Ekiti governor, Biodun Oyebanji appears a nice guy, but the seat of power likely not feeling him as he hunts re-election. His sin; guilty by association.
I was in Abuja for days, days back and had my ears filled with political gist from some friends in power gallery. Expectedly, Mr. President’s re-election dominated the sit-downs. Plenty permutations and arithmetic. Learnt the President may have run out of steam courting Kano strongman, Rabiu Kwankwaso and his 997,279 votes from the 2023 poll. The ruling orbit is reportedly frustrated with his shifting conditions to rejoin the ruling party and enhance the President’s chance of picking more than the 577,341 votes he bagged from the state in the last election, to come a distant second behind the conquering Kwankwasiyya leader. If the President has truly soured on Kano’s yet-to-be-disputed political leader, then he must have really tired out the vote-coveting Nigerian leader, considering that his 2023 haul in his Kano base, is almost equal to the total Candidate Tinubu managed in his Lagos base, and Oyo, combined. He was beaten to a close second position in Lagos, managing 572,606 votes but took Oyo in alliance with PDP’s Seyi Makinde, posting 449,844 votes. To underscore the Kano, nay North problem the President has in his path to re-election, Lagos and Oyo are his South West’s highest voting and Kwankwaso’s Kano votes in 2023 were more than Asiwaju’s numbers in Ekiti, Osun and Ondo combined where he polled 201,494, 343,945 and 369,924 respectively. If Kwankwaso should decide to empty his ballot into opposition’s bag in next election cycle, especially Atiku Abubakar’s, he could ballon the Adamawa politician’s 2023 number of 131,716 to over a million votes, which could change the music for the incumbent, though President’s diehard supporters are saying 2027 no be 2023. The dynamics are reportedly different, they claim. Only time will tell.
But in the business of wooing, when shakara (playing hard to get) gets too much, there is always the drawn line, when the suitor, like Ebenezer Obey, would painfully sing, take your bicycle away, we no longer want to play with you (ma gbe keke e lo, ao ba e sere mo). To the belle hollowing out a suitor’s patience, Yoruba have a didactic saying “osan tori gbajumo ti o wo, eye keye loma fi mu” (an orange that won’t make itself available to a worthy person, will end being munched by an ordinary bird).
There are loud whispers about the forthcoming Ekiti governorship election too. Oyebanji, the incumbent of APC stock appeared to be coasting almost effortlessly months back, until internal strife that is beginning to look like a mini civil war, began rearing and roaring in the ruling party. Without doubt, a lot less in charisma compared to his predecessors especially the colourful Ayo Fayose and eclectic Kayode Fayemi, Oyebanji’s noiseless leadership and easily-forgettable name and face, seemed enough for the not-too aspirational state until opposition rose within the party against his renomination for a second term and his problem appears rooted in assumed loyalty to Fayemi, his immediate predecessor and perceived patron, now seen by Abuja as a closet opposition to the President’s re-election. Mid-August, amid Rotimi Amaechi and Fayemi’s claim and counterclaim of the two-term Ekiti governor, being a founding partner of the coalition to upend Tinubu’s second term aspiration, Oyebanji suddenly sent nearly all his appointees home, leaving behind a scant group for what would appear a skeletal executive council, handing over the running of government mostly to career officers.
The dissolution, coming about two months to the APC primaries the governor is expected to win, was reportedly mandated as a demonstration of Ado-Ekiti loyalty to Abuja and not Fayemi, considering the calculation that the fired exco was too Fayemi-leaning, too Fayemi-dominated, to be the 2027 foot solders. If the governor wanted Abuja’s support which is crucial to cruising to a second term, considering the top-to-bottom party structure being operated in Nigeria’s political space, then cabinet members tied to the umbilical cord of an equivocating putative godfather gotta go. Second-term seeking governors had lost renomination in the past. Recent history that should serve as a guide. A vindictive president as the national leader of his party can even throw the state to opposition to punish a seeming recalcitrant same-party governor seeking re-election, especially when the opposition candidate can be easily re-routed to the president’s ruling party. Six years ago, in Asiwaju’s Lagos backyard, a sitting governor was denied re-election ticket and heaven didn’t collapse on the earth. There was contestation but no Armageddon. Now among other factors, religious consideration, for the Christian community in the state to complete 16 years like its Muslim counterpart, is bringing the blocked former governor back into the 2027 conversations. AMBO in Yoruba means “we are coming”.
Before Obasanjo left as president in 2007, he showed Imo state chapter of his then-ruling PDP shege. When the acrimonious governorship primaries would not produce a rancour-free winner, with the leading aspirant, Ifeanyi Ararume coming short of the required 50% threshold with his 2061 votes out of the participating 7000 delegates, Baba Iyabo truculently waded in and imposed Charles Ugwu who came a distant 14 out of the 22 aspirants with 36 votes, as the party’s candidate. A tenacious Ararume would not let go, resorting to judicial reprieve which he got from the Supreme Court a day to the governorship election. With the apex court declaring him the lawful PDP candidate for the state, PDP obviously sucking up to Obasanjo, resorted to dirty-dealing by expelling its candidate on election eve, while directing its members to vote Ikedi Ohakim of Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA). Of course, Ohakim backed by Obasanjo’s Villa won and re-routed back to PDP.
The clearest indicator of fire-on-the-mountain situation for the Ekiti incumbent is the desperate efforts by his allies to get Kayode Ojo, the presumed Villa pick and strongest opposition to Oyebanji’s renomination, disqualified, by the screening panel of the party. On Friday, the panel said it gave Ojo a provisional clearance, resting his fate with the National Working Committee of the party. That was tongue-in-cheek. The reality of what is playing out is that despite being cleared by the screening panel, Governor Oyebanji is the one with provisional clearance whose fate rests with the sole administrator of the party; President Bola Tinubu. Was Akinwunmi Ambode not cleared for the primaries? Did he win?
The bitter-kola truth is that the new national chairman of the party, was handpicked by the President. His loyalty is absolutely to him. He would be looking for a new job if gripped by some braggadocio to qualify and disqualify aspirants for the October 27 primary election, without clearing with Villa. And there is nothing untoward about this arrangement. Even in the U.S where elections are managed mostly by states, issues for the party occupying the White House, are still mostly for the President to direct. At a point, Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara, married to Eric Trump, was co-chair of the Republican National Committee (reminds of NRC of the aborted Nigeria’s Third Republic, mocked by my Ijesa brethren as egbe eleye, meaning witchcraft gang). A vacant senate seat in Florida also had to be frozen for her, to make a to-run-or-not choice last year, and was only thrown open after she took a pass. Four years before, she also prominently featured in mention for a North Carolina senate race, all because of her last name.
Beyond loyalty issue, Oyebanji, described by many, within and outside of the state, as Christ-like (meek and humble as prescribed in Matthew 11:29), also has performance issue. He has been variously panned for poor infrastructure delivery. A recent observation of his lack of insightful developmental inclusivity and connectivity by a Senior Advocate ignited the zone. I was in the state recently. Despite the warm welcome by the Oyebanji’s government house where I was quartered alongside some heavyweights, for which I’m personally grateful, it is painful to point out the terrible state of roads in the state capital. Even with the rugged state-owned vehicle that conveyed us to fro airport and government lodge, I was rocked to my bones by the cratered roads that looked more like mining sites sprinkled all over Ado-Ekiti. Wish the ride had been as smooth as the pounded yam served us at the government house. I was also severally in the state when Fayose was governor. Say what you may, the roads were smoother, though he was everything but meek and humble. Even if Tinubu’s Villa clears Oyebanji for re-election, Ekiti electorate will be waiting.
End.
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