2019: Understanding the Akinlade factor in Ogun
The issue of 2019 gubernatorial election in relation to the alliance between the All Progressives Congress ( APC) and the Allied People’s Movement (APM) in Ogun State is about the power rotation arrangement in the three major ethnic blocs in the state. Analysts, who have followed the recent developments in the state, say it is the insistence of Governor Ibikunle Amosun on fairness and justice, favouring a Yewa indigene as the next governor of the state that is the crux of the matter.
In Ogun, many believe that Amosun was right and tending to be just in his decision that his successor must come from Ogun West Senatorial district, because the zone has not produced a governor since the creation of the state in 1976. And this informed his choice of a member of House of Representatives, Adekunle Akinlade from Ipokia Local Government Area of the state.
Some of those who hold this view are outside of Ogun West, and they believe that it should go to Yewa for the sake of justice. It is the alleged refusal of the powers that be at the national secretariat of the party to allow the people’s choice that led to Akinlade’s exit from the APC.
Although some critics say the support by the sitting governor to Akinlade amounted to anti-party, some analysts however, reason that Amosun is free to support whoever he wants to. According to them, if some political parties are free to endorse President Muhammadu Buhari as their presidential candidate, and some others on the platform of Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) have also adopted Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), the Ogun State governor’s support for the APM candidate is in order.
The crux of the matter
Recall that Ogun State was nearly taken over by the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) until Amosun stepped in and through his great performance, people- oriented brand of politics and sense of justice changed the tide in favour of the APC.
In pursuit of that justice, the governor in the twilight of his tenure went round and listened to the people’s cry and he decided that a Yewa person must succeed him.
The Ogun people in the APC massively chose Akinlade as the flag bearer; but the APC national leadership denied the people their choice. This resulted in the massive exodus from the APC to other parties in the state. The chief beneficiary is the APM where Akinlade picked the gubernatorial ticket.
What this shows is that whenever and wherever the choice of people is tampered with, they can form a movement that can be very difficult to burst. Today, in just two months, the APM has become a movement to reckon with. That is the power of a critical mass when their wish is subverted.
Amosun decided to swim or sink with Akinlade. The governor took the decision having felt so bad that the result of the acrimonious Lagos gubernatorial primary was allowed to stay by the national secretariat of the party, whereas that of Ogun was upturned. The Ogun APC members also felt so bad at that seeming double-standard. At that point, there was no better choice for Akinlade than to leave.
An observer, who would not want his name in print, said: “What is happening in Ogun right now ahead of the gubernatorial election in March shows that it could be suicidal for anybody to underrate or toy with APM, which within a space of three months has become a movement.”
Side-stepping the issue
Some analysts seem to have failed to interrogate the issues in the political development in Ogun State. The major issue in the Ogun State APC is about internal party democracy.
“It is about the desperation of some forces in the party to ride rough shod over other members in the party whom they perceived as not complying with their dictation. It is about a party leadership that has submitted itself to the whims and caprices of a faction in the party and will stop at nothing to satisfy the insatiable appetite of such leaders to expand their political tentacles even to where they have no political capital,” a pundit said.
Mass defection to APM
Recall that while decamping from the APC for APM, about 24 of the 26 winners of the primary election of the All Progressives Congress(apc) for the Ogun State House of Assembly tickets, had alleged that there was a grand plan by some individuals outside the state that were bent on hijacking the party machinery in Ogun State.
They alleged that the signs of crisis began to show when they were allegedly refused party nomination forms at national headquarters, Abuja.
“None of us was given the requisite INEC forms for the nomination of the party as candidates for the election as at December 1, 2018 when the nomination and substitution of candidates for the Houses of Assembly closed according to the Electoral Act and the Guidelines of INEC,” the aggrieved members had said.
“We wish to place it on record that we made several attempts at the state secretariat and the national secretariat of the party to collect the nomination forms. The National Chairman of the party, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, in concert with some other forces apparently had designs which are at variance with the opinions and wishes of the overwhelming majority of the members of the APC in Ogun State. He ignored the winners of the primary election that was conducted by the committee he constituted and offered our tickets to people who are not the preferences of the members of the party in our respective constituencies,” they said, adding that “In some cases, the tickets were offered to individuals who never expressed interest in contesting election or who are even not resident or known to the people of the constituencies they are to represent. The emerging picture is that of a grand design to install a government that is not homegrown in Ogun State but a government that would be answerable to some forces outside the confines of Ogun State.”
According to them, “After extensive and due consultations with our elders, members and stakeholders in the APC in Ogun State, we have come to the inevitable conclusion to seek the general mandate of our people in the 2019 elections on the platform of the Allied Peoples Mandate (APM).”
The debate rages
In a recent rejoinder to a piece in a national daily authored by Duro Onabule, a former Press Secretary to President Ibrahim Babangida, on the crisis in the Ogun APC, Senator Iyabo Veronica Anisulowo, said: “The choice of the next governor of Ogun State on the grounds of which section of the state is due to fill the office has dominated political discourse in the state for the better part of the year. It is a debate that is unending. Chief Onabule added his voice and his preference but the fact of the matter is that there are many informed people in the state that hold different opinions. While one cannot question Onabule’s preference, his recourse to selective amnesia to confuse the issues is simply unexpected of someone of his calibre. In the build-up to the APC primaries, the party had a stakeholders’ meeting where it was openly resolved that the party would elect its gubernatorial candidate from the Yewa Zone of the state. The meeting was attended by party elders and activists from the Ijebu zone.”
According to Anisulowo, “In spite of the consensus in the APC to elect its gubernatorial candidate from Yewa Zone, the party opened its doors to aspirants from other zones to contest against whoever was presented by the people of Yewa Zone. Hon. Adekunle Akinlade was presented by the elders and members of the party in Yewa and he went into the primaries with other aspirants who insisted on going into the exercise including Dapo Abiodun, Bimbo Ashiru, Jimi Lawal and Sen. Gbenga Kaka, all from the Ijebu zone. The outcome of the primaries has been an issue of controversy.”
The senator had also alleged that the problem in the APC in the state was masterminded by outside influence.
“The rumble in Ogun State, as Onabule describes it, is the outcome of the plot hatched in Lagos by some territorial expansionists who want to bring Ogun State under their control for economic exploitation. They have willing tools in the hands of some ambitious politicians who have lost relevance in Ogun State,” she said.
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