Last-minute intrigues, political sagacity enliven South West

ON Saturday, the 2019 general elections will commence with the presidential and National Assembly elections. As almost all polls and permutations have revealed, the Presidential election is a straight battle between incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Of the nation’s six geo-political regions, the South West holds a special allure in the run off to the election. The Action Congress of Nigeria, the dominant legacy party in the region prior to the 2015 elections, was the most senior partner in the alliance that metamorphosed into APC in 2014. Today, APC’s most vibrant and strongest intellectual and corporate stronghold is in the South West but the region is also a plum apple being coveted by the opposition PDP. Furthermore each of the six states that make up the south west region has a unique political dynamics that could shape or frustrate the continued control of the region by the ruling party. While Lagos, Oyo, Osun and Ekiti could be tossed if the ruling party does not watch its back constantly, the case of Ondo and Ogun states are less worrisome. In particular, Ogun appears to be APC’s surest state for now, not necessarily because of the astuteness of the party machinery but mainly because of the political sagacity of the state governor and APC mainstay in the state, Senator Ibikunle Amosun.

Militants, Boko Haram frustrated my administration ― Buhari

The growing anti-Tinubu agitation in Lagos coupled with the simmering crisis between the executive and legislative arms of government have combined to create a strong new force that has energized opposition, especially PDP, in Lagos State. There are many angry voters that have not been properly managed and most of these have become the source of PDP’s new found voice and momentum in the state. APC needs to continue engagement and education of voters until the last day permissible for campaign by the electoral act in order to safeguard its thin advantage. While APC is expected to win the state, the margin is generally expected to be 60 per cent 40 per cent or 55 per cent -45 per cent .  As recent elections have shown, both Ekiti and Osun will present a battle; but, ultimately APC will trounce PDP by same margins expected of Lagos. The case of Oyo State too is not expected to be different.

However, if there is any state in the South West where APC should be confident to walk over the opposition, Ogun State presents the most realistic picture. Ironically, it is the only state in the South West where the party had an acrimonious primaries that threatened its existence. It is also one state in the region that has exposed the weakness of the party leadership’s political judgement when it comes to crisis resolution. In spite of the above, Ogun is today the only South West state that has a realistic chance of returning 60 per cent to 70 per cent votes in favour of President Buhari in the forthcoming presidential election. The reason for the above prediction rests squarely on how political realignments in the state have pawned out.  If Amosun and the disgruntled party members who were at the receiving end of the party leadership’s unpopular decision to cancel the legitimate primaries organised by the State party branch before imposing another candidate on the state were political prostitutes, by now they would have become an albatross and whipping cane for APC. The APC should silently thank its stars that things did not go that route.

That Amosun is one of the governors whose love and support for Buhari is deep and unaffected is not in doubt. Political whispers have it that Rotimi Akeredolu, Babatunde Raji Fashola, Kayode Fayemi and Ibikunle Amosun form the leading lights of a staunch pro-Buhari group in the South-West whose support for the president is not dictated by attachment to the well known Lagos cabal. Political watchers believe that if push comes to shove, the president can count on this group to be on his side no matter what. In Ogun politics today, Amosun’s passion for Buhari, his organisational capacity and hold on the grassroots political structure have continued to grow in such a way that politically, opposition has been snuffed out virtually. In the whole of the South West today, Ogun state remains the one where PDP is weakest, in spite of the fact that two prominent Ogun indigenes – a former president and a former governor of the state – are among its major backers and pushers nationally.

For reasons  of Amosun’s political sagacity plus undisguised sincere passion for Buhari and PDP’s self-inflicted misfortunes, PDP’s Atiku seems to be already holding the shorter end of the stick in Ogun State’s political calculations. Across the state, it is freely bandied about in political circles that a segment of PDP, especially in the Central and West Senatorial districts of the state, is working clandestinely for Amosun. Though the strengthening of the Allied Peoples Movement (APM) to absorb the exiting APC members in the wake of the acrimonious party primaries late last year might have created an APC/APM dichotomy which ordinarily should have fed PDP, as the main opposition, the reality on ground in the state today is that that dichotomy, if any, has worked to further serve the purpose of shoring up and securing the electoral fortunes of Buhari in Ogun State.

APM has no presidential candidate and it has strategically adopted Buhari as its flag bearer. The blistering APM governorship campaign train across especially the Ogun Central and West Senatorial districts has in so short a time of its existence been able to amass a shocking followership base that will manifestly vote Buhari in the presidential election. Wherever he goes to campaign, the APM governorship candidate, Kunle Akinlade, has always mobilized for Buhari towards the presidential elections. The voter education embarked upon by the APM candidate and his political structure among Ogun grassroots voters has become so successful and all-pervading that the average Ogun voter will readily lecture you that “ibo akoko ti Buhari ati Amosun ni onigbale; ibo eekeji, onipaki ni dede won” meaning on the first voting day, it is for Buhari and Amosun under APC (the broom party); on the second voting day, it is for APM (the cassava party) all through.

On its own, the Amosun campaign machinery has been awesome and overwhelming while vigorously campaigning state-wide for Buhari, himself and his preferred governorship candidate, across the state. It is therefore no gainsaying that the combined campaign efforts of Akinlade’s APM and Amosun’s APC in Ogun State has so taken over the state such that it would not be out of place to predict that Buhari would get his largest votes in the South West from Ogun State.

Much as the APC national leadership would have wanted to ‘rein in’ the recalcitrant Amosun for the APC/APM dichotomy in Ogun State – a development which is not seen in any of the other South West States- Amosun’s time-honoured relationship with Buhari and the fact that the intriguing development has been serving Buhari’s interests fantastically in the state, make such consideration politically suicidal. As things stand, neither Amosun nor Akinlade with their groundswell of support can be said to be working directly or indirectly against the re-election project of the president. Rather and truthfully, both Amosun and Akinlade have emerged as Buhari’s strongest allies and promoters in the state. Apart from Lagos with its huge resources, no other state in the south west has mounted unprecedented media and publicity blitz in favour of Buhari going into the presidential election as done by Ogun.No other governor in the region has also embarked on more grassroots campaign in promotion of the president’s re-election project than the Ogun governor.

As the Saturday 16th February presidential election beckons, one thing is very clear: Whichever way the electoral fortunes of President Buhari turn out to be in the South West in particular and the entire Southern Nigeria in general, Ogun is sure to post an impressive showing for him due largely to the political sagacity of Amosun and his political camp in managing the potential crisis that might have sounded the death knell to the president’s ambition in the state.

• Olaonipekun is the Strategy Director, Ogun Grassroots Advocacy Movement (OGAM).