With the leadership crisis rocking the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) at the national level over the emergence of former Borno State governor, Ali Modu Sheriff as its acting Chairman and graft charges hanging on the necks of many of its prominent leaders, strengthening the party’s base in the South West geo-political zone may have to wait. NIYI BELLO reports.
DURING the build-up to the 2015 general elections, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was very optimistic of having a good outing in the South West geo-political zone. Apart from expecting to deliver the zone to President Goodluck Jonathan, the party was also looking forward to reclaiming the two states of Ogun and Oyo and possibly seize the jugular of the opposition All Progressive Congress (APC) by taking over Lagos.
Because the configuration of presidential politics had pitched the North and the Southeastern geo-political zones against each other, the South West suddenly became the bride whose preference would be the deciding factor in the contest of the gladiators.
Although the PDP had a formidable opponent in the zonal APC which leadership had played significant roles in the formation of the party and the emergence of Muhammadu Buhari as its candidate, the party’s optimism was being buoyed by recent events and the power of incumbency at the federal level.
The party, quite against the predictions of political analysts, had just won back Ekiti State in an unprecedented thrashing of incumbency by old timer Ayo Fayose through his unusual public appeal that later became known as the promotion of stomach infrastructure, which till the time of the elections, held the voting population in tight grip.
Fayose also became the face of opposition to the candidacy of Buhari, against whom the Ekiti governor was deploying all manners of campaigns, many of which were adjudged by the generality of the people as immoral.
While it lost Osun to the APC which, appalled by the thoughts of losing another state in the zone, the PDP got Ondo when the governor, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, abandoned his Labour Party (LP) platform to seek refuge under the umbrella to consolidate his long association with the ruling party in Abuja.
In Oyo where the prospects looked a little gloomy because of the crisis within the party that led to five candidates including the party’s flag-bearer, Senator Teslim Folarin, former governors Adebayo Alao-Akala and Rasheed Ladoja, all with ties to the PDP, contesting against each other, the party still expressed hope that the situation could be managed.
And now the party seems to be shrinking in size as many of its leading stars during the elections, like the governorship candidate in Lagos, Jimi Agbaje, have taken the back seat while some others have decamped to the ruling APC. In Ondo where the governorship election is scheduled to hold later this year, many leading politicians in the PDP have left the party to join the APC, a development that many analysts saw as capable of adding the state to the trophy haul of the APC in the South West.
A similar crisis in Ogun had pitched some party big wigs against each other giving room for the rise of controversial but well-heeled politician, Buruji Kashamu, the Chairman of the party’s contact committee in the zone, who through his Omo-Ilu Foundation, had provided much of the funding for the successful prosecution of Fayose’s Ekiti victory.
Former President and the most influential leader of the party in the South West, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, who had been approached by the leadership of the APC to be its “Chief Navigator”, had moved against his party and publicly tore his membership card at his political ward in Abeokuta, the state capital.
In Lagos, where it relied principally on the non-indigenous population and federal coercive forces, for subtle intimidation, to upturn the support base of the APC, the party literarily took the battle to the liar of the Lion of Bourdillon and attempted to seize the state through the ballot.
With Mimiko emerging as the zonal coordinator of PDP presidential campaigns, the Iroko of Ondo politics enlisted the support of the region’s old political leaders, who were aggrieved with the new ones in power, for Jonathan while assuring them of the implementation of the reports of the National Conference, a document the old men contributed to and for which they were so keen.
Mimiko had secured for the president, the support of the old men in Afenifere and their young followers like Yinka Odumakin, by providing the needed regional support for the national conference, which, among others, recommended some proposals towards restructuring of the Nigerian federation that the old leadership had been agitating for.
Also enlisted, perhaps to include them in the rain of largesse that was being enjoyed by armed militant groups of the Niger Delta, were the leaderships of the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) who were wooed through a mouth-watering contract to provide protection for oil pipelines in the South West but which analysts believe was just to buy the loyalty of the hard guys. That was perhaps the only time that Gani Adams and Dr. Fredrick Faseun, both leaders of the OPC fighting for the control of the militant group, agreed to work together.
Attempts were also made, even through it elicited different reactions from stakeholders, to enlist the body of traditional rulers in the region to support for the president.
Unknown to the public at the time, the PDP had also “bought” the loyalty of some fringe political parties in the zone. The Social Democratic Party (SDP) of Chief Olu Falae and the AP of Ladoja have been brought on board the PDP ship to provide support, through their various platforms, for Jonathan’s second term ambition. Falae was to later disclose that SDP received N100 million for logistics to provide support for Jonathan.
However except for Ekiti where the PDP won both the national and state elections, Ondo where it retained the control of the House of Assembly and Lagos and Ogun where it won an appreciable number of seats at the state legislature and the National Assembly, the party did not live up to the expectations of its leaders to take absolute control of the zone.
And now the party seems to be shrinking in size as many of its leading stars during the elections, like the governorship candidate in Lagos, Jimi Agbaje, have taken the back seat while some others have decamped to the ruling APC.
In Ondo where the governorship election is scheduled to hold later this year, many leading politicians in the PDP have left the party to join the APC, a development that many analysts saw as capable of adding the state to the trophy haul of the APC in the South West.
Former National Legal Adviser of the PDP, Olusola Oke, who was one of the few founders of the party in Ondo State, left the party just after the presidential election with scores of his followers particularly from his Southern Senatorial District base.
Oke, who was the PDP governorship candidate in the 2012 elections, is already oiling his machinery to contest for the top seat once again, this time on the platform of the APC.
Two weeks ago, the duo of the Director-General of the Technical Aids Corps (TAC), Dr. Pius Olakunle Osunyikanmi and former Senator representing Ondo Central Senatorial District, Ayo Akinyelure, publicly decamped from the PDP to the APC.
Speaking at a massive rally that shut down commercial activities in Akure, the state capital, while it lasted, the two politicians pledged to deliver the state to the APC in the coming polls.
Osunyikanmi, who was the closest aide to Mimiko and who is known for his popularity among the youths and public servants in all the 18 local councils of the state, joined the APC with hundreds of his followers many of who were part of the team that created the Iroko phenomenon that turned the LP into a winning party within three months of its formation in 2006.
Apart from Osunyikanmi, several other leading PDP chieftains including former Speakers, Victor Olabimtan, Taofik Abdusalaam, Ayo Agbonmuserin and Kenneth Olawale, who headed the House of Assembly at various times since 1999, have decamped to the APC.
The only state that seems impenetrable to the APC in the South West is perhaps, Ekiti, where governor Fayose, has become the most vocal critic of Buhari and the ruling party within the PDP.
