his priority is that should the state fail to repay all the loans that past and present leaders of the state had collected, the governor, the state and the citizens may one day wake up to discover that Ondo State has turned to a chronic beggar state.
