Tag: ONDO

NOW that the dust on the political imbroglio of who would fly the All Progressives Congress (APC) flag to continue Gov. Adam Oshiomhole’s accomplishments since the past eight years in Edo State has settled with the overwhelming votes of the delegates for Godwin Obaseki in the just concluded primary, focus is now being rightly shifted to Ondo State in the hope that the APC will reverse the destructive trajectory upon which Gov. Olusegun Mimiko has set the state during the same period if the party should take over the governance of the state in the next political dispensation.
And there are reasons for the party and its leadership to be extremely concerned. The two states are not only contiguous, wherefore the re-emergence of PDP in Edo and the continuation of probably the most profligate party in the world in Ondo would be a throwback to the years of locusts that Nigerians are struggling very hard to forget, but a disgraceful blight on the party in the states whose cores has always been progressive political ideology.
It has been reported that no fewer than fifty aspirants are ostensibly holding the broom and are poised for the primary election in Ondo state. While there’s a significant school of thought that sees this motley crowd of aspirants to the state’s highest political office as one of the beauties of democracy which also exemplifies the fact that the APC stocks are astronomically high—which in turn may create the complacency, if not the illusion that it’s the party to beat—it also fundamentally speaks to the levity with which our so-called politicians treat the business of governance in our clime.
Our society is pathetically configured in such a way that someone will suddenly start to envision himself in a leadership position that requires the highest degree of preparation, not to talk of the moral and intellectual presence of mind just because he has been paying some children’s school fees other than his own; or he had procured big cows to some communities around his locale during some festive periods.
These undertakings are too far from being the determinants that makes a leader in any civilized clime. However, one can also see the gravitational pull of all manners of people to this exalted political office because all a governor pretty much does is go to Abuja with his collection basket every month for the federal allocation with which more than eighty percent—on good times—of this monetary collection goes into paying the salaries of state employees that he cannot even down size when times are rough and hard. It is time that this all comers approach to governance is discouraged now that there’s a paradigm shift in the mono-economic template that had undergirded the country that must also, and of necessity, change the country’s governance architecture.
How the governorship elections will turn out in these two states will be pointers to the overall strength of the ruling APC in the centre in the country’s southern region, most especially the South West zone. While it’s a given that a significant number of the delegates will always see their participation in the election process as their meal tickets every four years—when aspirants are to be ‘milked’—those delegates with the sense of history as well as eyes on a greater future of the people of their state should have the greatest amounts of introspection and circumspection before choosing the party’s flag bearer. This is especially important now that the old, unthinking, ineffectual and lethargic ways of governing must give way to thinking outside the box because of the new socio-economic reality that has come to stay. While it cannot be argued that not a few of the aspirants are—on their face value qualified to clinch the exalted seat—there should be no pretence by the delegates that the onus is on them to indicate to most of these aspirants to collapse whatever structures they may have before the Decision-day for the sake of party cohesion as well as to demonstrate their loyalty to the overall cause of obliterating the PDP from the state.
Out of this lot of aspirants, names such as Mrs. Jumoke Anifowoshe, Olusola Oke, Tayo Alasoadura, Rotimi Akeredolu, Segun Abraham and Robert Ajayi Boroffice keeps surfacing in the state’s political discourse like recurring decimals. While other aspirants may also be qualified to contest the governorship seat, the aforementioned political gladiators possess the requisite political credentials that will make them to be formidable in the governorship election if anyone of them is elected in the primary. In this primary election process, one should also be cognizant of the principle of rotation (although played down by the party), which is still the safest way to prevent perceived sense of political alienation of sub-ethnic groups in a woolly political environment such as we have in Nigeria. And Ondo state is not an exception. It’s therefore a safe bet that the party’s flag bearer is more likely to come from the Ondo North Senatorial district from where the aforementioned aspirants are issued except Olusola Oke and Tayo Alasoadura.
In a mature socio-political environment in which the people are guided by history rather than base instincts and some value-depleting primordial considerations, the odds would have by now been glaringly in favour of Mrs. Anifowoshe as the party’s flag bearer, having been sired by Pa Adekunle Ajasin whose contribution to the growth of the state is still a reference point up till today. Mrs. Anifowoshe’s impeccable political lineage would have been enough to convince not only the majority of the delegates but the electorate at large that there’s probably a strong and dominant family gene that will always compel any member of the Ajasin family to do good by the people whenever anyone of them becomes a ‘shepherd of the flock.’ But this may likely not happen because of a society so pathetically patriarchal even for its own good.
Olusola Oke has the inalienable right to be voted for, let alone identify with a party he believes has the goodwill of the electorate to advance his personal political objective. But the haste with which he left the PDP and the post-haste with which he joined the league of APC aspirants—it seems to me—leaves a sour taste in the mouth. It should be recalled that Barr. Oke defected to APC less than 72 hours after Muhammadu Buhari won the presidential election. One therefore must ask if Oke, who was not just an ordinary member of PDP but the party’s Legal Adviser bolted in order to save his skin—as Nigerians are now witnessing the party’s fantastic corruption—or it was a genuine Pauline conversion.
Oke would have most definitely remained in the PDP today had Jonathan won where he would not have seen anything wrong with the direction in which this profligate party is taking the country. Oke’s political harlotry not only insulted the sensibilities of those members who have always worked hard for and kept faith with APC, but his quest to become the party’s candidate is particularly distasteful, if not morally reprehensible.
What Oke should do—it seems to me—is to vigorously campaign for the party’s victory in the South Senatorial district which, for all practical purposes, is a stronghold of his erstwhile party. If he helps in bringing his senatorial district into the APC column in the next dispensation, there would not be any doubt about his brighter future if he stays in the APC long enough. The aforesaid also applies to those aspirants who are former members of the Peoples’ Democratic Party to first deliver their respective constituencies to APC in the governorship election to demonstrate their “rite of passage” after which they would be adequately represented in an administration of a committed, loyal and ideologically-grounded APC governor. More importantly, morality must begin to have a pride of place in the nation’s body politic while loyalty and commitment ought to have their privileges.
Senator Alasoadura’s bid for the governorship seat probably should be the easiest decision to discount, if not shot down before the primary not because he’s unqualified, but because Alasoadura has shown himself to be a loose cannon in whom party cohesion and supremacy means nothing. One may never know the real reason(s) why the senator’s politics is at variance with the political party on whose platform he was elected, but rewarding him with another ambition will be counter-productive, if not spell the death knell of the party in the state, just as his “Like Minds” gang-up in the senate whose arrowheads are the despicably corrupt duo of Saraki and Ekweremadu is now proving to be a clog in the wheel of the Buhari administration. The senator’s heart truly lies with the PDP. The APC was just a mere vehicle used by him, and many others like him, to convey them to their desired destinations when they realised that their beloved gas-guzzling vehicle had run out of gas.
Just as he had emerged almost from nowhere to become the governorship candidate of the party that has now transmuted into the APC, the odds may still be in favour of Rotimi Akeredolu (SAN) to emerge, once again, as the party’s flag-bearer in the state’s November 26th governorship election. As much as one cannot discount the structure that brought this highly principled Senior Advocate of Nigeria into prominence in his first outing—even though it may have been significantly dissipated by other heavy-weight aspirants—there is this eerie and ominous feeling that Akeredolu can be very unyielding and cantankerous to the party leadership if he becomes the chief of state once he takes a stand on issues that are of importance to him, which may not necessarily be favoured by the party leadership.
Other critical stakeholders in the state are more likely to be politically alienated by this unyielding attitude. The news that made the rounds that Akeredolu warned the party against imposition was indeed unfortunate and this statement should not have been made by him. As much as imposition—as opposed to preference which the party still reserves the right to have—should be discouraged, Akeredolu is in the least position to have issued this warning as he was its sole beneficiary in his first attempt to the exalted seat in 2007. The Aketi Campaign Organization should have been more circumspect before issuing such warning.
If there’s anyone of these formidable aspirants with enduring structure and the name recognition to boot who is yet to be adequately advertised in the politics of the state, it is none other than Olusegun Abraham. Perhaps he’s too distracted with the daily grind of politicking to attract the attention of the media or his media aides simply lack the skill and understanding to articulate his political pedigree as a consistent critical stakeholder who has contributed in no small measure to the state’s progressive party since the beginning of the Fourth Republic, Abraham is a giver to the state’s progressive cause that should not be dismissed with a wave of the hand.
The open secret that the then ACN hierarchy in the South West including the National Leader that this billionaire water engineer should contest the governorship election in 2007 was not unconnected with his contribution in building the party coupled with his integrity. Abraham was then, for all intents and purposes, the anointed aspirant by the leadership, which had informed some people in the inner recess of the party’s decision-making to suggest that yours truly should be embedded in his campaign team as a media consultant and being an indigene of the state, which I gladly accepted.
And just like a bolt from the blue, Akeredolu emerged almost from nowhere through imposition by the same party leadership. This sudden change of fortune for Abraham and his campaign team was shocking, to say the least. While we were no doubt disappointed, we also realised that since nothing is guaranteed in life and politics being the most of all the fleeting illusions of life, our principal was advised that some of his strategists should be embedded into the Akeredolu campaign since we could still be useful to the overall interest of the party as well as securing his own political interest if the ACN becomes victorious at the poll. It was another shock of our lives when we heard that our principal had gone to North America where he stayed for months on end, leaving us and the party in the lurch. The true test of a great leader is where and how he stands in the time of adversity.
As much as one can empathise with the school of thought that Robert Ajayi Boroffice should not be in the running for the governorship seat because he’s already into his second term as a senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, this simplistic viewpoint is another attestation of the lack of seriousness that people attach to the business of governance in our clime. There’s no better time to look for an astute manager of people and resources than now. In a state where the current governor has bastardised and debased the socio-economic fabric, not to talk of the deliberate pauperisation of the people, an experienced person to rebuild governance architecture and bring the state to modernity cannot be overemphasized.
Senator Ajayi Boroffice may well be what both the economists and the political scientists ordered in these trying times. Aside his being a team player who never left the party in the face of enormous pressure by none other than then Senate President David Mark, Sen. Boroffice cuts the image of a trustworthy, fair and transparent father figure who can effectively unify the state after the exit of the “whitlow of the South West” who had turned brothers against sisters, husbands against wives in his Machiavellian predisposition just as Goodluck Ebele Jonathan did at the federal level before he was unhorsed by Muhammadu Buhari the “Builder of a Modern and Morally Upright Nigeria.” In Sen. Boroffice I also see a ‘little Buhari’in Ondo state. Therefore, the delegates may be well advised to look in the direction of the man always in white apparel to salvage a state that has gone through so much needless socio-economic and political trauma in the hands of Olusegun Mimiko and his profligate PDP.
•Odere is a media practitioner