Ajimobi: Breaking political jinx in difficult terrain

Ladoja, Alao-Akala and Ajimobi

Governor Abiola Ajimobi broke the first term jinx in Oyo State after winning the governorship election on April 11, but several factors contributed to the historic victory, writes OLUFEMI ATOYEBI

Oyo State Governor Abiola Ajimobi became the first governor to be re-elected in the history of the state, but his journey to making history was made smooth by his ambitious opponents in the governorship race.

The result announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission gave Ajimobi a total of 327,310 votes while his opponents had 572,890, shared among four contestants from the Accord Party, Labour Party, Peoples Democratic Party and Social Democratic Party. All these parties were characterised by splinter groups that broke away from the PDP.

Rather than contesting against a strong opponent, Ajimobi found himself duelling with a force that divided its strength into units without any reinforcement, while the governor’s own political vigour remained intact.

Although the governor’s victory could not also be completely separated from the bandwagon effect of the All Progressives Congress victory during the March 28 presidential poll, Ajimobi demonstrated prior to the governorship election that he had a winning formula, which his opponents failed to decipher. His performance and restoration of peace in the state were two of the factors that strengthened his formula.

As of November 2014, Governor Ajimobi’s only known major opponent was former governor Rashidi Ladoja of Accord Party. At the time, a keen contest was obvious in the governorship race because of certain factors and Ladoja’s chances were bright. Both are from Ibadan and were expected to split the votes, taking the fight to the Oke-Ogun area, where Ajimobi was presumed to be having growing opposition.

The breaking away of Michael Koleoso and his group from the APC was seen as a bad sign for the unity of the party and re-election of Ajimobi. Koleoso is a well respected political figure in Oke-Ogun area and Ladoja was expected to take advantage of the crack in his opponent’s rank to establish greater ties with people in the Oke-Ogun area. It was never to be as Koleoso and his group joined LP.

Ladoja, who was impeached as a PDP governor in the state in 2006 and reinstated by court in 2007, did not hide his love for a return to government and AP, which he founded, offered him a route back to power. But Ajimobi had always been a stumbling block to that ambition.

While Ladoja was offered a wild card by his party to be part of the contest, the other potential strong opponent of Ajimobi and a former governor in the state, Adebayo Alao-Akala, was struggling to get the governorship ticket of the Peoples Democratic Party. Eventually, he did not get it and the political wrangling which evolved finally tore PDP apart.

The major issue was disagreement on the delegates to be used for the party primary. Two delegate congresses were held but remained inconclusive. All the major contestants claimed victory with about four results emerging from the congresses. It was the last straw that broke the camel’s back in PDP as things fell apart with Ajimobi lurking to benefit from the party’s failure and fragmentation. By January 2015, PDP had crumbled and handed Ajimobi a major boost.

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From the ruins of the party, two political parties, Labour Party and the Social Democratic Party emerged. On the day former Senate Leader, Teslim Folarin, was handed PDP governorship ticket in December 2014, Alao-Akala teamed up with Koleoso’s LP and got the party’s governorship ticket. This created an imbalance in the political analysis in the state.

Political analysts believed that Folarin would not be a major threat to Ajimobi’s re-election or Ladoja’s ambition. They were of the strong opinion that PDP would have done better by picking Alao-Akala and handing Folarin a senate ticket. That way, it would be easy to mend whatever differences that would have emerged. In simple arithmetic, PDP would have polled more than 320,000 votes but that figure was shared and wasted by display of ego and political might between the party’s bigwigs.

Senate President, David Mark, was fingered in the emergence of Folarin because both worked together when Folarin was Senate Leader. Alao-Akala’s sympathisers challenged Mark to a political debate about Oyo State, warning him that his meddling in the party affair in the state would have negative consequences.

The big gap noted in the PDP’s game plan during the campaign period was an attestation to analysts’ fear that without people like Alao-Akala and Makinde, PDP would finish the race from the rear. Rather than seeing more of PDP governorship campaign train and team working for Folarin, the party’s effort was focused on the re-election of President Goodluck Jonathan. The slogan was that if Jonathan could win, Folarin would win too. But the reverse was the case.

From the votes that Makinde got (54,740), it is obvious that the young politician has more to learn. His financial might and the result of his effort could have complemented PDP’s effort if all had not gone wrong in the camp. When he joined SDP as its governorship candidate, there was little time to go round the huge state, considering the fact that SDP was not a major political party in the state. He built the party within three months with considerable wealth, bringing many people to his fold but it was rather too late.

The implication of Makinde, Folarin and Alao-Akala’s ambitious moves to contest was that a block vote that PDP would have claimed was decimated, with Ajimobi becoming the beneficiary. As for Ladoja, the total number of votes he got (254,520) would have ballooned if the call for merger with his former friends had produced a result. Ladoja was a former PDP member who broke away after his impeachment and reinstatement to form AP.

After the presidential election on March 28, which APC won in the state, there was a rumour of merger between Ladoja, Alao-Akala, Makinde and Folarin. The major issue however was who would step down among them. The rumour was confirmed by the media teams of all those involved as they began to release statements denying that any form of merger had emerged from the meeting held. It was another victory for Ajimobi even before the election. A merger would have changed everything and created unease in the governor’s camp.

Despite the odds and the supposed opposition in Oke-Ogun area of the state, where Alao-Akala and Ladoja were considered to be strong, Ajimobi did unexpectedly well by amassing votes that eventually swung the pendulum in his favour. His poor showing in Ogbomoso area was understandable because of Alao-Akala’s influence in those areas but getting 19,547 in Iseyin as against 8,410 that Ladoja got was a massive political statement.

During the campaign period, Ladoja was a prominent feature in Iseyin and Oyo. He said at the time that AP would concentrate its effort in the Oke-Ogun area because that is an area where it suffered in 2011. But despite the effort, Ajimobi claimed victory. In the local government areas where Ladoja won like Akinyele, Egbeda, Ibarapa Central and others, the margin was not astronomical while in councils like Oyo-West and Saki-West where Ajimobi won, he beat Ladoja with wide margins.

The labour force in Oyo State was constantly linked with AP because of the Ladoja factor but what was constantly overlooked was the power of incumbency and the fact that Ladoja’s party is a fragment of PDP which has further reduced in size after more of its heavyweight supporters defected to other parties.