The declaration of Nike Ajagbe, a member of the Presidential Campaign Council of the APC who said that at no time did the President-elect, Bola Ahmed Tinubu promised Governor Seyi Makinde that he’d support his (Seyi’s) Gubernatorial ambition at the expense of his Party’s (APC) Gubernatorial candidate, Teslim Folarin in exchange for the emergence of Tinubu as the President of the country is an eye-opener and highly instructive.
Some of us have actually expressed our disappointment and dissatisfaction at the Governor’s decision of abandoning the Presidential candidate of his Party, the PDP under the pretense of a vague Southern Presidency which the G5 could not zone to the Southern region when they had the chance to. Rather than zone it to the South, the Ortom-led zoning committee declared it open.
Take it or leave it, it was very wrong for the Governor to have been so indifferent to the extent that his Party lost out at the just-concluded election that the Party does not have any legislative seats at the national level. Such an alliance was not in the Party’s interest and we all know, as students of politics, that the number 1 goal of every political party is to contest and win election.
I am sure that a larger percentage of elected legislators under the platform of the APC are astonished at the very fact of their election and the degree of their sweep of the votes. But then, it is public knowledge that they are collateral beneficiaries of the vicious anti-party tactics of the Governor.
Meanwhile, it would be intellectual infantility on the side of anyone to think or believe that the President-elect would abandon the Gubernatorial candidate of his Party in the March 11th election for Governor Seyi Makinde.
Though, the promise of such a juicy seat should not be ruled out. But, it would be impracticable for the President-elect to abandon his Party’s candidate, who is of sound legislative and governmental knowledge, though his reputation has been punctured in some quarters. That being said, Teslim Folarin is not the most sinister or disreputable individual in the Nigerian political arena, even Oyo State, as against what they would want us to believe just the same way Atiku Abubakar was demonised.
In fact, that media awareness as regards how to locate the PDP on the ballot come March 11th has increased is a pointer to the fact that the Governor understands what awaits him what I will refer to as his treacherous act. After all, Teslim Folarin is not a politician to be ruled out most especially when considering the fact that he’s a 3-term Senator and a thoroughbred product of politics. I am also very confident that the House of Assembly candidates of the Party (PDP) are now tightening their belts because it would not be walkover just as what we witnessed in 2019.
Kazeem Olalekan Israel (GANI) writes from Ibadan, Nigeria.
