Olujimi and Adeyeye: Sacrificing friendship on the altar of politics?

‘YOMI AYELESO writes on how the duo of Senator Biodun Olujimi and Prince Dayo Adeyeye, two political associates since 2007, got divided over contest for the 2019 Ekiti South Senatorial District and which was eventually settled by the Appeal Court in favour of the former.

It is no more news that the Court of Appeal has nullified the February 23 election of Prince Dayo Adeyeye as the senator representing Ekiti South senatorial district, declaring Senator Biodun Olujimi of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as the validly elected senator for the district, some five months after the inauguration of the ninth National Assembly.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Adeyeye of the All Progressives Congress (APC) winner of the poll with 77,621 votes against Olujimi’s 53,741 votes. She however rejected the results and prayed the National Assembly Election Petition Tribunal to upturn the results and affirm her to have scored the highest lawful votes cast in the poll.

On September 10, the three-man panel, led by Justice Danladi Adeck, held that the petitioner was able to prove beyond reasonable doubts cases of electoral malpractices in Ikere, Gbonyin and Emure local government areas of the senatorial district. He added that, apart from the nullification in some units, the outcome of the tribunal’s verdict was predicated on the recount of the ballots by the contending forces as granted by the court. After the recount, Olujimi polled a total of 54,894 votes to emerge victorious over Adeyeye who scored 52,243 votes.

Dissatisfied with the decision of the tribunal, the former Senate spokesman approached the appellate court with a 19-page ground of appeal, praying the court to set aside the ruling of the tribunal. But Justice Uzor-Amaka Anyanwu of the Appeal Court, while delivering her ruling in Kaduna, last Wednesday, agreed with the decision of the lower court ordered the INEC to withdraw Certificate of Return from Adeyeye and issue a fresh one to Olujimi as the validly elected senator for Ekiti South senatorial district.

Speak out on your relationship with Buhari, Middle Belt leaders tell Osinbajo

Olujinmi’s foray into politics dated back to the return of democracy in 1999. She was an ally of the late Dr Olusola Saraki. She was the national publicity secretary of the then All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) until 2003 when she joined the PDP and became a special adviser to the then Governor Ayodele Fayose.

In what could be described as a steady rise on the political ladder, that same year, she became a member of the House of Representatives when she replaced the late Abiodun Talabi, who represented Ekiti South 2 Federal Constituency. She spent just five months at the National Assembly when Fayose nominated her as his deputy to replace Mr Bisi Omoyeni, who had returned to the Wema Bank as its Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer. She almost became the acting governor of the state after the impeachment of Fayose in 2006.

In 2007, during the administration of Chief Segun Oni, Olujimi became the state’s Commissioner for Works. At the national scene, she has always been parts of the presidential campaign councils of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). In 2015, Olujimi got the ticket of the party and was elected to return to the National Assembly, but this time, the Senate. Her deft moves in the Senate earned her the deputy Minority Whip and she eventually became the Minority Leader, when Senator Godswill Akpabio defected from the PDP to the APC in 2018.

Adeyeye’s quest to represent his district dated back to 1999 when he contested on the platform of the Alliance for Democracy (AD). Unfortunately, he was the only candidate of the party that lost his senatorial bid in the whole of the South-West. He was defeated by the candidate of the PDP, Senator Gbenga Aluko.

In 2006, he vied for the governorship ticket of the then Action Congress (AC) but lost out to Dr Kayode Fayemi. He defected to the PDP where he joined forces with the then party’s candidate, Segun Oni, to defeat Fayemi in the 2007 election. The victory was, however, upturned by the court in 2010 and Fayemi was declared the duly elected governor of the state.

After the 2007 elections, Adeyeye was nominated for a ministerial slot by the late President Umaru Yar’Adua administration but his nomination was rejected by the PDP-dominated Senate. In response, Governor Oni appointed him as the chairman of the Ekiti State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB).

Again, in 2014, he aspired for the PDP governorship ticket, but the party leadership prevailed on him to shelve his ambition for Fayose, who won the contest and was sworn in as the governor. Same year, Adeyeye was appointed as the Minister of State for Works by the then President Goodluck Jonathan. In March 2016, he was appointed the national spokesman for the PDP, a position he held until December 2017. He was also appointed the pro-chancellor and chairman, Ekiti State University Governing Council by former Governor Fayose.

In 2018, Olujimi threw her hat into the ring for the governorship contest. This was where her path crossed with Adeyeye. Though the two politicians have been in the same party since 2007, they had never faced each other in any political contest. Their political relationship became more pronounced when Fayose anointed his deputy, Professor Kolapo Olusola, as his preferred candidate of the PDP for the 2018 governorship election. Olujimi, Adeyeye, Ambassador Dare Bejide and former deputy Governor Sikiru Lawal, among others, became aggrieved with Fayose. They joined forces together to fight what they felt was an injustice meted to them by the then governor.

While other aggrieved aspirants left the party, Olujimi and Adeyeye remained behind to battle Fayose and his deputy. However, close watchers of political events knew that Olujimi was fighting to return to the Senate. The observers noted that she was merely in the governorship race to bargain for the Senate seat and, to achieve her goal, her greatest political albatross in PDP, if the fence-mending of Fayose had succeeded, would be Adeyeye whom it was learnt, the former governor was willing to concede the ticket of the southern senatorial zone to.

The two formed an alliance on the eve of the primary election and Olujimi conceded to Adeyeye, rallied her delegates for him and gave him other needed supports. Fayose’s candidate, Olusola won the primary. Though the election was adjudged free and fair by some PDP gladness, Adeyeye kept people guessing for a number of weeks about his political future. In between the period, Olujimi was said to have reconciled with Fayose, on the condition that she would be given the Senate ticket and she eventually got what she wanted. On the other hand, Adeyeye defected to the APC to team up with the candidate of the party, Dr Fayemi, who eventually won the governorship election, while he got a ticket to the Senate unopposed.

During the campaigns, both Olujinmi and Adeyeye ran what could be described as decent campaigns. Their campaigns were largely devoid of the usual acrimonies, name-calling and thuggery. They had mutual respect for each other. However, it was clear that Adeyeye had more advantage than Olujimi on the day of the election. While Adeyeye relied on the power of incumbency, both at the state and the federal levels, Olujimi banked on her track record at the Senate, her deep pocket and popularity.

Though Fayose did not ask the people to vote for Adeyeye, his body language suggested that he would have preferred to be the PDP candidate. Her offence, it was gathered, was that she made pronouncement that the former governor was no longer the leader of the PDP in Ekiti, after having left office. She was said to have revealed that, as the Minority Leader in the Senate, she was the leader of the party.

The bickering affected the Atiku/Obi presidential campaign in the state, as Olujimi and Fayose maintained parallel campaign councils. Adeyeye was declared the winner of the election, but Olujimi felt that it was less than transparent and thus headed for the tribunal. Immediately after the tribunal ruling, Senator Olujimi, said the petition was mainly against the electoral umpire but regretted that the outcome affected someone she described as brother.

“The tribunal was majorly against the INEC who as the umpire, did not live up to its mandate. It is a pity that it also affected an individual. Let me say without equivocation that Prince Adeyeye is a brother and an ally. We have had to work together on many fronts. An erudite lawyer and politician who I know believes in justice and fair play, he fought for the masses as the publicity secretary of the Afenifere. I am sure he would have asked me to test my misgivings about the election, if the shoe was on a different leg.

“However, as the saying goes, there is no victor, no vanquished. There is only one Ekiti and one Ekiti South Senatorial District and as we strive to serve our people, skirmishes such as these will occur. Senators will go and come, but the well being of our constituents will remain paramount,” she had said.

After the Appeal Court verdict, Olujinmi further described Adeyeye as a friend and called on him to join her to bring development to the Ekiti South senatorial district and the state at large.

“Let me salute the courage and tenacity of Prince Dayo Adeyeye, my brother, my friend and my opponent in this struggle. He gave me a reason to put on my thinking cap, be on my toes. He gave me a strong reason to pursue my conviction with decency. Let me say that I know how it feels to be in his situation, but I ask that he will understand that democracy is a bitter/sweet system which we all submitted to. I wish him luck as he moves on to plan for the future and ask that he doesn’t jettison the zeal to assist and give back to his constituency. We must work to make our constituents better.

I will be willing to work with him on projects that will enhance the development of Ekiti State,” she said.

The question is, “Will Adeyeye accepts the hand of friendship stretched out to him by Olujinmi or jettisons a long-term relationship on the altar of politics?”

Nigerian Tribune