in fact over confident, that the rival party, Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) which they trounced at the polls could hardly come out of the paralysing defeat. Indeed, it was widely reported that the erstwhile governor, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola, was at a state function when the Court of Appeal sitting in Ibadan pronounced his removal from office. The governor had to literally scurry from the assignment to his country home in Okuku. The rest is now history.
The case that brought Mr. Rauf Aregbesola in had a chequered history of travelling to the Appellate Court twice before it was eventually resolved in his favour, three years into the second term of former governor Oyinlola. Ripples from the long and hard fought legal battle are still on. The dust might take more time before settles. It should not be forgotten that two “Honourable” Justices in the matter have themselves fallen victim of the case. Justice Ayo Salami is still battling strenuously to regain his seat from where he has been suspended. All his efforts to invalidate his suspension have failed and he had served notice of retirement.
Typical of Nigerian politicians, no sooner had Governor Aregbesola taken over the mantle than some people migrated from PDP to ACN. The checklist included a hitherto member of Oyinlola’s kitchen cabinet. The politician, Chief Peter Babalola whose sobrequet is “Peter Power”, castigated his colleagues in PDP and denounced the party by calling it names. This, among others, so shocked the PDP and its members that it took them a long time before they came to the irreversible reality that power in the state had slipped from their slippery hands. The episode was a product of their carelessness, in-fighting and despicable ego, resulting in the implosion that wrecked the party.
After the reality dawned on the party members, the stakeholders have risen to the occasion. They have gone back to the drawing board to re-strategise, coming out with potent plans and formulas to invigorate the party with a view to wrestling power from the perceived hi-jackers.
A test case is next year’s governorship election in the state. Already, four formidable aspirants: former Secretary to the State Government, Alhaji Fatai Akinbade; former Youths Minister, Senator Akinlabi Olasunkanmi; former Chairman House Committee on Defence, Honourable Busayo Oluwole Oke; and former Chairman, Senate Committee on Appropriation, Senator Iyiola Omisore, are determined and poised to tackle Mr Aregbesola headlong. Feelers from their preparation and wide consultation in the state have shown that the 2014 gubernatorial election in the state promises to be a battle royal between ACN/APC and PDP.
While ACN which has just metamorphosed into APC has settled for Aregbesola to run for second term in office, PDP is yet to resolve who among the four stalwarts to hoist the umbrella. Pretty as the party’s success might look, the unending question is, would the choice of their candidate not tear the umbrella apart, particularly with the stone resolve of all the aspirants to slug it out with one another? Concerned PDP members and admirers are further agitated against the undeniable fact that Governor Aregbesola is a strong character who has recorded a modicum of achievements.
Rather than feel worried, the dog handlers who hold the ace in the party have said that the more the aspirants, the better for the party, in that all of them are working in the true spirit and love for the party and that the process to the picking of party’s standard-bearer will not be rancorous as envisaged by the outsiders, particularly the party’s adversaries.
One of the strategies of winning the state back, according to them, is picking the party’s candidate from Mr. Aregbeslola’s constituency of Ife-Ijesa Senatorial District. If this information is something to go by, it means that the number of the aspirants has been delimited to two: Honourable Wole Oke and Senator Iyiola Omisore. The two of them are eminently qualified and picking one from the duo might not be difficult.
Mr. Aregbesola is an Ijesa man, while Wole Oke is his fellow Ijesa man. The party may want to use Honourable Oke to politically unsettle Aregbesola from his very immediate constituency. Oke’s manners with his bright pedigree in Ijesaland in terms of delivery of dividends of democracy to his constituency are superb. Wherever he goes, love radiates around him. Lovers of PDP are already thinking aloud that Senator Omisore should play a fatherly or brotherly role for his vibrant, canny and tactical aburo, Oke, in the interest of the collective fortune of the party.
With such a scenario and deft political strategy by the PDP, history is set to repeat itself. It will be recalled that in 2003, Prince Oyinlola was picked from Osun Central, the same area where Chief Bisi Akande comes from. Oyinlola is not just from Osun Central but of Igbomina extraction, same as Chief Akande. The formula worked then. It is likely to work now.
•Shittu writes in from Osogbo, Osun State.
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