The protracted crisis rocking the Ondo State chapter of the ruling All Progressives Congress is far from being over, several weeks after the National Leader of the party, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, and other prominent chieftains in the South-West brokered a peace deal in Akure, PETER DADA writes
The ruling All Progressives Congress in Ondo State has been embroiled in crisis for a long time and the end of the raging war between the two major camps of the political gladiators in the Sunshine state seems not to be in sight.
Worried by the lingering crisis, leaders of the party in the South-West and the aggrieved members of the party in Ondo State recently held a peace-parley in Akure, the state capital.
The meeting was said to have been convened by the National Leader of the party, Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu. Some of the notable leaders of the party in the region, which included a former Interim National Chairman of the APC, Chief Bisi Akande; a former Governor of Ogun State, Chief Olusegun Osoba and a former National Vice Chairman (South-West ) of the party, Chief Pius Akinyelure, were in attendance.
The Ondo State Governor, Mr Rotimi Akeredolu; his counterpart from Ekiti State, Dr Kayode Fayemi, and some aggrieved members of the Ondo State APC were also in attendance at the peace parley.
It was gathered that the meeting was organised to find a lasting solution to the leadership crisis which has been rocking the ruling party in the Sunshine state for some years now.
The reconciliation became necessary because of the not impressive performance of the party in the 2019 general elections in the state and to mend its fence in preparation for the next governorship election holding in the state in 2020.
Tracing the Genesis of the protracted crisis in the ruling party, some leaders of the party said the crisis started when Akeredolu emerged the candidate of the APC during the governorship primary election held on September 3, 2016.
The primary poll raised a lot of dust as there was an allegation that some persons at the national secretariat of the APC under the leadership of the former National Chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, helped Akeredolu to manipulate the result of the primary poll against the anointed candidate of Tinubu, Dr Segun Abraham, and other contestants.
The other contestants in the primary were Chief Olusola Oke; Senator Tayo Alasoadura; Senator Ajayi Boroffice; Dr Tunji Abayomi and many others.
Not satisfied with the outcome of the primary, Abraham, who emerged the first runner-up in the election, approached the Federal High Court to challenge the result of the primary, while Oke left the APC to test his popularity in the state as he defected to the Alliance for Democracy where he contested the governorship election.
The crisis which followed the APC primary election then was so bad that it was alleged that all the members of party loyal to Tinubu withdrew their support from Akeredolu and supported Olusola Oke for the election.
After emerging as the APC candidate with all the political obstacles, Akeredolu went ahead and won the governorship election in November 2016, following massive support from the national secretariat of the party and the APC governors across the country.
After the election, it was a general expectation of the stakeholders that the pre-election crisis would naturally end. Unfortunately, the crisis has rather continue to fester.
Some analysts believe that the fight was between Asiwaju Tinubu and Akeredolu because all his (Tinubu) loyalists withdrew their supports from Akeredolu, following the failure of Tinubu’s anointed candidate to emerge.
Tinubu’s political associates: Abraham, Boroffice, a former Chairman of the party in the state, Mr Isaacs Kekemeke; a former Commissioner for Regional Integration in Osun State, Mr Bola Ilori; a former member of the House of Representatives, Mr Bamidele Baderinwa, and others were believed to have taken instructions from their Lagos political godfather to abandon Akeredolu and his administration.
Ignoring all detractors, Akeredolu began his administration, raising his own team as reconciliation moves hit a brick wall.
The unresolved crisis also led to the division of the party as more factions emerged during the ward and state congresses held last year and each of the faction claimed to be the authentic executive committee of the ruling party in the state. However, it appears the national secretariat recognised the state party exco led by Ade Adetimehin. The state chairman enjoys the support of the governor.
The inability to end the disunity in the party before the last general election wreaked havoc on the APC as it lost the February 23 presidential election to the Peoples Democratic Party.
Recall that out of the three senatorial seats, the opposition won two while the ruling party clinched only one.
It was believed that the discord in the ruling party caused it to win only four out of the House of Representatives’ nine seats in the state, even though the party bounced back to win 23 out of 26 seats in the state House of Assembly election.
Akeredolu was alleged to have been involved in anti-party activities during the election as he was accused of supporting candidates of another party for the national assembly election while the APC candidates who struggled to win the election without the support of the governor were said to have vowed not to support the second term ambition of the governor to pay him back. Even though Akeredolu has not declared his second term ambition publicly, the handwriting is boldly written on the wall that he has the interest to contest to occupy the Alagbaka Government House for another four years.
The end of the crisis seems not in sight even after the peace meeting. The utterances and the body language of the members of the aggrieved faction indicated that the war is still raging.
Many of the aggrieved party members were disappointed at the outcome of the over three hours meeting. Some of them believed Tinubu and other leaders came to Akure to reconcile with Akeredolu in order to support his 2023 presidential ambition while he ( Tinubu) too would support Ondo governor’s second term ambition.
One of the aggrieved members, on condition of anonymity, told our correspondent that the Tinubu -led peace meeting was not a fruitful one, noting that no concrete agreement was reached at the meeting. He alleged that Tinubu was more interested in his presidential ambition than to settle the crisis rocking the party in the state.
According to him, one of the positions of the aggrieved members is the need to dissolve the Adetimehin-led state executive, but this never happened.
He said, “ How are we going to resolve this matter when the leaders of the party in the region came to reconcile those party members perceived to likely cause a stumbling block to the presidential ambition of Asiwaju (Tinubu). The so-called peace meeting we held in Akure has not reconciled anybody, we did not reach any agreement. All our positions which we put before the leaders, none was acted upon. So, what is the significance of the peace meeting? It was just a waste of time.
The leader of the aggrieved faction and the former deputy governor of the state, Alhaji Ali Olanusi, said the only way out of the crisis was for the state executive of the party to be dissolved and a caretaker committee should be set up to manage the affairs of the party.
However, the state Chairman of the party, Ade Adetimehin, expressed optimism that the reconciliatory meeting would yield positive results. The party chairman said the state executive had been talking to many of the aggrieved members to sheath their swords.
Adetimehin said, “We cannot just dissolve the elected executive like that. This is an internal crisis and we will resolve it very soon. We are brothers and sisters of the same APC family and we cannot continue to fight one another. We are appealing to them to join hands with us to move this party and the state forward.”
As the state is gradually preparing for the next governorship election in 2020, going to the election with a divided house may spell doom for the APC.
Apparently, the opposition parties in the state are already preparing to capitalise on the disunity within the APC to take over the state.
Only time will tell if the crisis will be resolved before the next governorship election.
Meanwhile, a political analyst, Mr Emmanuel Omoleye, said the governor and the party leadership in the state had the capacity to resolve the crisis without involving leaders of the party in the South-West. According to him, it is the duty of the governor to unite the factions.
He said, “For the crisis in the APC to have got to this level showed that the party has not learnt its lesson. The crisis caused them to lose the last presidential election in the state and some National Assembly seats were also lost to the opposition party in the general election.
“I think they need to put their house together before the next governorship election or else they would lose again. It is the responsibility of the governor, who is the leader of the party to bring everyone together. Whatever happened between him and any other party members should be forgotten. If he needs the second term really.”
Another analyst, Mr Bola Akinleye, is of the view that had Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and other national leaders intervened in crisis before now, the issues might have been resolved long before the 2019 polls. He added that the party still needed more peace meetings for the crisis to be finally resolved. He also blamed the national body of the party for allowing the crisis to linger.
“The National Chairman of the party, Adam Oshiomhole, seems to be benefitting from the crisis of the APC in many states because I wonder why they left the crisis in the Ondo State to degenerate. If they go to the next election as a divided house, they should forget about winning the election.”