Between Agagu and Mimiko:
How the votes went in Ondo
By WAHEED ODUSILE
Friday,
June 15, 2007
In a seeming replay of the legal battle that attended the
1983 governorship election in old Ondo State, the election tribunal is being called
upon again to determine who actually won the polls in the state.
The April
14, 2007 governorship election in the state, which concluded with the re-election
of Dr Olusegun Agagu of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as the governor of
Ondo State, is being hotly contested by his main rival, Dr Olusegun Mimiko of
the Labour Party (LP).
The two gladiators, who were together in the PDP
before the ambition to become the next governor of Ondo State separated them,
with Mimiko leaving the party for the opposition, Labour Party early this year,
are locking horns at the tribunal, claiming victory respectively. While Governor
Agagu was declared the winner by the Independent National Electoral Commission
(INEC), Mimiko, a former minister of housing, who came second, is disputing the
figures credited to Agagu and the PDP, especially in areas where he (Mimiko) was
expecting near 100 per cent returns.
However, an analysis of the governorship
election results in 2003 and 2007 points to a fact that the shift in party affiliation,
which the people of Ondo State made in 2003 when they voted for the PDP, at the
expense of the Alliance for Democracy (AD), had come to stay. In the run up to
the 2003 elections, Mimiko, then commissioner for health in the AD administration,
left the party and teamed up with the PDP. Being an influential member of AD,
especially in Ondo town and environ, his defection hit the AD hard and largely
contributed to the party’s loss to PDP, for which Mimiko was hugely compensated
with the post of Secretary to the State Government by Governor Agagu.
In
the six local government areas that constitute the Ondo North Senatorial District,
PDP won four local government areas to two for the AD. The then incumbent governor
and AD governorship candidate, the late Chief Adebayo Adefarati, hailed from this
area. This result translated to 63.81 per cent of the votes for PDP and Agagu.
In
Ondo Central, the PDP won all the six local government areas, winning heavily
in Ondo West and Akure South Local Government Areas. This translated into 82.53
per cent for PDP. Mimiko hails from this area.
In Ondo South Senatorial District,
where Dr Agagu comes from, the PDP expectedly swept the polls in all the six local
government areas with 71.47 per cent of the votes cast.
The result of
the election in all the three senatorial districts gave victory to Dr Agagu of
the PDP, with 679,044 votes or 68.5 per cent of the total votes cast (990,385)
in the 2003 election with Chief Adefarati and AD coming a distant second, with
24.4 per cent. One million, five hundred and four thousand, one hundred and eighty
one people registered to vote and with just 990, 385 actually turning out to vote,
the voter turn out was 64-84 per cent.
With this result, the people of
Ondo State shifted party alliance and Governor Agagu, together with aides, including
Dr Mimiko, set to work and after four years, felt confident enough to ask the
people again for their votes, but this time around from opposing camps.
In
Ondo North Senatorial District, which was the battleground area for the two candidates,
honours were even with PDP winning three local government areas and LP also winning
in three council areas. The figures, however, tilted in PDP’s favour, with
74,520 votes to LP’s 71,315, which translated into 43.26 per cent and 41.39
per cent respectively. It should be noted that Mimiko’s running mate and
one or two heavy weight politicians who defected from PDP are from this area.
In
Ondo Central, Mimiko’s share of the votes was 51.99 per cent to Agagu’s
35.22 per cent, even though he (Mimiko) won four of the six local government areas.
He got 118,047 votes while Agagu had 79,970 votes. As a son-of-the soil, so to
speak, the Labour Party candidate was expecting he would win overwhelmingly to
neutralise whatever high vote he was expecting Agagu to get in Ondo South Senatorial
District where he (Agagu) hails from and which he cleared overwhelmingly in 2003,
but the people were seemingly not thinking along the same line.
Whereas
Mimiko could not win all the six local government areas in his domain, Agagu cleared
all the six in Ondo South Senatorial District where he got 214,718 votes or 70.18
per cent of the total votes cast to Mimiko’s 44, 318 or 14.48 per cent of
the votes.
With the PDP retaining its victory of 2003 in Ondo North and
South Senatorial Districts and coming a close second in central district, analysts
are of the opinion that the result that gave victory to Agagu couldn’t have
been otherwise. Expectedly, Ondo Central, where Mimiko hails from, gave him and
his Labour Party victory but not in large numbers that could have tilted the margin
of overall victory in his favour. Just as Agagu and PDP did well in this area
four years ago, even when the party was not in power and thus had nothing to showcase
to the people, it still came a respectable second in spite of Mimiko’s seeming
towering image.
Giving the complaints that attended the 2007 elections
across the federation, it might be wrong to totally dismiss Mimiko’s grouse
with the result of the governorship election in Ondo State, just as it would also
not be fair to dismiss PDP’s complaints as lacking in merit. The tribunal
is expected to do justice to the complaints of the two parties and it’s
only after its judgment or if there arose an appeal to its decision, that of the
superior court that the dust would finally settle on the contentious governorship
election in the state. |
