The stage is set for a battle royale between the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Ekiti and Osun States as the two major parties trade tackles in the struggle for the soul of the two South West States ahead of the governorship elections in June in Ekiti and July in Osun and the presidential election slated for February 18, 2023.

This is coming as real politicking begins in a year in which politicians and political parties are expected to plan, scheme, outsmart one another in a bid to win the most votes on election day.

According to the timetable of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the year 2022 sets the tone for the upcoming political contest among the 18 political parties, particularly the APC and the main opposition PDP; with two off-season polls coming up on June 18 and July 16 in Ekiti and Osun States, respectively.

Both the PDP and APC currently have mixed fortunes. While the PDP has successfully conducted its national convention, leading to the emergence of a new National Working Committee led by former Senate President, Dr Iyorchia Ayu, the date for the ruling APC’s national convention is still hanging as the party is yet to come out of the various crises plaguing it across state chapters.

As usual, the two dominant parties are ruling newspaper headlines: The APC has long indicated its interest to retain power after eight years of governing the country, while the PDP, which ruled for 16 unbroken years, is pulling all the strings to return.

A fierce battle between both political parties has started in two states in the South-West geo-political zone where five out of the six states there are dominated by the APC, with the conspicuous presence of the PDP in Oyo State. Also, four formidable presidential aspirants reside in this geo-political zone whose equation in the national political calculations carries considerable weight to determine what next to follow.

In 2014, APC, just a year old, used the governorship election in Osun to test its strength ahead of the general election in February 2015, which it won. In 2018, it was the turn of a repackaged PDP, whose governorship candidate narrowly lost by 400 votes, sufficient to register its comeback bid for the presidency.

The three aspirants are former Lagos State governor and National Leader of the APC, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu; Vice President Yemi Osinbajo and the outgoing governor of Ekiti State, Kayode Fayemi. All three are from the APC.

The fourth, following his above-the-board performance and as acclaimed leader of the PDP in the zone, is Seyi Makinde, governor of Oyo State. Others outside the zone, but with a keen interest in the politicking there in the coming months, particularly after the local stakeholders have determined the emergence of candidates to grab the attention of party big wigs for campaigns, are other prominent aspirants, such as former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar; Governors Aminu Tambuwal and Nyesom Wike of Sokoto and Rivers States, respectively; the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi; former Senate Presidents; Anyim Pius Anyim, and Dr Bukola Saraki.

But for the aspirants from the Southwest, they all share a common principle. So far, not one of them has openly declared his ambition. But their body language gives them out. Until Tinubu, last week, said he would consider it if stakeholders called on him to contest, he has never denied any group that has been busy planting campaign coordinators around the country. Osinbajo has always issued statements to deny any report putting words in his mouth about his ambition, but campaign groups are mushrooming all over the place in his name, even with the official reception of one of them in Abuja by the party’s National Executive Committee in Abuja last August. For Fayemi, whose ‘anointing’ by Sultan Said Abubakar III, as “one of our sons,” after the former delivered the Arewa 50th anniversary lecture two years ago, set tongues wagging about, “Kayode Fayemi for 2023.”

Then, last Thursday, things became clearer. Governor Fayemi issued a statement claiming that certain politicians were trying to cause crisis in Ekiti State ahead of the June governorship poll and mount a smear campaign against him across the country’s six geo-political zones.

The governor said, “The plot, as uncovered, is to use some faceless political groups and political jobbers from different parts of the country to defame the Ekiti State Governor.

“Specifically, the plan is to use the faceless groups to discredit Governor Fayemi and portray him as unacceptable to the generality of the people across the six geo-political zones of the country. This plot is part of their game plan for the 2023 presidential contest.”

He cited a national television interview where he expressly said, “Dr Fayemi has not told anyone that he is in the race for the Presidency.” Then he continued, “Some entrenched interests within the ruling All Progressives Congress, however, seem uncomfortable with the rising profile of the NGF Chairman and they have resorted to cheap blackmail aimed at de-marketing him, ” before concluding: “The Nigerian Constitution states clearly the qualifications for the position of the President of the country. Every qualified adult has the right to aspire to the number one position. Therefore, we do not believe it is proper, decent or strategic for any aspirant to think his campaign can only gather momentum when he destroys the reputation of a fellow citizen who is perceived as a possible opponent.”

Is this politics of 2023 or oration? For the APC presidential aspirants in the South-West, APC’s promise to zone the presidency to the South has had the effect of fueling an already combustible contest in the zone.

Makinde is the eye of the PDP in the South-West. Along with his Rivers State and Adamawa counterparts, namely, Governor Nyesom Wike and Governor Umaru Fintiri, Makinde has become a key figure and mover of PDP’s fortune since the leadership crisis where the three orchestrated the controversial exit of the then PDP National Chairman, Uche Secondus and the eventual emergence of Dr Iyorcha Ayu as his replacement.

Makinde successfully battled former Ekiti governor, Ayo Fayose, to concede leadership of the party in the zone to him.

These heavy weights are deploying their arsenals in the contest in Ekiti and Osun where the success of proxy candidates is key to scaling up their ambition.

So the outcome of the elections in Ekiti and Osun this year will have grave political implications not only for the PDP and the APC, but also for the presidential aspirants in the two political parties. The party that produces the governors in the two states will automatically have the financial resources, political power and leverage above over their rivals. Also, in the same party, any aspirant that his candidate emerged as governor would have an advantage over his rivals in terms of party delegates from such states.

INEC GIVES ELECTION DATES

According to the timetable released by INEC, the Ekiti and Osun governorship elections will hold on June 18 and July 16, 2022, respectively.

In announcing the date for the Ekiti election, INEC said the tenure of the incumbent governor of the state, Dr Kayode Fayemi, would end on October 15, 2022.

The timetable for the election, which was extracted from the INEC website, also revealed that the conduct of primaries by political parties, including the resolution of disputes arising from the primaries, the publication of personal particulars of candidates and withdrawal of candidates/replacement, as well publication of final lists of candidates will hold between January 4 and March 11, 2022.

Political parties, according to INEC, will begin public campaign on March 20, 2022, while the last date for campaign by political parties and their candidates has been given as June 26, 2022. This will, however, be preceded by the final list of publication of nominated candidates by the Commission in May 2022.

Fayemi, who is from the APC, is on his second and last term as stipulated by the Electoral Act and the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

The fact that he is not eligible to contest the forthcoming election has thrown the race open to eligible members of the party and they have started expressing their intentions to their party members and the people of the state.

For the Osun election, the conduct of party primaries, including the resolution of disputes arising from the primaries, will take place between February 16 and March 12, 2022, while the last day for withdrawal by candidates /replacement of withdrawn candidates by political parties will end by April 8, 2022.

Campaign by the political parties and their candidates will start on April 17, 2022 and end on July 14, 2022.

THE BATTLES WITHIN

Intrigues and preparations for Osun and Ekiti governorship primaries

OSUN APC

In Osun, where the APC has fixed its governorship primary for March 5, 2022, the conflict is making strange bedfellows out of former comrades.  Aspirants for the Osun governorship election, other than the incumbent Governor Gboyega Oyetola, on the platform of the party include former Deputy Speaker, House of Representatives, Hon. Lasun Yusuff; former Speaker of Osun House of Assembly, Hon. Folasayo Salaam and former Secretary to the State Government, Alhaji Moshood Adeoti.

The three aspirants, Yusuff, Salaam and Adeoti, are loyal to former governor of the state and Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola and his group, The Osun Progressive (TOP) as opposed to the governor’s Ileri Oluwa. So determined is this group that the three aspirants have also reached an agreement to pick a consensus candidate among themselves in their bid to defeat the incumbent governor in the July 2022 governorship election. It is a face-off between Aregbesola, Chairman, Board of Trustees of the group and Tinubu, Governor Oyetola’s major supporter.

The cracks in the party that followed the disagreements over the emergence of the governor, who was Chief of Staff to Aregbesola, have been widened by an open confrontation between the minister and the governor, with loyalists lining behind the combatants. It got so bad that when the state celebrated its 30thanniversary last August, only Aregebsola, among all the past governors of the state, was not invited. The resulting conflict and fight among loyalists to hold on to their battlegrounds, in addition to the uncertain public image of the government, may have the impact of allowing the PDP a smooth ride to Government House.

Mr Semiu Okalawon, a former Special Adviser to Governor Aregebsola and chieftain of the APC in the state, sums up the fears, anxiety and concerns of members about the fate of the party in the upcoming polls, in a brief interview with THEWILL.

Okanlawon said, “Our national leadership has not been proactive to bring critical attention to the crisis in the party in Osun. I do not know why the leaders have not shown concern, except in the last six months, to the crisis that has hemorrhaged the party for more than three years. Their last minute intervention is a tall order. Who is the aggressor? If they had asked this question at least one year ago, they would have been able to call everybody to order.”

The leader of TOP, Lowo Adebiyi, told THEWILL that the Osun crisis is traceable to the “unfairness, injustice and inequity in the party under the leadership of the present governor.” He said the group had already submitted a report to the party and expressed hope that the Senator Abdullahi Adamu-led dispute resolution committee appointed by the party’s NWC, which is currently on a tour of the South-West states, will resolve the crisis when it arrives in Osun on Saturday, January 7, 2023.

Okalawon’s fear may not be unfounded, if you recall that Oyetola won the first election with a margin of 400 votes and until his victory was affirmed by a Supreme Court ruling, his administration was almost a lame duck as most civil servants and teachers, who voted massively against the party, held their loyalty in check.

Adebiyi is cautious about victory. “Well, if the crisis is well managed, the party will triumph easily,” he said.

Asked for her reaction, the Commissioner for Information, Mrs. Funke Egbemode, dismissed everything in two words: “Terrible lie,” she told THEWILL.

But the lukewarm attitude of the national leadership of the party to the crisis, is not unconnected with the patent and sustained interest of President Muhammadu Buhari’s men to see the back of Tinubu as presidential aspirant on the platform of the party since the routing of his men from office, to a speculation that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission was planning to make him face trial for alleged financial crimes, based on a petition written by a former Managing Director of Alpha Beta Consulting Firm. For his persecutors, after Osun is lost with Oyo in PDP’s firm grip, Ekiti in Fayemi’s hand, Ogun for Osinbajo and Ondo uncertain, Tinubu won’t stand a chance in a real contest with no home base as real politics is local.

OSUN PDP

The PDP has fixed Monday March 7, 2022 as the date for its governorship primary in Osun State. A former governorship candidate of the party in Osun State, Senator Ademola Adeleke, is among those jostling to carry the banner of the party. He is leading five others in the race for the governorship position. They are Dr Akin Ogunbiyi, Hon Sanya Omirin, Prince Dotun Babayemi, Alhaji Fatai Akinbade and Mr Dele Adeleke, who is Ademola Adeleke’s nephew.

The younger and better educated Dele Adeleke is a technocrat who, THEWILL gathered, is the favourite for the ticket, having received the backing of the South West leader of the party and governor of Oyo State, Engr Seyi Makinde. The governor, who has been scheming to expand the influence of the party in the zone and consolidate his position, is said to be making strong representation of Adeleke to the party and ready to assist him clinch the ticket. With expected support from his comrades-in-arm, Wike and Fintiri, Makinde may bag the Osun ticket and get ready to exploit the widening cracks in the ruling APC for gains.

Atiku is yet to pitch in for any candidate, but Osun is his wife’s home state. In the 2019 presidential election, the former VP gave Buhari a run for his money. Incumbent President Buhari won in 18 local government areas and polled 347, 674 to defeat Abubakar, the candidate of the PDP, who scored 337, 377 and won in 12 local government areas.

EKITI APC

The APC Governorship primary has been fixed for January 22, 2022 and the aspirants are battle ready. Leading aspirants include Femi Bamisile, who is the Chairman, House of Reps Committee on Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA); Bamidele Faparusi who also contested in 2018; Mr Dayo Adeyeye, National Coordinator of SWAGA; Chief Abiola Aluko; Senator Opeyemi Bamidele, Biodun Oyebanji, the immediate past Secretary to Ekiti State Government, who hails from Ikogosi; Chief Reuben Famuyibo; Kayode Ojo and Demola Popoola, an aviation expert from Oye Ekiti.

Of all these aspirants, two stand out. They are Senator Opeyemi Bamidele who had also represented Ekiti in the House of Representatives and Oyebanji who is said to have received the blessings of the incumbent governor, Fayemi.

The race may be a bad one for the SWAGA Group because they openly canvassed Tinubu’s presidential ambition, leading to alienation from the party during its ward and state congresses. In fact, members of SWAGA are not convinced that they stand a chance in the APC primary. Investigation shows that apart from Adeyeye, who has obtained APC governorship form, the group plans to plant a candidate in another party to contest the governorship.

Fayemi is said to be interested in anointing a candidate that will succeed him. Also, though, he has not openly come out to express interest in the 2023 presidential race, his body language is to that effect.

He and Bamidele therefore see any person supporting Tinubu’s 2023 Presidential ambition as their enemy.

As of now, there are claims of marginalisation of SWAGA members in the party while some of them are said to have been suspended from the party.

In Ekiti APC, for instance, the battle line has since been drawn between Fayemi and the SWAGA group, who are working for Tinubu’s presidential ambition.

Fayemi currently has an upper hand. Apart from being the incumbent governor with enormous resources to deploy, he has the establishment to back him at the wards, local government and state executive of the party, which he controlled in the recent party congresses in the state. If his candidate wins the governorship election in June and the party adopts indirect primary at its presidential primary, he will have large delegates from Ekiti State on his side. If SWAGA group, which has already lost out in the congresses and would most probably lose out in the governorship election falls short, then Tinubu will have little or no support from the state.

Mr Segun Dipe, publicity Secretary of the party in the state, however told THEWILL that the party has waded into the SWAGA crisis in the state in a bid to restore a sense of belonging.

“We believe in bringing everyone of our member under the same roof. Anybody who has any form of tension and conflict will be listened to. We have an internal mechanism for resolving our differences. SWAGA is not totally wrong and the other side is not totally right,” he said.

Dipe disclosed that the issue is about leadership at the ward and local government levels, which, he said, was being addressed with the “meeting of the exco this week and a planned tour of all the wards and local government areas in the state to resolve the crisis.”

For Dipe, Governor Fayemi has never told “anybody he has a preferred candidate and who to vote for, even though it is his legitimate right to have one. So until we have our primaries this will be at the level of rumour. We have about seven aspirants for now.”

He was optimistic that the APC would win the coming governorship election in the state.

“I can bet that the APC will win the election. Ekiti is an APC state. We do not have the kind of crisis the PDP has, with Governor Makinde and former Governor Ayo Fayose and Chief Adebutu from Ogun State engaged in a supremacy battle over control of party structures and former Governor Segun Oni and Senator Biodun Olujimi factions bickering over membership and supporters.

When THEWILL probed Fayemi’s cry over an alleged plot to malign his character across the country, a government source affirmed that “there are security reports to it.” He said that a certain party chieftain has been uncomfortable because he thinks the governor is “too close to President Buhari since he was re-elected as Chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum for which efforts were made to stop him. So the best thing now is to consider reducing him to a political neophyte. The issue of perceived zoning of the presidency to the South-West has added a national dimension to this otherwise localised election.”

Significantly, Fayemi’s clam that there was a plot to blackmail him ahead of the 2023 campaign came hours after President Muhammadu Buhari in a Channels television  interview on Wednesday claimed that he would not disclose his preference for a successor because he or she might be eliminated.

EKITI PDP

In Ekiti State, where the PDP has fixed January 26 for the governorship primary, nine females and eight males have shown interest in the governorship position before the deadline for Sales of Expression of Interest and Nomination forms expired last September.

The female aspirants are the former Senate Minority Leader, Biodun Olujimi; Olumide Ojo, Olukemi Olubunmi, Adekemi Adewunmi, Modupe Asaolu, Deborah Alo and Titilayo Akerele.

Their male counterparts include the immediate past deputy governor of the state and the 2018 PDP governorship candidate, Olusola Eleka; former Governor Segun Oni; Kayode Adaramodu, Bisi Kolawole, Aribisala Adewale, Ayodeji Ogunsakin and Albert Adaramodu.

Ekiti State is used to rotating its governors between two main parties since the inception of the current democratic dispensation in 1999. The parties are Alliance for Democracy which later metamorphosed into Action Congress and later, Action Congress of Nigeria, which is now the APC, and the PDP.

As the preparation for the primary is in top gear, PDP has set in motion measures to reconcile interest groups within its ranks in a bid to forge a common front.

The Iyorchia Ayu-led National Working Committee of the PDP recently gathered all the 17 governorship aspirants and stakeholders, including former Governors Ayo Fayose and Segun Oni, as well as former deputy governor, Senator Biodun Olujimi, in Abuja for a meeting with a committee set up to reconcile them ahead of the election.

Speaking on the effort, the National Publicity Secretary of the party, Debo Ologunagba, said the NWC will go the whole distance to ensure unity among its stakeholders and members in the state.

He said, “All stakeholders agreed to work together in the process. We have agreed that the parties that are involved in it should get back to Ekiti and apply an Ekiti formula for the resolution of the issues, meaning they will go back and meet privately, discuss all issues that were raised at the meeting and then report back to the NWC.”

Also, the South-West zonal executive of the PDP has resolved to take practical steps to woo aggrieved leaders in the zone.

The zonal spokesman, Chief Sanya Afofarati, said the executive already set up committees that will woo aggrieved members back.

He said the new South-West Vice Chairman, Chief Soji Adagunodo’s agenda is unification across the states in the zone.

It was gathered that among the governorship aspirants, the leading ones are Oni, Olujimi and Eleka.  A grassroots politician in Ekiti State said anonymously that the country might have the first female governor from Ekiti in the person of Senator Olujimi. Sources said Olujimi is rated high because of her role in the activities of the party, especially in 2018, which led to Fayose’s second term. Governor Fayemi is said to be watching events in the rival party in his state closely and trying to bestride both rival parties for strategic reasons. He is said to be discreetly sympathetic to an Olujimi candidacy in line with their understanding years back, which helped her to reclaim her senatorial mandate from Mr Dayo Adeyeye, the National Coordinator of SWAGA, through the court of law.

Speaking with THEWILL, the Deputy National Secretary of the party, Setonji Koshoedo, said that crisis is normal in politics, adding that the party will resolve the crisis in both Ekiti and Osun and ensure it wins the elections in both states.

But he added cautiously, “The electorate are waiting for us. They are fed up with APC government, but that does not mean we don’t have a part to play. I’m confident that PDP will win these elections if we plan and execute our plans well.”

With developments still unfolding, it may be hard to say who will win or lose which state. What is certain for now is that the prevailing crisis and intrigues can swing victory either way. President Buhari, in his answer to the effect of the prevailing crisis in his party on future elections, during an interview with federal government operated Nigerian Television Authority, NTA, Abuja on Thursday night, told the anchor, Cyril Stober: “I have told my party if they do not resolve their crisis, the opposition will take over.”

He may have spoken for both rival political parties who are plagued with one form of crisis or the other and the presidential aspirants, whose stake may rise or sink with the outcomes in both states.