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•Undercurrents that led to APC’s victory •PDP, SDP reject results
• Buhari, Saraki, Tinubu congratulate winner

The race to the Alagbaka Government House of Ondo State has been won and lost. The All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Oluwarotimi Odunayo Akeredolu (SAN) breasted the tape ahead of others. But the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state and its candidate, Mr. Eyitayo Jegede (SAN) said yesterday that it was not yet over. They have rejected the results even as

Governor-elect Akeredolu, in his acceptance speech, promised to take everybody along . He praised President Muhammadu Buhari, the National Chairman of APC, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun and members of the party’s National Working Committee (NWC) for his victory.

Declaring Akeredolu as the winner yesterday, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) said he scored the highest number of votes cast and secured more than the statutory requirement of 25 percent of votes in two-thirds of the 18 local councils.

According to the Chief Returning Officer, Prof. Abdulganiyu Ambali, the APC candidate scored 244,842 votes; Eyitayo Jegede of the PDP scored 150, 380 votes; while Olusola Alexander Oke of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) polled126, 889 votes. Akeredolu won in 14 local councils while Jegede and Oke won in two councils each.

The victory of Akeredolu, former National Chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), who during the last lap of the military administration was the Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice in Ondo State, has started a new round of power rotation among the three senatorial districts.

The election confirmed how highly the electorate in Ondo hold the issue of power rotation which became very contentious in the build-up to the election. In Ondo, as constituted after the carving out of Ekiti State in 1996, power rotation commenced with the election of Chief Adebayo Adefarati, an old teacher from the Akoko axis of the North in 1999 and moved down South to Okitipupa when the late Dr. Olusegun Agagu was elected in 2003 after which the incumbent Olusegun Mimiko, an Ondo man from the central district became the governor in 2009.

Although not observed in the real sense of the word, as politicians were always coming up with analyses to justify why a particular zoning formula should favour them, the politics of the state has an almost natural succession system that has followed, since 1999, this principle of power rotation.

The election of Akeredolu has now shifted power back to the Owo/Ose axis of the North which last tasted power in 1979 when the highly revered Chief Adekunle Ajasin was elected as the governor.

A major argument at the inception of the campaigns was the need for the power baton to shift from Mimiko’s central to the north and precisely to Akeredolu’s domain in Owo/Ose axis. One of the proponents of this position, Alhaji Jamiu AfolabI Ekungba, an Owo high chief who was also an aspirant in the APC, said it would be criminal for the other parts of the state to deny the area the opportunity to rule after all these years.

Many analysts had faulted the decision of Mimiko to pick his preferred successor from his central senatorial district where, if he had succeeded, power would have stayed for up to 16 years.

Before the polls, there was a controversy over the pattern the exercise would take, especially as more external forces were at play in the election, the outcome of which is expected to have effects on the direction of national politics, especially the conduct of the 2019 presidential election.

One of the major outcomes of the exercise is the erosion of the power base of a former Lagos State governor, Bola Ahmed Tinubu who, in the crisis-ridden internal politics of the APC, is believed to have been on the wrong side in an emerging new power equation in the political association of the South West with the central power in Abuja.

With the election of Akeredolu, Tinubu’s grip on the politics of the Southwest may be undermined. Analysts say Tinubu’s influence may also not be strong in Ekiti and Osun when the two states hold their governorship elections before 2019.

It was learnt that the emergence of a new power bloc in the South West is to work for northern interests in the next presidential election when it is obvious that Tinubu, whose singular efforts made the unprecedented 2015 power shift possible, has publicly expressed his dissatisfaction with the management of both the national economy and the ruling APC.

When the outcome of the primary election that produced Akeredolu as the candidate of the APC was rejected by Tinubu in an open letter where he called for the sack of the party’s National Chairman, Odigie-Oyegun, he distanced himself from the party and relocated abroad from where he reportedly pulled the strings of support for Oke, the lanky politician from Ilaje who, as an aspirant, was also aggrieved by the results of the shadow polls.

While Oke, who only defected from the PDP to the APC after last year’s presidential election, was never a part of Tinubu’s political circle, the Lagos lord who reportedly selected the new AD platform, threw his weight behind Oke to protect his own sphere of regional influence.

An attempt by Tinubu, who is also the national leader of the APC to have a foothold in Kogi State by installing his ward, James Faleke as the governor, was vehemently rebuffed by some northern political elements that successfully prevented the move by settling for Yahaya Bello as the governor.

It was therefore not surprising that both contenders in the Kogi power play, Bello and Faleke were physically present in Akure, the Ondo State capital, playing opposing roles during the polls.

While Bello, in the company of other northern governors, reportedly came in for Akeredolu, Faleke came with some strategists and tacticians to prepare the winning blueprint for Oke who was also reported to have been assisted with a lot of funding.

Massive human and material resources deployed from Lagos and other Tinubu’s political outposts to prevent Akeredolu, a former beneficiary who has followed the steps of a few other close associates of the Lagos lord to wean himself off his influence, provided the wining formula for the now governor-elect.

The formula allegedly came in the form of heavy inducements of the voters, backed by protection from security forces in almost all the units where The Guardian observed the election process while voting lasted.

While all the major parties induced the voters with food, household items and cash before the election, none could match the Election Day fund disbursement from the Abuja politicians who provided the support for Akeredolu.

At many of the polling units, only a discerning observer with an ear to the ground would notice the discreet cash-for-vote method that was employed by the parties to win the electorate.

It was observed that the inducement of voters was partly responsible for the large turnout for voting. When words got round that there was “something” for their efforts, many of those who had stayed back, especially women, made it to the units.

Condemning an alleged inducement of voters by political parties, Afenifere chieftain and National Chairman of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Chief Olu Falae whose party had a candidate in Olu Agunloye in the contest, expressed disgust at what he referred to as the erosion of the dignity of the electorate by the very people that pauperised them.

Governor Mimiko, who was accused of similar inducement of voters in the last year’s House of Assembly election, also cried out against distributing money to voters last Saturday.

The battle of wits and influence that came to play was indeed a straight fight involving three factors, including that of incumbent Mimiko whose candidate, Jegede, had been so distracted and wearied by the judicial travails he went through at the hands of the factional candidate of the PDP, Jimoh Ibrahim.

Mimiko’s strident calls for postponement of the exercise to allow Jegede recover and get his campaign beats back were rebuffed by INEC.

Many supporters of Mimiko’s faction of the PDP, which the judiciary pronounced as the authentic one, pointed to the judicial travails of Jegede as one of the ways Abuja “rigged” the exercise, alleging that the court cases and the eleventh hour judicial resolutions were deliberately contrived to weaken Jegede’s candidature.

Although Akeredolu with his spread of strength across the state seems to have a pan-Ondo mandate, preparations for the exercise had exposed the fragile unity of the people of the state and the ability of politicians to explore the weakness to promote partisan interests.

Before the polls, the camps of the three major candidates were campaigning with ethnicity labels to garner maximum votes in the home local councils of their candidates, a development that in more than one instance, led to tempers boiling over resulting in dire consequences.

In Akure, where Jegede hails from, the battle cry before the election was “Akure li kan” meaning “it is the turn of Akure” which proponents were ready to do anything to realise, including placing curses on indigenes who may want to “play Judas” and non-indigenes “who had drunk our waters” but who now want to vote against Akure interests.

A former governorship aspirant in the APC, Tunji Ariyomo who was vigorously campaigning for Akeredolu, was almost lynched on Election Day by a mob, which called him unprintable names as he came to his voting unit in Isikan area of Akure to exercise his franchise.

In Ilaje, where Oke is the foremost political leader, the battle cry was “Ile nu se” meaning “home is the place to be,” a call to all indigenes of the oil-producing coastal stretch to protect the interest of the area by voting the AD candidate.      There were reports of threats against fellow Ilaje who had been identified as opposing Oke. One young fellow was actually told that the last Saturday was going to be his last day on earth.

It was however in Akeredolu’s Owo that the crisis of ethnic politics boiled over and claimed three lives on the eve of election when a serving commissioner in Mimiko’s cabinet, who had been accused of anti-community action, allegedly ordered the burning of a property that belonged to a female APC member. A reprisal attack from those “loyal to the community” left three persons dead while the young commissioner sought sanctuary within the fortified walls of Akure Government House.

The incident which discouraged many who might want to vote against the APC candidate from doing so perhaps accounted for the massive win for Akeredolu in Owo, where, unlike the trend in other areas that had candidates, the APC candidate scored 32, 988 votes to beat Jegede’s 4,291 and Oke’s 2,469.

And for the first time in the state, traditional rulers were publicly campaigning for their subjects who were candidates in the election and in some instances these efforts were laced with subtle threats.

In the state capital, unconfirmed reports had it that the monarch assembled sectional heads and told them that anyone of them whose domain was not won by Jegede would have his beads removed, while during a campaign visit to Owo, the monarch publicly told Oke that the AD candidate should look for supporters elsewhere as his people were not ready to vote for an outsider.

Even as the election was won and lost, Jegede’s loss is being blamed on the non-indigenes who are being accused of voting against the interests of the community.

But the PDP and SDP in the state have rejected the results of the election, saying “it was not free and fair” and rigged in favour of APC.

The State Director of Media and Publicity of the PDP, Mr. Ayo Fadaka insisted that the election was fraught with irregularities and gross misconduct.

“The election is neither free nor fair and this is because INEC was part of that shady conspiracy to remove the name of our candidate from the INEC list and replaced it with the name of a stranger,” he said.

Fadaka hinged his claims on the predicament of the party and its candidate, Jegede in the Federal High Court, Abuja Division, which earlier ordered that the name of Jegede be replaced with Ibrahim, before it was revoked recently.

“This action of INEC denied PDP the valuable time required to campaign, to have access to voters register and raise objection if there is any and also to prepare adequately for the election.

“Therefore I declare that we went into that election with our hands tied behind our back and completely blindfolded. A free and fair election must be free from all shackles of all external influence and interest and this election cannot be said to be so.”

Fadaka, who was also the party’s agent at the state INEC headquarters added that “the most disturbing thing is the fact that the APC in Ondo State was financially empowered to buy a vote for N5000.”

Also the governorship candidate of the SDP, Agunloye, who polled 10, 149 votes faulted the outcome of the election.

His words: “Reports indicated that there was distribution of money, cloth and other things at various polling stations. Some people were attacked and driven out of the voting centers while the security agents at the polling centers looked the other way.

“The figures released by INEC were allocated in collaboration with APC but we will await the action of the party itself before we take our next step.

The next line of action will be communicated to the people of the state and the public,” he said.

Meanwhile, some eminent Nigerians, including President Buhari and Tinubu have congratulated Akeredolu.

Buhari also congratulated Odigie- Oyegun, ‎Chairman of the Campaign Committee, Governor Simon Lalong of Plateau State, as well as other party faithful who put in their best and braved the odds to ensure a successful outing for the APC candidate.

The President, in a congratulatory statement issued by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina yesterday rejoiced with the good people of Ondo State, whom, he said, aligned with his own belief that Akeredolu, with his pedigree, possesses the qualities to transform the state into the Ondo of their dreams.

In a statement, Tinubu said: “I extend congratulations to Akeredolu on the outcome of the election and for his
perseverance and persistence in seeking that office.

“I also congratulate the people of Ondo State for their generally exemplary conduct on election day and for demonstrating their will to shun the regressive politics of yesterday by returning to the progressive brand of politics that has been the trademark of the people of that state.”

Others that greeted Akeredolu include the President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara.