Ilori
Ahead of Saturdays gubernatorial primary of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ondo State, a chieftain of the party, Bola Ilori, in this interview with SEYE OLUMIDE, hinges the success of the primary on free and fair process, though with a caveat that the incumbent is the candidate to beat.
But life has a way of playing out somehow and it has played out in such a way that the same Assembly today are all wearing Aiyedatiwas cap. The same Assembly has endorsed the governor privately and openly. There is no issue at all within the party. Any right-thinking person who knows the temperament of Ondo State and the level of maturity of the state politics would understand that it would be tough for APC to think that it can throw away a willing and sitting governor and hope that all will be well with it, that permutation will be a real joke.
However, one of the aspirants, the former President of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), Professor Faduyile, has come out to say that the former governor didnt endorse anybody. The former Special Adviser on Health Matters to Akeredolu also challenged anybody to provide proof of his endorsement.
As far as I am concerned, the endorsement of Akeredolu is neither here nor there. Akeredolu is now late and what is important is the active players on the field now.
And thats why if Akeredolu was supporting those who wanted to get rid of Aiyedatiwa, the incumbent would have gone by now. Akeredolu as at then had full control of the Assembly but he never agreed with the plot. He was terminally ill, so he was fighting for his life. They brought Akeredolu back from overseas to enable him to perfect the impeachment process of Aiyedatiwa but the man was too weak to join them in the plot. The issue of a traitor is in the mindset of those who want to contest. I challenge anybody to counter me that Akeredolu never, and at any time authorised any impeachment against the governor.
But whats more important is that the President is a master strategist when it comes to election matters. Knowing the pattern of events, unless a sitting governor has committed something grave, that is not when you remove a governor to bring in a fresher. I am not new to the mindset of Mr President on matters like this. It has happened over and over, not just in government alone even at the local government level. Its not always easy to remove a sitting council chairman and not talk of a governor.
We cannot just throw out a sitting governor to bring in a fresher, otherwise, we must be ready for a serious battle. We dont have that kind of structure to just remove a sitting governor in Ondo. True, Lagos did it to former Governor Akinwunmi Ambode in 2018 but Tinubu was in the state, and he was able to hold the party together. We cannot confront a sitting governor in Ondo State after we throw him out. The power of the incumbent matters a lot in politics; anybody can say otherwise.
What people read in the paper and on social media are often not reflective of the real situation. People understood that Nigeria had been having problems before Tinubu became the President and that he couldnt have done any magic to correct all the challenges that he inherited. It would take him some time. Ondo people are politically enlightened, they understand the issues. They would not vent their anger on somebody whom they know is not guilty of whats facing the nation at present.
There are also local peculiarities that make the national issues even different from whats happening in Ondo. By the time Tinubu came to Ondo the dollar to a naira was about N1,700 to a dollar but today the dollar is gradually coming down. It means that the policies of Mr President are yielding results. The talk in town is that the price of rice was around N70,000 and above when the dollar was N1,800 but now the dollar has fallen but the price of rice has gone up, which means that we are the enemies of ourselves and not the government.
Do we even have a viable opposition in Ondo State? I doubt it. There is nothing much on the part of the opposition to fear at all. My dear, if there is a free and fair primary in APC whoever wins is certain of winning the November gubernatorial poll.
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