The Publisher and Chief Executive Officer of leading online newspaper, SKYTREND NEWS, Femi Adeoya, said Saturday’s victory of Oluwarotimi Odunayo Akeredolu (SAN) of the All Progressives Congress in the Ondo State governorship election has finally demystified the political godfatherism and clout of the National Leader of the APC, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, in the South West.
Speaking in Lagos on Monday, Adeoya said the Ondo State governorship election was a test-run for the popularity of President Muhammadu Buhari, especially in the forthcoming 2019 election.
He added: “For leading the ruling APC to victory, the President has shown that he and his party still command influence in the South West.”
Akeredolu, a former President of the Nigerian Bar Association, was on Saturday elected as the sixth executive governor of Ondo State.
He scored 244,842 votes to emerge winner of the poll, defeating 27 other candidates.
The APC candidate humiliated his closest rival in the contest, Eyitayo Jegede of the Peoples Democratic Party, winning in 14 out of the 18 local government areas in the state.
Jegede scored 150,380 votes, while Chief Olusola Oke of the Alliance for Democracy scored 126,889.
Dr. Olu Agunloye of the Social Democratic Party had 10,149 votes.
Both Jegede and Oke won in two local governments each.
Akereolu had defeated Olusegun Abraham, Tinubu’s preferred candidate, in the APC’s primaries held on September 3, 2016.
Abraham, an international businessman and a one-time Chairman of Owena Motel under Governor Ade Adefarati, scored 635 votes to place second in the race after Akeredolu who had 699 votes.
After Abraham lost the primaries, Tinubu demanded the removal of the party’s National Chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, over what he called the latter’s “anti-democratic handling of the party affairs”.
In a statement he entitled: “Oyegun’s Ondo fraud: The violation of democracy in the APC,” released by the Tinubu Media Office back then, the party leader said the APC’s democratic credentials had been dealt a big blow by Odigie-Oyegun’s conduct, especially with his handling of the outcome of the Ondo State governorship primary.
He said the APC was a party borne out of the quest for democratic good governance, arguing that the ideology was currently under a critical threat by those who managed to be in the party but were never part of it.
Many political observers however thought Tinubu’s alleged withdrawal from the Ondo State political campaign train would hurt Akeredolu’s chances at the poll last Saturday.
Tinubu and many of the South West Governors were not in the Ondo State APC campaigns and had given one reason or the other for not attending.
However, Adeoya is of the opinion that Saturday’s election victory for Akeredolu had finally consolidated President Buhari’s grip of the party and established his foothold in the South West.
Many Nigerians on social media had expressed the opinion that Ondo State people would show their revolt against the Buhari administration due the current recession and economic chaos Nigeria has been plunged into by not voting for the APC candidate.
This is more so that Tinubu did not take part in the governorship campaign.
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