By Dr. Aderemi Ajala
The bye-election to fill the vacancy of senatorial seat from Osun West senatorial district caused by the sudden and mysterious death of amiable Senator Isiaka Adeleke was held yesterday 8th July 2017 in Osun State. In the election Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) led by Otunba Ademola Nurudeen Adeleke won the election with a massive vote difference of more than 31, 000 against my party All Progressives Congress (APC).
It was inconceivable that the popularity of the present governor of Osun State- Ogbeni Rauf AREGBESOLA who is a member of APC would wane so suddenly to have caused this fatal loss to the party in Osun West Senatorial district noted as the territory of the progressives. It was also unbelievable that the strenght of my party APC would be demystified as such. The result of that election was indeed a show of shame on All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state.
However going by pre-election activities in APC my party, it was foreseen that APC would lose that election. Governor Rauf Aregbesola right from the time he assumed the governance of Osun state has so much relied on political groups to manage political activities such as mobilization and sharing the political resources to party gladiators instead of the political party APC that brought him to power. Groups like Oranmiyan, OPF, De’Rauf, AVG and the likes were either established by Rauf himself or his very closed cronies who are of Lagos brand politics termed in Osun politics as diasporic or imported politicians in Osun. The groups had so much influence to the extent that they directly deal with Rauf and Rauf places them ahead of the party. The leaders of these groups are given undue prominence by Rauf and made to be in trust of political resources. The group forced the party APC to be impotent and even the party on many occasions had to secure Rauf’s audience through these groups. Party officers in few cases are also stung members of these groups. The party was eventually robbed of its strength and sacrosanct and inalienable role as the custodian of political mobilizations. This incidence weakened the party to the extent that the state party chairman in APC was no more than a mere Special Assistant on party affairs to Governor Rauf AREGBESOLA.
Pauperizing the situation is the weakness of the present party chairman, Prince Gboyega Famoodun who lacks the capacity to redirect Mr. Governor and exert party strenght . Famoodun flagrantly displayed his personal and political weaknesses and ineptitudeness by showing that he had the mental disability to effectively coordinate APC. Among others, Famoodun’s weakness is expressly noted as he could not maintain discipline in the party where on many occasions anti party activities became the order of the day, discharged mostly by the groups established and run by Mr. Governor with impunity and without being checked by Mr. Governor. Also Famoodun lacked capacity and capability of intra party conflict resolution. He allowed the party to break into factions in many local government councils without recourse to bridging the division in the party. Lastly Famoodun does not have the will to impose party supremacy and allowed the total lordship of groups and Mr Governor’s decisions on the party.
The above degenerated into deep political crises which caused loss of party loyalism and dissociation from party affairs by some party stakeholders. It also caused lack of credence on the government as appointments to government positions are not rooted through party but rather through the groups . In most cases party was least consulted when political appointments were being made.
The poor denigration of the party led to party marginalization and political famine against the home based politicians in the APC, as many of them are dumped without consultation by Mr. Governor. Even those that were very strong allies of Mr. Governor were cut off from the line of resource distribution.
Thus, it became obvious that negletion of the party was a calculated attempt to circumvent the interest of the so called home based politicians who had worked spiritedly to cause victory for Rauf in both 2010 and 2014. Rauf was read to be hatching plan to finally edge out and seclude the home based from the political scene. The dissociation of home based from Governor Rauf became very clear as some notable friends of Rauf grouped themselves together to fight their marginalization in the party. It was at the height of this that the Governor faces serious financial crises in his governance, which eventually caused him inability to meet up with the state public salary demands and drastic reduction in the tempo of infrastructural development in the state. This further caused disaffection between the public and Mr. Governor and subsequently accounted for the declining popularity of Mr. Governor.
The death of Alhaji Isiaka Adeleke, himself not only an APC member but a deprived home based member who was serving as the senator representing Osun West Senatorial district as at the time of his death put more fuel in the fire of discord in my party. Isiaka Adeleke was an APC member who died following his attendance of a political function in Osun West Senatorial district. The deceased was also grooming to contest 2018 gubernatorial election in Osun state. His death occured in mysterious way that was allegedly linked with the government of Osun state. Handling of the death of Isiaka Adeleke further made the public to hang the death on the government of Osun state and deepened the hostility against Rauf, his government and by extension the Rauf faction of APC.
Within these deep crises, Rauf appointed the caretaker committee members to serve local government councils and also appointed the state executive cabinet members. Note that since 2010 Rauf did not conduct local government election in the state. He administered local government councils through appointment of caretaker committee. And two years running after his return ticket won in 2014, Rauf did not also appoint commissioners. He was managing the governance alone, thus he got the nickname “Ajele”. These actions further heightened hatred against him as many party loyalists complained of non-inclusion in his government which increased the rate and number of agitation against him and the ineptitude state party exco of the APC. So, when he eventually submitted the lists of both local government caretakers and his cabinet in March 2017 to the state house of assembly, two serious problems surfaced. Firstly the list suggested a serious disdain against the party as the party was not widely consulted. It again showed Rauf’s hatred against the home-based as none of the identified home-based that initially served his government in his first tenure was included in the new appointment. Even as the new inclusion and the retained were worst in political conducts and corruption, Rauf still reserved them. The second problem that followed Rauf’s appointment was that both in the executive council and caretaker committee, it is shown that Rauf has exhausted his credible resources. The lists were filled with people of very low credibility as many of them were open sycophants to Mr. Governor with very low quality of mental ability to lead government. So they mostly lack what it takes to coordinate both political and government affairs.
With the death of Alhaji Isiaka Adeleke, INEC set to fill the vacancy and political parties were to file their nominations. Rauf in his characteristic manner imposed a candidate from Ejigbo even when both political and constitutional requirements were not in favour of his choice of the candidate. Note that Ejigbo and Ede where Isiaka Adeleke was born belonged to the same federal constituency and Ejigbo is already having the speaker of state house of assembly and a federal representative in the National Assembly. So, picking another candidate to represent that state federal constituency from Ejigbo was a wrong calculation. Again less than thirty days before the nomination was to be filed in APC, Rauf’s imposed candidate had been sworn in as a commissioner in his new cabinet. Based on Nigerian constitution this invalidates the choice of Rauf’s imposed candidate. Due to lack of deeper analysis of the scenario, the crops of people even with about five lawyers among them could not draw Rauf’s attention to the constitutional restraint against his preferred candidate. Rauf imposed the candidate even in the midst of unsatisfied members of APC.
The preferred candidate in APC was Ademola Adeleke- a younger brother of Isiaka Adeleke who initially drew on the sympathy arousing from the death of his brother. But with the Rauf imposition of his own candidate from Ejigbo, Ademola decamped from APC to PDP where he sought for mandate and won the primary in the party. Ademola then became the PDP candidate in the election. This made Ademola’s chance to be brighter as he drew on Ede township patronage that wanted to correct its marginalization; the opposition attempt to resurrect and sympathy of the dead.
Rauf seemed to be audacious and arrogant as he believed that he is mightier than the people he rules, also believing that he had weakened the APC structures but in replacement with his established groups and undermined the potent of the external opposition, the image and legacy of Adeleke family. This reflects that Rauf is yet to understand Osun politics. Note that it was on the basis of some of these premises that brought him to win his own election in 2007; but unfortunately either through his arrogance or deliberate attempt those who constructed the platform did not give him the architecture of Osun politics. Now that they needed to play it back to remove Rauf they showed him that he only knows Ibadan but not Layipo.
Rauf’s audacity and arrogance further resonated during the APC campaign in Ede where he publicly assaulted the sensibility of Ede people in vituperation of anger and hatred for the people. Forgetting that he had very weak lieutenants who could not deliver him in the town.
With the above it was clear that APC will be affected by accumulated anger in the election. From Ede where the people showed teamed rejection of Rauf and shown that they are not bastard, massive votes were declared for Ademola. Vote from Ejigbo, Iwo and Irewole were serious calamity for Rauf as many of his foot soldiers failed to even win their polling units on the election but witnessed torrential votes against APC.
With the declaration of Ademola by INEC as the victor of the contest, the election is gone and my party APC and my governor Rauf are both left with rude shock, which will take a longer time to be overcome. Rauf and the impotent party executives led by Gboyega Famoodun have brought shameful defeat to my party APC. For now, the national body of APC should call Rauf to order to drop his prides and seeks immediate resolution of the crises rocking APC in Osun. For my party APC the agony and grief of the loss is hard to bear. But for me we need to learn a bitter lesson from Alhaji Fatai Diekola’s adage that “Igi sunmo igi ni Obo fi n yo”, litrarily translated to mean no man is an highland. In my view APC remains a winning party in Osun, provided it puts its house in perfect order
