Ondo Guber: Politics of picking deputies

[MrVan]

BY DAyo Johnson

The major political parties in Ondo State have picked their gubernatorial candidates for the October 20 election. But the choice of their deputies is laced with deep intrigues and proxy wars.

IT was not surprising that the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN decided to defer the selection of a running mate to its gubernatorial candidate in the forthcoming gubernatorial election.

After all, the party is yet to fully recover from the crisis that followed its selection of Rotimi Akerodolu as its flag bearer for the October 20 election.

The ACN, remarkably, is presently the only one among the major political parties in the state that as of press time was yet to announce its choice of a deputy governorship candidate.

The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP Candidate, Chief Olusola Oke, picked Saka Lawal, one of the aggrieved gubernatorial aspirants formerly in the ACN as his running mate. While the incumbent and Labour Party, LP candidate, Olusegun Mimiko has sustained his deputy, Alhaji Ali Olanusi for a fresh term.

Mimiko's decision to pick the 70 year old Olanusi, who is from the North was despite the temptation arising from the return of Dr. Olu Agunloye to the party.

It was not surprising that one of the rival political parties in the state sought to stoke a crisis in the party with reports that Mimiko was set to dump Olanusi, a move that would have inevitably generated ill-wind for Mimiko in the Akoko region of the state.

"We do not have a crisis in our party and it was all the figment of the imagination of the opposition," a close aide of Mimiko told Vanguard as he added "why should we change a winning team?"

The decision of PDP leaders to give the deputy governorship slot to the ACN defector was seen as a political calculation to compete with the LP for the votes in the North given that the LP chose its running mate from the area while the ACN picked its own gubernatorial candidate from the region.

Labour Party candidate, Mimiko and ACN candidate Akeredolu It is believed that the PDP picked Oke from the South in the hope that the candidate would use his popularity in the area to deliver the votes from the senatorial district to the party while Lawal would complement him by mobilizing support in the North.

However, it is suggested in some quarters that the Christian-Christian ticket of the PDP could backfire as the other political parties have started using it as a campaign issue.

Besides, the PDP is equally faced with the internal challenge by party members, who are questioning the choice of a new entrant in the person of Lawal as some are asking why none of the existing faithful members from the North was not chosen.

Campaign committee

Even the appointment of one of them, Dr Dare Bada, as the Director-General of the party's campaign committee to placate the people from the Central is seen by many as inconsequential. However, it is being speculated that Dr Bada may have been promised the position of the Secretary to the State Government, SSG if the party is able to uproot Iroko.

Other members of the campaign team include another former governorship aspirant, Comrade Alaba Isijola and former Deputy Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Mayowa Akinfolarin.

Expectation that the choice of Lawal would favour the LP was pooh-poohed by some leaders of the PDP, who say that the youthful Lawal is a silent operator that can only be ignored by his opponents to their peril.

He spat fire during the recent PDP congress where he was picked, saying "If Mimiko has seven strategies to win this election; I will tell him I have 14 strategies to bring him down.

The good omen for me is that I have about 264 leaders across the 203 wards in Ondo State and out of these 264 leaders, just two of them refused to follow me to PDP. I can tell you that 98 per cent of the people I mobilized in ACN have equally joined me in the PDP.

"What I have decided to do now is to begin house-to-house campaign and in the next one month, it will be clear to everybody in Ondo State that come October 20, 2012, the People's Democratic Party will win the election."

However, it is speculated that many of the leaders of the PDP do not believe in the Oke ticket and have decided to Sidon look.

The ACN on its part has been remarkably quiet on the choice of its running mate to Akeredolu besides the disclosure that the choice would be made from Ondo South. About 10 persons are believed to be presently scheming for the position.

The zoning of the Deputy governorship slot to the Southern area by the ACN is strategic in the sense that they want to split the votes in the riverine area believed to be the stronghold of the PDP candidate. But the party is apparently yet to decide on who to pick to confront Oke in his domain.

The party had waited for Mimiko to pick his candidate believing that the incumbent would succumb to pressures and drop Olanusi from the North for the present Commissioner for Special Duties Hon Niran Sule Akinsuyi who hails from Owo.

ACN was hoping that the people from the North would show their grievances by voting against the LP. However, sensing the landmine ahead, Mimiko who is fondly called the Iroko of Ondo politics surprised the opposition party when he told the mammoth party faithful at the party's congress that he would run with the "old horse" despite pressures to drop his deputy.

The ACN leaders' who are yet to recover from this according to sources within the party are now perfecting their Plan B to rattle Iroko in the coming election.

Vanguard Nigeria