•The Alagbaka Government House in Akure
It is no longer news that All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate Oluroritmi Akeredolu is Ondo State governor-elect. What is news is how the Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) proved bookmakers wrong to spring surprise in the Sunshine State. Deputy News Editor BUNMI OGUNMODEDE writes on the forces that paved the way for the one-time Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) president.
Saturday’s governorship election in Ondo State has been won and lost. Strangely, the results proved all bookmakers wrong. The candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr. Olurotimi Akeredolu (SAN), beat two other major contenders, Mr Eyitayo Jegede (SAN) of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Mr. Olusola Oke of the Alliance for Democracy (AD).
Akeredolu, who ==analysts described as the political underdog, sprang a surprise, winning in 14 out of the 18 local government areas with 244, 842 votes to beat PDP’s Jegede to the second position with 150, 380 and Oke with 126, 889 votes.
The APC flag bearer did not win all the six council areas in his North Senatorial District but took the battle to Jegede in his Central Senatorial base and won in five of the seven local government areas. In Oke’s South Senatorial District, Akeredolu won in three of the five council areas.
The results have shown that certain undercurrents guided the election to prove bookmakers wrong and assert the supremacy of the electorate. Some of the forces that aided the victory of the APC candidate are:
PDP crisis
The ruling party was crisis-ridden in the run-up to the poll. Jegede, who eventually flew its ticket at the election, was restored on the ballot two days to the election. He was in the limbo for more than a month after a Federal High Court ruling gave the ticket to Mr. Jimoh Ibrahim of the Ali Modu Sheriff faction of the party. Jegede, a preferred candidate of incumbent Governor Olusegun Mimiko, is of the Ahmed Markafi faction. Since Ibrahim is of the other faction, the governor, who has a hold on the PDP structure and resources in the state stayed away for as long as Ibrahim was on the ballot.
In Rivers State when a similar scenario played out in 2007, the party supported Celestine Omehia during the campaigns. Omehia won the election but lost the seat to Rotimi Amaechi who approached the court for what he called illegal substitution by the PDP leadership as the candidate. That was not the case in the Sunshine State. The mainstream PDP distanced itself from the Ibrahim campaigns.
The former PDD candidate’s involvement was to stop Mimiko from relinquishing office to a lackey in Jegede. According to him, Jegede’s victory would mean a third term for the incumbent who will complete a two-term in office next February.
Those who accused Ibrahim of playing a spoiler’s role may be right after all. He was alleged to have congratulated Akeredolu immediately after voting closed in the polling units across the state on Saturday and even when INEC was yet to collate and compute the results from the local government areas. Ibrahim’s accusers said the results have foreclosed his plan to appeal his removal as the PDP’s candidate last week Thursday.
AD
The AD, the platform on which Oke contested, was moribund before its flag bearer defected from the APC in the aftermath of the controversial shadow poll. Although Oke succeeded in reactivating the platform, time was definitely not on his side to establish structures that could have been formidable enough to win a statewide election. Many lauded Oke’s performance on the AD platform, which they say he borrowed to cotest the election. They attribute Oke’s performance to experience.
The APC
Despite the controversial governorship primary, the APC has become a formidable party and an alternative to the ruling PDP in the state. Ahead of the poll, the APC was the nest of every aggrieved PDP member. Former Deputy Governor Alhaji Olanusi Ali joined the APC after he parted ways with Mimiko.
It was believed that whoever got the APC ticket would likely dislodge the ruling party from the Alagbaka Government House.
The Mimiko factor
Not a few believe that the people voted against Mimiko in protest and to stop what they claim to be the extension of his eight-year administration. The governor, they say, squandered the goodwill freely given to him in 2007 and 2012 on the platform of the Labour Party.
The people, it was learnt, are not happy with the governor in his handling of state affairs.
“Mimiko rode to power because the civil servants and organised labour supported him in 2007 and 2012. But, he has not reciprocated the goodwill. The workers have not been paid for six months. He was playing on the intelligent of the workers by urging them to vote for his preferred candidate, promising to clear the arrears of their salaries this week”, a stakeholder in the state said.
Like Ibrahim, the stakeholder said a victory for Jegede would have been tenure elongation for Mimiko.
Jegede not independent
The PDP flag bearer is seen as a politician tied to his godfather’s apron string. Critics see him a man who lacks the right political initiative to lead a state as sophisticated as Ondo.
According to investigations, Jegede has no structure outside of Mimiko’s. He allegedly went to sleep for more than a month only to be pushing for a postponement of the election when his name was restored on the ballot by INEC on the orders of a Court of Appeal.
“It was political suicide for Jegede to have relied solely on Mimiko’s incumbency,” an analyst said. The analyst alluded to the late Chuba Okadigbo’s description of incumbency as a double-edged sword which could either be an asset or a liability. “In the case of the Ondo governorship election, Mimiko’s incumbency has turned out as liability for Jegede”, the analyst said.
Cash-for-votes
This factor has been dismissed as a non-issue in the Ondo election as all the parties freely deployed money to woo voters. Besides, elections in the country have always been heavily monetised. So, it is wrong of any party to accuse the other of buying votes. They all used money,” a source told The Nation.
Federal might
This factor cannot be ruled out. An analyst said: “It would be miscalculation for people to think that President Muhammadu Buhari would be indifferent to political developments in any part of the country. You remember he was in Akure personally to campaign. Besides, his aides issued a statement in Abuja a day to the election urging the people to vote the APC.
“Even if the President was neutral, the APC as the ruling party at the central cannot afford to sit on the fence. Mimiko was a beneficiary of federal power in 2012 when he was returned to office on the Labour Party (LP) platform.
The administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan backed him against Oke, who was then the PDP flag bearer. The deal was that Mimiko would defect to the PDP after winning the election. In Ekiti State, Dr. Kayode Fayemi was the first to lose election under the APC ticket in 2014 because the PDP candidate, Ayodele Fayose, enjoyed federal backing.”
Those defending the deployment of federal might, said a loss for Akeredolu in last Saturday’s poll would have been a vote of no confidence on the President and the APC. Besides, it would also have created problem for the 2019 project of the ruling party.
Sophistication of the electorate
By pitching their tent with Akeredolu, the voters in Ondo State showed their political sophistication. The people are unhappy that Ondo, an oil-producing state, has been finding it difficult to fulfil its statury obligations to workers.
According to them, using the dwindling allocations from the Federation Account as reason for not paying worker’s salaries was not enough, more so, when neighbouring Edo State was meeting its obligations under former Governor Adams Oshiohmole.
The Smart Card Reader
The use of the Smart Card Reader (SCR) for electronic accreditation of voters by INEC frustrated any plan to manipulate the electoral process. As predicted in an analysis in The Nation of last Friday, voter turnout was low when compared with the Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) distributed by the electoral umpire. Ordinarily, the introduction of voting immediately after accreditation should have encouraged voter accreditation. But one thing that the INEC has achieved with the new system is the elimination of multiple voting.
A break from the old order
The election of Akeredolu has opened a new chapter in the Sunshine State. The electorate have shown that they need a break from politicians who have links with the Alagbaka establishment.
Though Akeredolu once served as the Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice in the state, it was under a military setting. The gate to the Alagbaka Government House has been shot against those with tainted relationship with power since the country returned to participatory democracy 17 years ago.
As the governor-elect, all eyes would now be on Akeredolu and the expectation of the electorate who overwhelmingly voted for him is no doubt high. Having contested four years ago on the platform of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and lost, he is expected to hit the ground running when he formally takes the driver’s seat in February next year.
Source: TheNation
