When the Court of Appeal sitting in Benin ordered that Dr. Olusegun Mimiko who competed against? then incumbent, Dr. Segun Agagu be sworn in as duly elected governor of Ondo State on February 23 2009, little did he know that the success that came as a result of the long drawn legal battle will pale into insignificance barely two years into his tenure.
Since the appellate court in its wisdom declared him the winner of governorship polls of April 14, 2007, threats from different directions in the state’s political filament have come to put the hopes of the governor’s quest for a possible return to Government House Alagbaka is in dire strait.
Expectedly, observers are closely watching political currents in the state that prides itself as Sunshine State and if emerging trends is anything to go by, then the race to the 2013 governorship polls will certainly be a three- course race between the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), incumbent Labour Party (LP) and the rampaging Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN).
Though there are other smaller parties jostling for attention and relevance in the state reputed for having one of the nation’s most sophisticated people, the three seems very visible with structure and chances of upstaging one another in the battle that watchers have dubbed epic political war of wits and guts that would play itself out in the next two years.
As in any endeavour of man, the three in the unfolding epic battle have their weaknesses and strengths to either outwit one another, or to kiss the canvass when the intrigues become too much separating the boys from the men.?
How well the parties acquit themselves with this reality would determine how far they will go, as the issue hitherto irrelevant is beginning to assume a source of campaign tool in the hands of gladiators in the Ondo State political turf.
Incumbent Labour Party and Mimiko’s current political battles
The Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) after the 2007 polls held that former Governor Olusegun Agagu of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) won, thus leaving Mimiko and his co-travellers in the LP with no option than to seek legal redress. Reprieve came their way when the table was turned in their favour.
Since then, a lot has happened within a camp formerly seen to be coercive and closely knitted. Some members had had course to express reservations on post victory arrangement both within the party and in government. This disagreement had to do with appointments and patronage.
Indications that a major crack had emerged came when the former state chairman of LP, Chief Olaiya Oni threw in the towel, to the surprise of many. The relationship between the two dates back in time and was further cemented by the long years in the trenches when the protracted legal struggle for the actualization of the mandate of the governor was at the law courts.
Since the Court of Appeal ruling, many had argued that the relationship between them ought to have blossomed but it took the turn for the worse.
Oni, a former Minister of Education in an elaborate press conference held in Akure, the state capital announced to the world that he was resigning his position. The Akoko-born retired technocrat told journalists that after sacrificing his all for the party, Mimiko, after victory in court treated him like a leper. ‘’I religiously worked for the Labour Party right from inception. I sold my assets, stood like a rock of Gibraltar, yet Mimiko treats me like a leper and each occasion, he starts begging me but day in day out, he had continued to grow from bad to worse in our relationship.”
Articulating his grouse further, he said the state government has not done much to adequately fund the party just as it has also failed to patronize its leadership since it came to power, in spite of the sacrifice and contributions that have been made by members in the past.
Waxing emotional, Oni continued, “For example Dr. Mimiko had not given me the benefit of a single contract as the state chairman of the party so that at least, I can have some financial benefits through profits from the government I laboured for.”
Apart from Oni, recently his vice chairman, Senator Gbenga Meroyi, also left the party, thus necessitating the dissolution of the State Executive Council ostensibly to purge it of likely elements that would be inimical to the Mimiko 2013 project. In the end, some commissioners whose loyalty seems questionable lost out in the chess game!
The implications of all these is that the elements who either left the government or the party or who were booted out have teamed up with the opposition holding meetings with them with the hope of upstaging the LP from power.
The Lurking ACN
Perhaps the greatest beneficiary of the schism within the PDP seems to be the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) whose ranks is gradually swelling by the day as it has provided a safe haven for progressive elements in the state who see it as a veritable alternative platform.
During the long years of the battle to actualize the mandate of the governor, it is believed that prominent members of the ACN provided the needed resources and goodwill at the disposal of the Mimiko and his group with the hope that LP would only be a temporary platform for the governor who was expected to switch over to the ACN.
Sources however hinted that the singular action of refusing to honour this ‘‘gentleman agreement’’ has been a source of discord between the governor and the leaders of the ACN who have vowed to upstage the governor in 2013.
Mimiko had reportedly spurned overture made to him by some unnamed leaders of the ACN to switch over. This to them gives the governor away as an ingrate who must be punished.
The ACN seems more confident to wrest the control of the state from incumbent, just as it took over the control of the five remaining states from the dominant PDP in the last polls. The reason for the confidence might not be far fetched, since the party prides itself as the custodian of the progressive ideals of the old Awolowo political school of thought, it has the ‘legitimacy’ to rule the states of the South West (Ondo State inclusive).
Owing to the organisational prowess of the party, several governorship hopefuls have been expressing their resolve to fly the party’s flag in 2013 when the next? governorship poll will be due. Amongst those who have thrown their hats into the ring include former President of the Nigerian Bar Association, Mr. Rotimi Akeredolu, former Minister for Mines and Power, Mr. Olu Agunloye as well as constitutional lawyer, Dr. Tunji Abayomi.
Also said to be eyeing the governorship seat is a serving senator, Ajayi Boroffice? who is being rumoured to have perfected plans to dump the Labour Party for the ACN with a view to realizing his ambition. If that happens, then it will pitch Agunloye against Boroffice in yet another battle of wits having contested the Ondo North senatorial ticket of the LP against one another.
To express the resolve of the ACN, its leaders building on the mileage secured from the last general elections where the party gave the ruling party a run for its money has been touring the 18 local government areas of the state to shore support for its agenda.
Chieftains of the party both within and outside the state have been deployed as foot soldiers to sensitise the people on the need for change. They say the Mimiko-led administration has done little or nothing to move the state forward in all ramifications.
How well chieftains of ACN manage their personalities as well as smaller grassroots politicians that have found refuge in its fold will go a long way to determine how far it would go.
Crisis prone/rudderless PDP?
Things appear to be heading for the worse in the state chapter of the PDP since it lost power to the LP. In fact, since the judicial pronouncement it has continued to move from one turbulent charge to the other leading to the dissolution of the Omotayo Dairo-led state executive, which was replaced with an interim committee whose mandate is not yet clear.
With the action of the national headquarters of the party, teeming membership now have greater optimism that PDP would not have less in terms of needless schism within its ranks. Members now believe that PDP will assume its deserved position in state.
This belief has paled into oblivion going by the fact that some leaders have expressed lack of satisfaction with the manner reconciliatory efforts are going on in the party. Leading gladiators in the state includes: Agagu ;National Legal Adviser of the party, Chief Olusola Oke Dairo; Chief Oyewole Fasawe; Chief Omolade Oluwateru (Agagu’s former deputy) and Victor Olabimtan.
Like the LP, the former dominant party has lost some of its key members to the ACN. Key members such as former Commissioner for Finance, Chief Omotayo Alasoadura have left the party for the ACN owing to endless crisis within the party. Although some people from his camp, including Isaac Kekemeke, A
yo Ifayefunmi and Oladunni Odu, among others, were present at some of the meetings, his absence was said to have been predicated on the fact that he was through with the PDP.
On his departure the ex-commissioner said the PDP had become a personal property of a single individual in the state. “We were in PDP because we felt we should be partakers in mainstream politics. But I have come to discover that if you get yourself right, you can get what belongs to you without being in the party that controls the centre.”He said.
Some members at the grassroots are daily defecting from the PDP to the LP. The list includes the former youth leader and special assistant to Agagu, Muyiwa Asagunla.?
Apart from loss of membership, other factors militating against the party are numerous. There appears to be no unifying force, a situation made more manifest as the state has a minister that appears not to be interested in what becomes of the party. Minister Mobolaji Johnson seems not known to the party and hardly musters any influence on matters affecting it.
Also, the state representative on the board of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), which past occupiers have used to mobilize into the PDP has been taken away since President Goodluck Jonathan? decided to give state governors chance to nominate the representatives from their states on the board, the PDP, again, lost out. The nominee from the state is a member of the LP.
Commenting on the implications of this on the party, the PDP’s Director of Publicity, Mr. Ayo Fadaka, said, “We have taken due cognizance of the fact that President Jonathan has given the slot of who represents the state on the board of NDDC to the nominee of Governor Olusegun Mimiko, of the Labour Party at the expense of the PDP nominee.”
Providing further insight, “Nothing can be farther from the truth as these development stem from a gentleman’s agreement that President Jonathan reached with the governors of all the Niger Delta states that he would appoint their nominees to the NDDC so as to eliminate any friction in the activities of the commission in all the states.
Watchers believe that there exists an undercurrent that would allow Mimiko to defect to the PDP where he was before to re-contest the office as a means of finding an appropriate response to the rampaging ACN who through its actions seems bent on taking over the state in 2013 And considering the party’s popularity in Yoruba land having captured the other five states, any thing can happen!
Sources close to the governor vowed that sensing the precarious situation, he finds himself in the build up to his re-election, the governor is said to be mooting the idea of a possible return. A highly-placed source in Akure said the governor’s body language suggest so. Another source said Mimiko dropped the hint recently in a meeting at the Government House where? he stated that he took the decision early enough so that his aides would not be taken unawares. Whether he defects or not, the race to Alagbaka has become a threesome jostle with the leading platforms having the same advantage as well as identical weaknesses. Where will the pendulum swing to?