Olumide Koyejo
The unnecessary crisis that the All Progressives Congress (APC) contrived to inflict on itself in Ogun State has continued to trouble the party’s peace in the state and nationally. It is fair to say that the crisis, in the first place, was unnecessary and clearly avoidable, if the party leadership had allowed itself to be guided by the spirit of transparency, fairness and respect for people power.
How the crisis was created through manipulation of the party primary by the APC national leadership has been severally told by many contributors. One thing all the contributors have not disputed is the fact that, prior to the December 2018 shambolic party primary, Ogun APC was enjoying relative peace.
Governor Ibikunle Amosun has always played the role of party leader admirably since 2011. It is to his credit that APC has grown to muscle out PDP. It is also important to stress that the party had never been fragmented under him. It, therefore, becomes baffling to see the national leadership truncate the peace of the party in the state through imposition of a candidate that most members of the party clearly detest.
Prior to the national leadership’s imposition, Ogun APC members and stakeholders had taken a stand. They reckoned that, because the Egba of Abeokuta and the Ijebu and Remo divisions had always produced the governor, the purpose of social justice and political harmony could only be seen to be served if the Yewa (who have never produced governor since the state came into being) have the opportunity after Amosun.
All the key stakeholders subscribed to this zoning arrangement and worked diligently to achieve it. They succeeded when members overwhelmingly voted Adekunle Akinlade in the primary, before the national leadership moved in to foist an imposition in what has been described as the “Lagos colonisation agenda,” a resemblance of the “Ajele agenda” that nearly caused the defeat of APC in the Osun State governorship election.
Amosun’s efforts to engage the party’s national leadership to right the wrong were snubbed. That was the origin of the growth of the Allied Peoples Movement (APM) in Ogun.
To many politically naïve souls, Amosun is to be roasted for supporting the APM’s Akinlade while he himself remains in APC and seeks to go to the Senate on the party’s ticket. However, these latter-day political analysts forget that politics is a game of numbers arising from consensus and horse-trading, and political leadership is sustained or truncated by the symbiotic relationship between the leader and the followers.
Amosun has to protect the spirit of unity among Ogun APC members, especially the members of his political family who have been the ones championing the party’s battles. He also has to consider the significance of demonstrating fidelity of party leadership to the masses, especially the hardworking party members who toil day and night to entrench the party at the grassroots.
With Akinlade and his supporters migrating in droves to the special purpose APM, Amosun had to either support them or risk losing them. In politics, it is a no brainer that the second option should never be allowed. A political leader who fails to gauge and move in line with the mood of followers risks becoming a general without an army.
It seems the major target of Amosun haters is to damage his relationship with President Muhammadu Buhari. These people who are not comfortable with Amosun’s time-honoured relationship and genuine respect for Buhari became more incensed with him for taking Akinlade to the President in Aso Rock to give the latter first-hand report of all that transpired in Ogun, leading to and causing the movement of members of the Amosun political family into APM.
Yet, it is a sign of mature and fair politics that Buhari, as the father of all and a true democrat, chose to receive Akinlade with seeming conviviality, in a move that showed he did not seem to have any problem with the attempt by people to seek legitimate redress for perceived injustices.
The national embarrassment witnessed in the orchestrated protests by party members, which marred the presidential campaign rally in the state when party members booed and pelted Adams Oshiomhole, Rauf Aregbesola and Rotimi Amaechi, even with Buhari physically present at the event, was meant to be the star in the series of activities aimed at casting Amosun in bad light before the President.
As if on cue, damaging opinion pieces and news analyses started flying in the media space in the aftermath of the unfortunate incident, with attempts made by the dishonest commentators to variously interpret the event to mean a rejection of Buhari’s second term bid by Ogun people as well as hang the charges of incitement and anti-party activities around the neck of the governor, as a prelude to setting him up for further malevolent intent.
However, after the unfortunate Abeokuta presidential rally, a national leader of APC, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, was quoted saying: “The incident was spearheaded by people who furtively oppose the party and the President and managed to infiltrate and disrupt the rally. The attack by these operatives was disrespectful of the office of the President and could have potentially harmed the person of the President. Such antics have no place in our (APC) political discourse.”
The question is: Does Amosun fall in the class of those who furtively oppose the party and the President, given the unrivalled contribution he has made and is still making to the President’s re-election project?
Amosun and his camp (in APC and APM) are the ones at the forefront of the PMB reelection project in the state. If Amosun and the disgruntled party members were political prostitutes, by now they would have become the biggest threat to the survival of the APC shell and probably a great ally to give life back to the gasping PDP.
As things stand, neither Amosun nor Akinlade with their groundswell of support can be said to be working directly or indirectly against the re-election project of the President. Rather, they have emerged as Buhari’s strong allies and promoters.
APM has no presidential candidate and it has strategically adopted Buhari as its standard-bearer. The well-coordinated APM governorship campaign train across especially Ogun Central and West has been able to amass a shocking followership base that will manifestly vote Buhari in the presidential election. Wherever he goes to campaign, Akinlade has always mobilised for Buhari. Correspondingly, the Amosun campaign machinery has been effectively put to work in campaigning for Buhari, Amosun himself and Akinlade.
Amosun remains a political colossus and a formidable political mobiliser who is greatly loved across the four divisions of the state, namely, Egba, Yewa, Ijebu and Remo. His fairness to civil servants through commitment to their welfare, which not even the Osoba or OGD administrations could stand up to, has locked down that powerful political class for him.
Political dexterity dictates that for APC to find a lasting peace in the state, the national leadership needs to change tactics by adopting a less belligerent attitude towards the governor and his political camp.
In Ogun State today, without Amosun and his people, APC is but an empty shell.
•Koyejo sent this piece in from Abeokuta.