By Omoniyi Salaudeen
Osun State governorship election has come and gone. But the lessons of it will continue to linger in the memories of the concerned stakeholders for a long time to come, especially the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), which lost out to the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Chief Returning Officer, Oluwatoyin Ogundipe, who announced the result of the election, Sunday morning, said the candidate of the PDP, Senator Ademola Adeleke, scored 403,371 votes to emerge victorious, while the incumbent governor, Isiaka Adegboyega Oyetola, who represented the APC, polled 375,027 votes.
This Tuesday, the electoral umpire completed the power transition process by issuing Certificate of Return to the Governor-Elect who will be in charge of the affairs of the state for the next four years.
Not unexpectedly, the euphoria of the victory is still very much in the air if not already infectious. So much so infectious that some PDP enthusiasts are already predicting the possibility of a bandwagon effect on the rest states in the Southwest in the 2023 general elections.
In Ogun State, for instance, some overzealous supporters were said to have gone to the extreme of showing a red flag to Governor Dapo Abiodun, telling him to prepare his mind to be the next casualty of electoral defeat even when campaign for the real election has yet to commence.
In retrospect, this will be the first time in a long while when an opposition candidate would defeat an incumbent governor. Still astoundingly dazed by the rare feat, party stakeholders, public commentators, as well as sideline observers have continued to pour out emotions and varying perspectives on the APC’s power loss to the PDP.
The Osun State poll result added more to the harvest of losses the party has recorded in the recent past. These include Edo, Zamfara, and lately the Kano State stalemate that culminated in the exit of Senator Ibrahim Shekarau and his aligning with the New Nigeria Peoples Party’s (NNPP), Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso. There is a combination of factors believed to be responsible for all of these losses. For the latest Osun case, some political pundits blamed it on the inability of the stakeholders to find a common ground between the two combatants involved in the lingering crisis that has bedeviled the party, former governor Rauf Aregbesola and his successor, Oyetola. And on a general note, others hold it against President Muhammadu Buhari’s seemingly lackluster attitude towards finding a lasting solution to the issues threatening the peace and stability of the party.
Senator Gbenga Obadara, who represented Ogun Central Senatorial District in the 7th Assembly, while expressing his opinion on the matter in an interview with Sunday Sun, noted that some supporters of Aregbesola deliberately worked with Senator Adeleke to defeat Governor Oyetola.
He said: “Infighting within a party is always a dangerous signal because a house divided against itself cannot stand. If anyone thinks he can go into an election to do it alone, that person is living in the fool’s paradise.
“You must have listened to what Adeleke said in an interview on Channels Television. He said that ‘Aregbesola people came over to support him. And when he was asked further whether it was with the support of Aregbesola, he said, ‘he doesn’t know.’
“Any party that has that kind of issue will always find itself to blame. Where two elephants fight that spot can never be the same again. That is what happened in Osun State.”
Another chieftain of the APC and the renowned union leader, Frank Kokori, also lent credence to this saying, “You should know that some APC supporters voted for the PDP candidate in Osun State governorship election, which is why Adeleke won. But I don’t want to discuss anything about it. Let us leave it at that.”
Osun State experience is a reminder of the scenario that played out in the Edo State governorship election where Governor Godwin Obaseki had a face-off with his predecessor and formal national chairman of the APC, Adams Oshiomhole, in the buildup to his re-election in September 2020.
At the end of the ensuing crisis, Obaseki dumped the APC, picked the ticket of the PDP and inflicted a crushing defeat on the candidate of the APC. Although Aregbesola was said to be away in Germany when the Osun State governorship election held on Saturday, July 16, there are strong allegations that he deliberately plotted with his supporters in The Osun Progressives (TOP) to disgrace Governor Oyetola out of office.
An Edo APC Chieftain, Mr John Mayaki, reacting to the outcome of the poll, laid the blames on President Muhammadu Buhari, whom he accused of negligence in the management of the crisis within the party, including what he described as ‘suicidal’ tolerance of anti-party activities within the ranks.
Mayaki, who chaired the Media Council of the Edo APC in the 2020 Governorship election, maintained that though the president’s policy of non-interference was good for the growth of the country’s democracy, he held that he should have asserted his authority as the leader of the party to call the warring factions to order before the crisis snowballed into a disgraceful outing for the party and its candidate.
Instead, he said Buhari abandonment his obligations as the leader of the party who ought to be spearheading efforts to unite the ranks, enforce loyalty, and expand political control. According to him, unless the president changes his ‘look-the-other-way’ approach to party issues, it will have a negative effect on the party’s chances of victory in the 2023 presidential election.
His words: “The anti-party activities of top ranking APC members, governors and ministers under the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration is to blame for the electoral misfortune of the party in Edo and Osun states.
“Poor reward system of the party and that of the president, if not checked, could impact negatively on the party just as the ‘I don’t care attitude’ of Mr President as a party man. The president is the leader of the party and he doesn’t appear concerned if the party collapses under his watch.
“In Edo State, we have a deformed Assembly lacking the inclusion of the majority because duly elected members are yet to be inaugurated. Mr President has shown no serious concern about this dangerous development, despite the fact that the affected parties are all members of the party he leads.
“Under President Buhari, APC governors worked against the party in Edo State similar to how figures in his cabinet have been fingered in the loss of Osun State. But Mr President won’t lift a finger to either reprimand these party saboteurs. Instead, he signals tolerance that further emboldens them.”
He, therefore, encouraged APC members in Osun State to learn the necessary lessons from the defeat and work harder toward delivering Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu next year.
Mayaki also warned the PDP not to “delude itself into believing that taking Osun means winning the presidency as it is a different ballgame entirely.”
By convention, the president is expected to provide motivation for the party, whip erring members into line and maintain discipline within the ranks and file. But more often than not, his seeming complacence encourages unruly behaviour and undue fussiness which make achieving stability in the party a herculean task.
But for the defection of Governor Bello Matawalle from the PDP to APC, Zamfara State would have been lost to the party.
The internal power squabble that culminated in the nullification of elections of all candidates of the APC in the 2019 general elections including members of the state and National Assembly by the Supreme is already a familiar story.
APC had won virtually all elective offices, with the PDP placing first runners-up in the election, but the apex court in its judgment described the votes polled by the APC as wasted, adding that the party and candidates with the second highest votes were the valid winners.
Justice Paul Galinje, who read the lead judgment held that the Sokoto Division of the Appeal Court to the effect that the APC did not conduct any valid primary election and as such had no candidate for any of the elections in the state.
Many political watchers believe that the crisis would have been avoided if the president had intervened to call the warring factions to order.
Kano State has also had its own share of the personality clash between incumbent Governor Abdullahi Ganduje and his predecessor, Senator Shekarau.
In the final analysis, the latter dumped APC and joined forces with Kwankwaso to form the NNPP.
Some stakeholders of the party equally laid the blame for the loss of the two key personalities to non-interference of the president.
Senator Obadara, however, absolved the president of allegation of complacence, saying that he could not be everywhere. “Out of 36 states in the country, there is hardly any state where there is no crisis within the party. You guys outside will see his non-interference policy as being lukewarm, but he cannot be everywhere. I am sure, at one point or the other; he must have intervened without going to the press. It is not everything that is in the purview of the media. Besides, there is an internal mechanism for dispute resolution,” he said.
Looking forward, Kokori, in his own conclusion, expressed optimism that Asiwaju would win the coming election despite the setback caused by the Osun State election.
“I know that Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu will win the coming presidential election. No matter what happens with all these social media comments, Tinubu will win. That is my own position,” he declared.