The fact that Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa of Ondo State is in power may necessarily not guarantee him the gubernatorial ticket of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) next month when the primary election is held. SEUN AKINGBOYE writes that the incumbent will need to cross a lot of hurdles which include the negative perception against his person, the alleged conspiracy among other contestants to ensure he loses out, among others.
The sudden demise of the immediate past Governor of Ondo State, Arakunrin Oluwarotimi Odunayo Akeredolu (SAN), has been some sort of Pandora box politically for his successor, Lucky Aiyedatiwa, who is jostling for the All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship ticket next month. As an incumbent, many expect that getting the ticket of the party would be an easy ride for him but that is far from reality. There are a lot of hurdles for him to cross before he can win the ticket and possibly the main governorship election.
Recall that Aiyedatiwa faced a lot of challenges within the late Akeredolu’s cabinet over transmission of power to him when the late governor was sick. A caucus of the cabinet and ruling party accused him of insubordination and disloyalty to his former boss while on the sick bed. So, the House of Assembly refused to transmit power to him as Acting Governor while Akeredolu was on medical leave. There were even efforts to impeach him but to no avail. It took the intervention of some elderly statesmen and President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for Aiyedatiwa to be made the Acting Governor while Akeredolu was receiving treatment in Germany.
Fortunately for him and unfortunately for the Aketi political family in Ondo State, Akeredolu gave up the ghost in Germany on December 27, 2023; and Aiyedatiwa was sworn in to complete the two term tenure. It was expected that the demise of Akeredolu would calm the stormy political waters in the state but it further escalated the crisis between the incumbent governor and the camp loyal to his late boss, who allege that he publicly gloated over his predecessor’s misfortunes.
A former commissioner in Akeredolu’s cabinet, who pleaded anonymity, alleged that Aiyedatiwa, as deputy governor, had wished Akeredolu dead when he was in a sick bed.
“He publicly affirmed it at the Cocoa Conference Hall during his swearing-in ceremony, shortly after Aketi’s death was announced, that he had never wished his boss to recover from the sickness.
“Or how would you describe his desperation that he didn’t even deem it right to give Aketi a minute of silence during the occasion. Even how crude would anyone describe his remark, cheering his supporters that ‘A kuorireooo.’ Congratulations for what? That Aketi died? That’s the height of it,” the source said.
This, according to many politicians sympathetic to the Aketi family, was one of the reasons the cabal within the cabinet made moves not to hand over power to him while the late Akeredolu embarked on medical leave.
Aiyedatiwa is also said to be living with the moral burdens of dissolving Akeredolu’s cabinet on January 24, 2024, before his burial, which does not go well with the affected appointees and many people sympathetic to the deceased.
Public affairs analysts in the state believe that these bitter allegations would create bumps on the governor’s road to clinch the APC governorship ticket in April.
An APC chieftain in the state, Chief Francis Metibemu, said: “It was a tragic flaw by a tragic hero trying to redeem his situation but commits more blunders. I expected him to give his boss that last respect by allowing all the cabinet members to attend the burial to pay their last respect to their former boss.
“A wise politician should not tread that path to seek vengeance or vendetta on his contemporaries all just because he is favoured over them. This will create more enemies than friendship, and will ultimately ruin his chances.”
Since Aiyedatiwa became the governor of the state, he has received a series of tongue-lashing for deliberately making moves to bring many foes of his former boss to office by despising the latter in what some condemned as a misguided move.
The choice of his Deputy, Olayide Adelami and Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Tayo Tukana, had generated a lot of concerns alongside other recent appointments, which suggests a deliberate move to draw Aketi’s political foes closer to himself.
Also, many APC members have been disappointed with the governor for his romance with a former governor and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leader in the state, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, and the seeming overbearing influence of the ex-governor in his government.
Some APC members accuse Aiyedatiwa of abandoning party members to appoint Mimiko’s aides and loyalists to his government despite the fact that the appointees are card-carrying members of the PDP.
Another APC chieftain, who spoke with The Guardian, Mr. Sola Odusola, alleged that Aiyedatiwa was romancing Mimiko politically as a Plan B ahead of the April primary election.
“The sudden relationship between Mimiko and Aiyedatiwa is not for anything but to plan a smart political move ahead of the APC governorship primary. We have it on strong authority that Aiyedatiwa is contesting in PDP.
“The joker is to get Mimiko’s support and move to the major opposition party to contest after failing the primary, because he will definitely fail and contest the election there. This is why he is appointing Mimiko’s loyalists to the government,” he alleged.
Odusola, who disclosed to The Guardian that the Abuja block of the party was aware of the political games being played by the governor, added that “no party leadership at all levels will trust Aiyedatiwa on the roles played during Akeredolu’s sickness.”
“He is only making his case worse by this incautious romance and political philandering and hobnobbing with Iroko. This is not the first time, those with the PDP-Gbasibe and PDP-Konigba will say without mincing words that it is a political handshake with a leper,” he added.
Ironically, the people of Ondo South District, where the incumbent governor hails from, does not see the emergence of Aiyedatiwa as a means to fulfilling their age-long political aspiration to occupy the Ondo Government House for eight years. They seem to prefer a new candidate.
The southern people are happy that a southerner is now the governor; but they don’t want to take the chance of having a one-term governor unlike the North and Central Districts that have produced two-term governors.
Since the creation of the state, the South District has only produced a one-term governor, the late Dr. Olusegun Agagu, who spent six years in government but had his second term election nullified by an Appeal Court, which ruled that the law does not recognise the two years he had spent in his second term.
A human rights lawyer from the southern district, Mr. Dele Kuboye, appealed to Aiyedatiwa to jettison his ambition and sacrifice it for the interest of the people who yearn to enjoy Alagbaka for eight years like other districts.
“I have looked at the enabling laws and case laws in Nigeria, particularly the ones handed down by our Supreme Court, and I have come to the unavoidable conclusion that the law will not permit you to be sworn in as governor three times, consecutively or otherwise.
“Ondo South Senatorial District, our mutual district, earnestly yearns for a two-term of eight years for whoever will represent the district as governor from February 24, 2025,” he said.
Kuboye pointedly told Aiyedatiwa: “You can only spend four years in office plus the remainder of your former boss’s term, which expires on February 24, 2025. That is the law as it is today.
“In the event of the foregoing, Your Excellency, please put the interest of our mutual district before self, yield your interest to run the race and consider your role in furtherance of good legacies in the remaining months that you have got to spend as the governor of Ondo State.”
In the face of the festering animosity within the party, Aiyedatiwa seems to be slugging it out against other aspirants in the APC and a lot of political alignments and realignments to stop him are already unfolding.
Recently, the immediate past SSG, Princess Oladunni Odu, joined forces with the oil mogul and senator representing the South District, Jimoh Ibrahim, to work towards the defeat of Aiyedatiwa in the primary election.
There are also some noticeable cracks among people that were in Aketi’s cabinet loyal to Aiyedatiwa, who believed that if they stood by him through the turbulent days, he would give them some juicy positions as governor but were yet to be appointed into any office.
The Guardian learnt that some members of Aketi’s cabinet, Razak Obe, who was Commissioner for Energy and Chief Ale, who was Aketi’s Chief of Staff, are now disgruntled as Aiyedatiwa ‘failed them’ when he assumed office.
The governor is also being tongue-lashed by party members and civil society organisations over his unresolved domestic issue with his wife since December 2022.
Also, wife of the late governor, Betty Anyanwu-Akeredolu, who was said to be the political benefactor of Aiyedatiwa and now leader of the Aketi family, even in her tribute to her husband, allegedly lashed out at Aiyedatiwa and described his ambition as “dead on arrival.”
Whether Aiyedatiwa would surmount these hurdles and emerge as the governorship candidate of the APC in the forthcoming election remains to be seen.
