FROM LAGOS TO OGUN… TALE OF A POLITICAL ORPHAN
Something is seriously wrong with Senator Olamilekan Adeola aka Yayi. The Senator representing Lagos West at the National Assembly, probably suffers a bad case of amnesia. Maybe not. Maybe he has simply chosen to treat the lives and destinies of the Lagos West electorate with contempt just because they are helpless to curtail him. As your read, Yayi has launched a desperate and ill- advised campaign to emerge as the All Progressives Congress governorship candidate in Ogun State at the forthcoming gubernatorial election. Recently, he expressed his confidence in Yewa people of the state claiming he was sure that they would unquestioningly accept his candidacy soon after his anointment for the role by his party’s hierarchy.
It is still early in the day but the aspirations of Senator Solomon Adeola Yayi to govern Ogun State may be a stillbirth after all. Though a senator representing Lagos West, Yayi’s sight has been set on taking over from Governor Ibikunle Amosun whose tenure runs out in 2019. There is no love lost between Yayi and Amosun despite both belonging to the same political party, the APC. He is seen as an interloper who wants to ride on his closeness to Asiwaju Bola Tinubu to usurp the political arrangement in the state. Amosun does not fancy Yayi succeeding him based on this. The diminutive senator thought he could pitch his tent with the former governor of the state, Aremo Olusegun Osoba. Osoba and Amosun have been estranged since the latter’s first term. In fact, prior to the 2015 elections, Osoba fought tooth and nail, even presenting a candidate on his rejuvenated Social Democratic Party, to upstage Amosun. Amosun eventually won the reelection battle. Seeing this lacuna, Yayi figured he was better off with Osoba. Thus, he has been patronising the Septuagenarian and currying the favour of the people around him. Yayi however went overboard, according to inside sources, when he started going about town, saying he had been endorsed by Osoba. Sources in Osoba’s camp have however disputed this claim, insisting that the former governor has no political arrangement with Yayi.