BREAKING NEWS, Featured, Politics
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Ondo electorate will go to the polls on Saturday to elect who will take over from Governor Olusegun Mimiko to pilot the affairs of the state for the next four years
| By Anayo Ezugwu | Dec 5, 2016 @ 01:00 GMT |
FOLLOWING the refusal of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to postpone the governorship election in Ondo State as requested for by some political parties, the election slated for Saturday, November 26, will hold as scheduled. The election has, however, generated a lot of controversy with some individuals, groups and political parties poised for a political showdown as the canvass for vote to elect who will succeed Governor Olusegun Mimiko.
About 28 political parties and their candidates are standing for the coming election. But only three candidates and their political parties have shown seriousness in the race. The candidates are Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, All Progressives Congress, APC; Olusola Oke, Alliance for Democracy, AD; and Eyitayo Jegede, Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
Of the trio, only Jegede will be going to the poll tomorrow as a new comer after INEC confirmed him as the candidate of the PDP on Thursday, November 24. Interestingly, the candidates from the three political parties hail from the three senatorial districts in the state. Oke is from the South; Akedolu is from the North while Jegede hails from the Central.
Also, the candidates from the three parties – PDP APC and AD – had entered the race for Alagbaka, the seat of Ondo government, from controversial primaries and prolonged litigations. While the APC and the AD appeared to have managed to quell the legal storms that rocked their political campaigns, the PDP’s troubles have failed to abate. In the midst of all the legal battle the candidates are now ready to test their popularity among the electorates in the Sunshine State. From political calculations, they all have their chances and are bent on maximising it.
Akeredolu of the APC is on his second missionary journey to becoming the governor of the state after contesting in 2012 under the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN. He is a greatly misunderstood character in the Ondo political landscape. He, however, enjoys the support of the leadership of the APC in Abuja. This factor informs the audacity of his supporters.
Akeredolu and the APC in the state are wooing the people with the benefits of bringing Ondo State to the mainstream politics, promising to attract developmental projects from Abuja to the state if he is elected. President Buhari has been part of the campaign and his presence is thought to possess the ability to sway votes in Akeredolu’s favour.
Akeredolu is largely popular in Owo and other parts of the northern senatorial district. But he has an albatross in the rising profile of Olu Agunloye, who appears to be the weeping boy among the major candidates in the contest. Agunloye of the SDP is also from Akoko in the north. Those in the central zone are still holding on to Jegede. Now that Jegede is back in the fray, Akeredolu may have problems with garnering enough votes in the central zone to guarantee his victory.
Akeredolu is still being hunted by the split that occurred at the party primary where he emerged as the candidate of the party. Three of the contestants who were runners up in the exercise had opposed his election. Bola Tinubu known for his sweeping influence in the south west has also refused to reconcile his interest with the candidate, choosing to stay away from his campaign. He has not hidden his opposition to Akeredolu and he is believed to be backing the protests against him from within.
This negative signals point to the rumoured anti-party posture of the aggrieved aspirants. The attendant rifts and conflicts would appear to have weakened the party, coupled with fractionalisation and a gale of defections to other parties.
This nothwithstanding, other political parties have voiced their fears that the election may be rigged in his favour using the federal might. But if the pledge of the police and the INEC to ensure transparent, free and fair election on Saturday is anything to go by, then Akeredolu will need to do more than the anti-corruption campaign to curtail the rising popularity of Oke, who could be his major threat to clinching the trophy of Alagbaka.
On his part, Olusola Oke of the AD is a card carrying member of the PDP, who defeated to APC but left APC after the controversial primaries where he came third. His journey as AD flagbearer has been rosy going by the number of supporters who turns out at his campaigns. But his new party lacked structures and personalities to help drive and sell his candidature.
It is believed by many that with the support of Bola Tinubu and his allies, his campaigns have risen in strength and lengths to endear him to the people of the state. This is buttressed by the fact that a loyalist of Tinubu, Bola Ilori, a leading politician in Ondo West, where Mimiko hails from, is the director general of the Oke campaign organisation.
The huge crowd he is able to mobilise at different rallies suggest that his campaign is well funded. Oke himself has denied the allegation that he was receiving funding from Tinubu for his campaign. “Tinubu is in the APC and I am in the AD, our paths do not cross and he cannot be funding my election,” Oke said, while responding to a question at the governorship debate on Monday. The fact is that Oke has risen from a struggling candidate in the race to a strong force in the entire equation. This is due largely to the dwindling fortunes of the PDP.
Politically, the southern senatorial district, which is his traditional home, is a PDP stronghold. He is now faced with the trouble of sharing the votes in the region with Jegede backed by the incumbent Governor Mimiko. Several people believe that Oke stood no chance of winning the region with the Mimiko factor. It is, however, arguable that Oke may cash on the misfortunes that befell the PDP to take adequate control of the area before Jegede fully bounces back to reckoning.
His new following in the south also results from the fact that he is traditionally a PDP person, who only left the party to actualise his dreams of becoming the governor of the state. With his state wide political structures and financial resources available to him to prosecute the governorship race, the politician has a brighter chance of emerging victorious at the polls on Saturday. However, he has the formidable force of APC’s Akeredolu and Jegede to contend with.
The last but not the least, Jegede, the PDP candidate recognised by INEC is the immediate past commissioner for justice and attorney general of the state. He emerged as candidate in the primary election conducted by the Ahmed Makarfi faction of the party with little or no resistance, as the incumbent governor, Mimiko, had paved the way for a smooth ride for him to take the ticket. A parallel primary by the Ali Modu Sheriff-led faction shortly after, challenged his legitimacy as the party’s candidate. His name remained on the list of chosen candidates for the election until October 27, when INEC published the final list of candidates, and his name was substituted with Mr. Ibrahim’s on the order of a Federal High Court in Abuja.
In the last 25 days, Jegede’s campaign which had lighted the entire state with colour and fanfare was drowned in the noise of legal battles. To many of his admirers and party officials, all was over for him, as Jimoh Ibrahim held on to the ticket through legal manipulations. The Appeal Court judgment on Wednesday was a final breather for the candidate. He is now back as the authentic candidate of the PDP in the Saturday election.
But the campaigns are no longer where he left off. His campaign train was the first to hit the streets of Akure and its environs and was prepared for every battle. The governor and commissioners were all out campaigning and wooing voters for him. Many people liked him, and his handsome and gentle looks cut him out as governor to be loved. Then the crisis began.
While in court, Jegede retained his radio and television jingles and got some persons to move around the towns distributing his posters and rallying support for him. With INEC confirming his name, he had less than 48 hours to catch up with his contenders, Oke and Akeredolu. His chances of emerging victorious in the polls have been narrowed by his party’s crisis and sadly too his enemies are unrelenting.
The controversies trailing all the candidates notwithstanding, the electorate will surely on Saturday elect the person they deem fit to succeed Governor Mimiko.
— Dec 5, 2016 @ 01:00 GMT
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