- Travails of deputies
- Ondo deputy governor: ’Third force’ giant-killer or political lilliputian
Lust for power, impatience, undoing of many dep govs
Rift between Akeredolu, Ajayi, neither new nor strange
Razaq Bamidele
Unfolding events on the political scene across Nigeria have underlined the popular dictum that there is no permanent enemy or friend in politics but permanent interest. This age-long refrain has not ceased to prove its relevance in the political sphere across the globe.
So, as interest shifts, relationship also shifts. The reason for this is not far-fetched. A former governor of Lagos State, who is currently the National Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, is always fond of reminding whoever cares to listen that politics is basically to seek for power. He would quickly add that the power being sought for in politics is never served a la carte!
Tinubu has, however, been proved right several times with various events already witnessed within the country and beyond. This is because major causes of frictions among hitherto political friends that turn sworn enemies overnight are found to be struggle for power, oftentimes between the leaders and their deputies.
In the First Republic in the 60s in Nigeria, the two political titans, Chief Jeremiah Obafemi Awolowo (Awo) and Chief Samuel Oladoke Akintola (SLA), both of blessed memory, were not only friends; they were like Siamese twins. While Awolowo was the leader, Akintola was his deputy. But before anybody could shout ‘Awo’ or ‘SLA,’ aspiration for power had thrown a cog in the wheel of friendship. The injury inflicted on the hitherto cordial relationship is still the talk of the town today among local and international political commentators. Even if the wound has healed, one wonders whether the scars are hardly obliterated. While Awolowo stayed put as the leader of the defunct Action Group (AG), Akintola found his way into the National Council of Nigeria and Cameroun (NCNC).
In the Second Republic in 1979, the struggle for leadership also played mighty roles in party politics where co-founders of associations that later fused together to metamorphose into various political parties fell apart either before registration or after registration. It is on record that the defunct Nigeria Peoples Party (NPP) suffered such a fate.
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Two frontline founders of the party, the Owelle of Onitsha and first Nigerian ceremonial president, Dr Nnamidi Azikwe, and the exponent of ‘politics without bitterness,’ Alhaji Waziri Ibrahim, fell out over leadership of the party. Waziri pulled out along with his supporters to form another party, the Great Nigeria Peoples Party (GNPP). Azikwe led the NPP to victory in the East while Waziri also won two states in the North.
During that Republic, a couple of deputy governors had several head collisions with their bosses. In the Old Oyo State, the late Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Chief James Ajibola Ige (SAN) and his deputy, Chief Sunday Michael Afolabi, who won the governorship election in 1979 on the joint ticket of the then Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), also clashed. The result of the clash was the defection of Afolabi to the then ruling party, the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) and the onslaught of the NPN on the state. With the aid of the mighty Federal Government under the President Shehu Shagari, the UPN government in Oyo State fell to the NPN candidate, Dr Omololu Olunloyo in October 1983.
Ondo State was not left out of the power struggle. The two political pugilists, Chiefs Adekunle Ajasin and Akin Omoboriowo, governor and deputy governor, respectively, who were jointly elected on the platform of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) fell out. The strife led Omoboriowo to the NPN where he contested the governorship election against his boss, Ajasin.
The short-lived announcement of Omoboriowo as governor set the whole state on fire that consumed many lives and property.
But that Republic was truncated when the military took over and installed Muhammadu Buhari as Military Head of State.
In the current dispensation beginning from 1999, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo came in with Alhaji Atiku Abubakar as President and Vice President respectively on the platform of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The going from the beginning was very smooth and heart-warming until 2003 when signs emerged that Atiku wanted to succeed his boss. Obasanjo did not find it funny that his ‘spare tyre’ did not want to wait till 2007 to take his turn. The retired General sweated profusely until Atiku was persuaded to let his boss be.
The gulf created by that development led to an attempt to replace Atiku but the court prevented that. The hitherto cordial relationship between Atiku and his boss suffered a setback for the former as his several attempts to be president since 2007 till date had not succeeded despite moving from one political party to another.
At a time, Osun State was also in the eye of the storm when the then governor, Chief Adebisi Akande of the defunct Alliance for Democracy slugged it out with his deputy, Senator Iyiola Omisore. The crisis led to Omisore’s impeachment.
In Lagos State, the struggle for power and struggle to retain power between governor and deputy consumed two deputies within two terms meaning that, within eight years, three deputies served one governor.
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In May 1999, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Senator Kofoworola Bucknor-Akerele were voted in as governor and deputy, respectively. One thing led to another and the woman deputy was flushed out of office via impeachment. A banker and finance expert, Mr Olufemi Pedro, was anointed with deputy governor’s honour. Pedro completed the first term with his boss and even started the second term with him on a cordial note.
However, the power struggle cankerworm that has been the undoing of ambitious deputies also caught up with Pedro. He indicated ambition to succeed his boss, Tinubu.
This, as usual, did not go down well with Tinubu, who had his eyes on somebody else to succeed him. But when Pedro was alleged to have insisted in pursuing his governorship ambition under Tinubu, an impeachment axe just fell on him from the blue and the third deputy, Prince Abiodun Ogunleye, was jacked up to spend the remaining few weeks as deputy governor.
Determined to pursue his governorship ambition democratically, Pedro moved to the Labour Party (LP) and was thrashed by Tinubu’s choice and the candidate of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Babatunde Raji Fashola (BRF), a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, in 1997.
In Sokoto State, Aliu Magatarda Wamako was deputy to Governor Attahiru Bafawara of the All Nigeria Party (ANPP) before they fell asunder after seven years in office together. On good political calculation, Wamako crossed over to the PDP and won the governorship election. He is in now in the National Assembly as Senator after serving as governor.
So, what is happening now in Ondo State between Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu (SAN) and his deputy, Agboola Ajayi, is neither new nor strange, as there has been precedence. The slight difference is that while some ‘recalcitrant’ deputies were impeached, Ajayi was neither impeached nor did he relinquish his office even when he has ditched the All Progressives Congress (APC), on which platform he was elected with his boss to the opposition party, the PDP.
Instead of heeding the advice of the state chapter of the party to honourably resign, Ajayi stayed put, giving reasons he dumped the APC for the PDP and later the Zenith Labour Party (ZLP).
The state secretariat of the APC in Ondo State has expressed regret over the decision of the deputy governor after series of efforts and attempts by royal fathers and party leaders from within and outside the state to stop his migration.
The party, in a statement from its publicity secretary, Mr Alex Kalejaye, said his letter of resignation from the party was received with mixed feelings, wondering how “the journey commenced in one accord a few years back could go awry this soon!” He described the development as worrisome and unfortunate.
The party said that its State Working Committee was, however, taken aback by a reported statement credited to Hon. Ajayi that he would remain the deputy governor as long as his people had not asked him to quit, describing the statement as vexatious.
“It is imperative to remind Hon. Ajayi that he ran on an APC ticket given to Arakunrin Oluwarotimi Akeredolu (SAN) and both were sponsored by the party. Now that he chooses to defect, the party advises Agboola to toe the path of wisdom, and resign honourably, as the Deputy Governor of Ondo State,” the statement admonished.
The state chapter of the party, while wishing Ajayi and his followers a safe trip to the PDP, however, assured them of its willingness to re-absorb them whenever they opt to retrace their steps.
Rather than “toe the path of wisdom,” Ajayi justified his dumping the APC and PDP for ZLP, on an online TV. He had since been received into ZLP by the party’s state chairman, Mr Joseph Akinlaja, in Akure, the state capital and also welcomed during a ceremony where the immediate-past governor of Ondo, Dr Olusegun Mimiko ushered him into his new party.
Speaking at the event, Ajayi was reported to have said his decision to pitch tent with the ZLP was as a result of the fallout in the primaries of both the PDP and APC.
His words: “It is obvious that the affirmation of Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, as the candidate of the APC coupled with the seeming failure of the PDP to produce a dependable and formidable alternative has dampened the democratic enthusiasm and morale of the people.
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“With the hope to re-channel the energy of the progressive electorate, I am teaming up with members of the ZLP, a chunk of most of the other members and my teeming allies from both the PDP and APC.”
Ajayi was quoted as further saying that ZLP is a dependable platform to rescue the people of the state from the hands of the current government of APC in the state.
The deputy governor, who also asked his supporters to join him in the Zenith Labour Party, stated that there was the need to change and take the state back from the “nepotistic administration” of Governor Akeredolu.
The ZLP Chairman, Mr Akinlaja, described the ZLP as the third force that would win the governorship election in Ondo State. However, he pleaded with supporters of the party, especially the youth, to shun thuggery and violence. He was also said to have called on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to be fair, free and transparent in the conduct of the election to guarantee rancour-free poll.
The Chairman, Ondo State Chapter of the APC, Ade Adetimehin, in a chat with The Nigerian Xpress correspondent said that Ajayi’s case is a non-issue because “we have gone beyond that. We are already moving towards the Promised Land where both Ajayi’s PDP and ZLP would still remain in the opposition.”
In the same vein, the PDP spokesman in the state, Kennedy Peretein, has also said that dumping PDP for ZLP has not and cannot negatively affect the party. “We are already coasting home with or without Ajayi,” he said.
The question on the lips of political observers now is: ‘How far can Ajayi go as far as Ondo governorship election in October?’
Looking back and going down the memory lane, one can count just a few deputies that had succeeded in succeeding their bosses.
In Zamfara State, after two terms of the Sharia exponent, Senator Ahmed Sani Yerima in 2007 on the platform of the ANPP, his deputy, Alhaji Mahmud Shinkafi succeeded him. Shinkafi, however, defected to the PDP and thus lost the re-election bid in 2011 to AbdulAzeez Abubakar Yari of the ANPP, who eventually became the Chairman, Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF).
However, since it is on record that, Atiku Abubakar has not succeeded in becoming president and both Iyiola Omisore and Femi Pedro have not become governors in Osun and Lagos states, if Agboola Ajayi eventually defeats his boss through a ‘Third Force’ party, he would go down in history as a political giant-killer.
A political analyst and National President of the Campaign for Dignity in Governance (CDG), Razaq Olokoba, has cast doubt on Ajayi beating Akeredolu, saying: “With Sanwo-Olu of Lagos as Chairman, APC Governorship Campaign Committee for the state, Ajayi’s victory is not feasible.”
