Voters in
Ondo State will today elect a new governor, but the atmosphere in the state, as
is rightly expected, is cloudy, full of suspense, nervousness and possible last
minute realignments.
Up till yesterday afternoon, at least 1,280,580 prospective
voters that have Permanent Voters Card (PVC) were confused as to whether the
election would hold or not.
Their apprehension was not out of place because
various interests, including a section of the PDP, some activists, the
Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP) and many others, for some
obvious reasons, had severally called for the postponement of the election.
Early reports from Akure, the Ondo State capital,
yesterday, suggested that the election had been postponed and some residents were
already thinking of other things.
‘No, the election has not been postponed,’ said Rotimi
Oyekanmi, the spokesman of the INEC national chairman.
‘The election will go on as scheduled,’ he said.
Political pundits believe that the whole interest
about the Ondo election is not about the immediate benefit accruing to the
party that wins, but about the power tussle ahead of 2019.
The election would have been a straight contest
between the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the state and the leading
opposition All Progressives Congress (APC).
However, internal wrangling, occasioned by
unprecedented litigations, railroaded the Alliance for Democracy (AD) to become another vicious horse to contend
with.
As the situation stands today, candidates of the three
parties, including Eyitayo Jegede (PDP), Rotimi Akeredolu (APC) and Olusola Oke
(AD), collectively sit on a huge tripod, with each basking on the euphoria of
the lapses in the remaining two (and the political party they represent) to
have a safe landing.
Though there are 28 political parties that fielded
candidates for the election, Ondo’s voters who are undeniably in a serious
dilemma, would have to weigh several options in selecting their leader who
would pilot their affairs for the next four years.
The voters have the option of going for the PDP to
maintain ‘continuity’ in the state in line with the expectation of the outgoing
governor, Olusegun Mimiko.
They also have
to decide on whether to vote for the APC so as to be in the ‘warm embrace’ of
the ruling federal government.
Ondo voters equally have the third option of revolting
against both the PDP and APC in support of the ‘new order’ signified by the AD.
Also, the federal government, headed by President
Muhammadu Buhari, would be pleased to have Ondo because of its strategic
importance to the consolidation stride of the party.
And finally, the political leaders of the South West,
who provided the impetus for the APC to win the 2015 general elections, are also being careful as to which tent they
should go and camp, considering the ‘unsavory’
events that unfolded in the last eight months.
Therefore, findings in Akure, yesterday, revealed a
dicey trend for the election, which is seen as more of a battlefield for
different forces within the PDP and the APC.
As such, chances of anti-party posturing are very
high, a development that injected cold blood in the veins of the two aspirants
of the PDP and APC, while the high expectation of the AD’s candidate has
equally suffered a hitch following the Wednesday and Thursday’s judgments at
the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court.
The problem in the PDP
Under normal circumstances, today’s election should
have been an easy ride for the PDP, being the ruling party, which should have
used the incumbency factor of outgoing Governor Olusegun Mimiko to ride to
victory.
Before Thursday when the Supreme Court stamped its
authority, Governor Mimiko and most of his counterparts in the PDP from the
South-West and South-South had maintained
a kind of cold feet because, Jimoh Ibrahim, who was then the party’s
candidate recognized by INEC from the Sen. Ali Modu Sheriff faction of the
party, is not their preferred candidate.
Therefore, the Senator Ahmed Makarfi faction of the
party, which has the support of the PDP governors, was literally in hibernation
as far as the Ondo election was concerned.
There was no financial support, no grassroots outreach
and the party’s supporters were left obliviousness of who to vote for.
In fact, there were suggestions that the PDP governors
were perfecting plans to connive with “renegades” from the APC and candidates
of the smaller parties to mobilise
support for the AD candidate.
“But the Appeal Court ruling that upturned Jimoh
Ibrahim and recognized Jegede has completely changed our calculation,” said
Jide Simon, a PDP member in Akure.
It was gathered that while Governor Mimiko had
deployed state resources for ‘door to door’ campaign, PDP governors from the
South-West and their colleagues in the South-South have renewed their
confidence and mobilized resources in
support of Jegede for the election.
At present, there is a marriage of convenience in the
PDP as far as the Ondo election is concerned. While senior officials of the
Sen. Sheriff faction yesterday called on the Ondo voters to support Jegede,
other sources said they were only ‘setting a trap’.
The National Legal Adviser for Sheriff’s camp,
Barrister Bashir Maidugu, said: “Going ahead with the Ondo governorship
election is okay. PDP is PDP; whether Jegede or Jimoh Ibrahim. Our resolve is
that everybody should go and vote the PDP. We are calling on our members and
supporters in Ondo State to come out en mass and vote for PDP without
reservations.
“As it is now, it is about the PDP. The Supreme Court
has not ruled on anything. It referred all our applications to the Court of
Appeal and the main issue of who remains the authentic national chairman of the
PDP lies with the Port Harcourt Court of Appeal,” he said.
Similarly, the National Publicity Secretary for the
Sheriff group, Hon. Bernard Mikko, told our correspondent in a telephone
interview that internal crisis within the PDP shouldn’t stop the election.
“These are pre-election matters. It’s not Jegede or
Jimoh that is on the ballot, it’s the name of PDP that is there, so, the
election should go on and the party leaders will sort themselves out after the
poll,” Mikko said.
But a source said Sheriff and Jimoh Ibrahim were only
‘after a PDP victory and not victory of Jegede’.
And of course there is sense in this assertion because
on the day the Court of Appeal replaced him with Jegede, Jimoh Ibrahim said he
would continue the struggle of reclaiming his ‘mandate’.
“We shall get
justice at the Supreme Court and if the PDP wins Saturday’s election, we shall
have our four years mandate to rule Ondo State. Let me advise you not to abuse
anyone or fight over this one-day ruling, which was paid for from the state
treasury. Mimiko will not succeed himself with Jegede this is too sure,” he said.
The spokesman of Sen. Makarfi’s faction, Prince Dayo
Adeyeye, did not pick his phone calls or respond to a text message sent to him
at the time of filing in this report.
But he told newsmen Tuesday, at Yar’adua Centre,
Abuja, at the end of the PDP Ex-Ministers’ Forum, that the election should be
postponed by at least three weeks.
Despite his ‘triumph’ at the courts, the PDP candidate
for the election, Eyitayo Jegede, also
said Thursday, that the election be postponed by 30 days to enable the PDP
campaign.
He was however
sighted in Akure seriously conducting last minute campaigns on Thursday. Jegede
had also deployed media campaigns and was being vigorously assisted by PDP
governors.
With all these in view, even if the PDP wins the
election, it is clear that Jegede and Jimoh Ibrahim would continue their fight
from where they stopped last week.
Slippery path in APC
Even though Rotimi Akeredolu of the APC has the
support of the federal government, he is confronted with serious challenges in
the home front, the South-West, due to the fact that he does not enjoy the
support of the national leader of the party, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.
Tinubu had wanted Olusegun Abraham as the APC
candidate, but for the sake of power realignment, his candidate was literally
trounced.
In fact, Tinubu had called for a new primary to no
avail and since then, he had technically gone back into his shell and sources
said the Ondo election would be a ‘day of retribution’.
Apart from refusing to come out and abide by the
party’s decision to support Akeredolu, Tinubu, alongside some leading APC
governors in the South-West, had remained silent about the Ondo election,
boycotted the grand rally of the party held last week in Akure and there was no
any indication that they are doing something to ensure the victory of the
party.
Rather, there is a kind of ‘fresh
air’ behind the AD and its candidate, Olusola Oke, and pundits believe that the
confidence came from the green light seen in the Tinubu camp of the APC.
Investigations indicated that most
APC members and supporters of Tinubu are either neutral (planning to boycott
the election) or supporting the AD candidate, Olusola Oke.
This was the reaction of all the
supporters and fans of Tinubu, who spoke with Daily Trust on Saturday on
condition of anonymity.
A supporter who was asked who he
would support simply said, “We have our candidate for the election”.
Asked whether he would vote for
Akeredolu, he retorted, “Just wait and see.”
Another APC member said the party
would support Oke in the election. Unconfirmed reports had it that 24 buses of
supporters were mobilised from Lagos to attend a recent mega rally in Akure by
the AD candidate.
What is clear from the interactions
our reporter had with various APC supporters is the fact that the party
wouldn’t support Akeredolu.
This was also confirmed by the APC
spokesman, Mr. Joe Igbokwe, who in a chat with Daily Trust on Saturday said the
party was neutral.
“As a party, we are neutral but individuals
can take their decision on who to back, but as
a party, we are neutral because we don’t want to be seen as doing
anti-party, we don’t want to do that. We will support whoever wins, whether it
is Akeredolu or Oke, but, I have thought that the party machineries would have
gone into the matter and had it resolved so that the APC would have a united
house,” he said.
Igbokwe reiterated that members of
the APC in Lagos were not happy with the way Asiwaju was being treated in the
party despite his contributions to the formation of the party and the 2015
election victory.
According to him, the president
should have insisted on having Tinubu as part of the last rally the party had
in Ondo and use that platform to reconcile with him.
He said contrary to the report that
Tinubu did not attend the rally because he was ill, the APC national leader was
in the country hale and hearty, adding that those who did not contribute to the
party’s victory were hijacking the machinery and claiming its glory.
“Anybody in this country that thinks
that he can ignore the capacity and capabilities of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu
in this government, that person cannot get it”, he added.
Considering the disquiet in all the
major parties, it’s only the outcome of the election that will unravel how the winner
emerged. For now, all the candidates have their weakness and strengths.
And sensing that conducting the
election would be a herculean task, the
Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Kpotun Idris, had announced that 26,000
officers and men of the force had been
drawn from 26 mobile units for the
election.
He said 20 boats had been stationed
to tackle any security challenges on the waterways, while 12 Armored Personnel
Carriers (APCs) would be moved to the state.
According to him, 300 Hilux vehicles have been earmarked
for the exercise, while 3 helicopters would also be used for aerial vigilance.
Source:Daily Trust
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Politics