Oyo 2015: The forging Alliance

Via - TRIBUNE
 Ahead the general election in Oyo State, operators at the political theatre are closing ranks to pave way for the birth of a grand multiparty alliance aimed at bringing a new government in 2015, writes DARE ADEKANMBI.
Political gladiators in Oyo State spent the last six weeks fine-tuning a winning strategy for the 2015 general election, particularly the governorship contest. A series of nocturnal and daylight meetings have been held within and outside the state by the political actors in different camps across the four major parties in the state- the All Progressives Congress (APC), Accord Party, Labour Party and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
The first layer of the meetings was largely intra-party as it involved those in each of the camps in the parties. The second layer involved parties of “like-minds” and the third was composed of representatives of the parties. One of the striking features of the meetings is that it brought together politicians that sure pundits would consider as sworn political enemies.

 The goal for these meetings is unitary: to throw up a new government in the state next year.
Shortly after its executives and new party secretariat were inaugurated in Ibadan, Labour Party officials and representatives of the Accord Party met in Ibadan. The eight-member committee of the two parties has those described as ‘professors’ of grass root politics who know the in and out of Oyo politics. Some members of the committee, who spoke with Nigerian Tribune on a condition of anonymity, said the meeting first reviewed the political situation in the state and resolved that it would amount to drinking hemlock or committing political hara-kiri not to forge a grand inter-party alliance of the heavyweights in the politics of the state ahead next year’s election. One of the sources said: “This alliance is going to come up with for 2015 elections a team that can be likened to Barcelona team. And when Barca slugs it out with 3SC or Shooting Stars, which the ruling APC is, the result will be heavy loss for the 3SC. For Oyo in 2015, it will be heavyweights versus the featherweight.”

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But just as LP and Accord Party alliance was getting under way, a faction of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), especially made up of those loyal to former governor Adebayo Alao-Akala, opened a discussion with LP. The discussion, Nigerian Tribune gathered, was to establish a working relationship towards the 2015 polls. A committee of six has also been formed between LP and a weighty faction of the PDP.
Two prominent religious and traditional leaders, who play important role in the politics of the state, have reportedly sent their field officers to scout for the party whose candidate they will support and consequently enthrone next year. Without much ado, the field officers of the prominent opinion leaders have swung into action. The foot soldiers have been in talks with the representatives of each of the discussing parties- LP, Accord and a faction of the PDP. They are also said to be constantly reviewing the fluid political happenings in the state to know where to cast their lot.
On the same theme of a grand coalition in 2015, a prominent APC leader was said to have hosted a series of separate meetings with Alao-Akala, Ladoja and some aggrieved APC leaders as well as LP chieftains. A source privy to the meetings said: “They were successful, positive and promising.” On the issue of a common governorship coalition candidate, the source said: “The leaders are ready to make compromises because they are unified by a common goaland are prepared not to let the opportunity slip from their hands. They are raring to go next February.”
APC, PDP as ‘shopping malls’
The ruling APC appears to be the most negatively affected of the parties preparing to go into next year’s elections, as a result of its internal disharmony. The party has lost a number of its grass root ‘soldiers’ to Accord and LP. The fallout of its three-phased congress had also added to the trouble for the part. Unlike in most parties, where the gladiators will flex muscle over the control of the party structure, the congresses were devoid of sparks. The bigwigs in the party literally left everything to the pro-Establishment and the Lamists’ groups to decide. Almost all the National Assembly members from the party did not take part in the congress.
Only about six out of the 33 councils in the state were free from the disagreements arising from the congresses. The misunderstanding stemmed from the inability of the gladiators in those councils, four of which are in Oyo and Ogbomoso zones, to reach a consensus on the list of party officers. In many of the remaining councils, Lamists, as loyalists of the late former governor Lam Adesina are called, swept the congress.
Senator Olufemi Lanlehin, who represents Oyo South Senator District, last week, said he had never been a member of the APC, as he was only elected on the platform of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN). Although he did not state his new party, Nigerian Tribune gathered that he has gone to Accord Party, the culmination of a series of meetings he had held with Senator Ladoja. It will be recalled that when the incumbent was picked as the ACN governorship candidate in 2010, Lanlehin, who was then a governorship hopeful, had almost gone to Accord to pick a senatorial ticket for Oyo South before the ACN leadership prevailed on him to stay in the party where he was given the senatorial ticket.
His loyalists are on the verge of being incorporated into the structure of Accord across the state. Senator Lanlehin, it was gathered, will declare for Accord when he returns from his trip abroad. One of his grouses with the APC leadership, sources said, was his refusal to be ‘Shekaraued.’  In plain language, Senator Lanlehin loathe the imposition of the leadership of new members on old and ‘original members’ of the party, as done in Kano State, where Governor Musa Kwankwaso was made the leader of the party instead of a former governor Ibrahim Shekarau, who was the leader of the ANPP, one of the three legacy parties that fused into APC.
The other of the two APC Senators, Ayoade Adeseun, is already on his way back to the PDP which he dumped in 2010. His formal declaration was initially slated for the end of March before political exigencies made the date unrealistic. The news of his reunion with the PDP was widely circulated on the social media about two weeks ago. But Nigerian Tribune can authoritatively report that all arrangements to re-unite Adeseun with his former party, the PDP, have been concluded.
A number of House of Representatives and House of Assembly members on the platform of the ruling APC have also reportedly struck deals with Accord and LP and are already wetting the ground in those parties. There are many chieftains and leaders in all the zones in the state that are secretly backing either LP or Accord Party and their loyalists, having read their body language in most cases and having been pointedly told, have been moving to either of the parties.
These parties have been unrelenting in fishing from the troubled waters of the APC, a reason observers of the politics of the state say political termites have eaten the trees in the fence of the ruling party.
For the state chapter of the PDP, the story is the same. The structure of the party is firmly in the grip of a former Senate leader, Teslim Folarin and all attempts by the other factions of the party to get the national leadership to dissolve the structure and reconstitute same to reflect the diverse interest of the leaders have failed. A source told Nigerian Tribune that a meeting of the leaders of the party held in Abuja recently with the national leadership of the party could not address the grievances of the factions considered to be in the periphery. As far as the structure of the party if concerned. Alhaji Adamu Mua’zu was said to have told the warring factions to look for an alternative option to resolving the crisis in the party apart from the dissolution of the extant structure.
The stance of Mua’zu on the Oyo PDP structure was said to have provided the spark plug for the spirit of the prominent faction of the party to come up with a joint committee of three members each with representatives of the LP. It was gathered that there are some members of the “recognised PDP faction,” especially those who have aspiration in the Senate, House of Representatives and state House of Assembly, are said to be “forum shopping,” looking for the party where their bread can be buttered politically.
Second term bid
Governor Abiola Ajimobi is aware of the grand plot to unseat him and he is said to be working round the clock to thwart the plan and break the jinxed re-election of the governor of the state in 2015. One of the strategies, Nigerian Tribune learnt, is said to be his rescinding the decision to drop most of the serving caretaker chairmen when another six month term expires on May 8. It was gathered that the decision is to prevent those who will have been dropped from teaming up with the “dissidents” in LP and Accord and thus ensure the return of some wind for the sail of the APC.
The incumbent has also resolved to complete all ongoing projects, especially the road dualisation in Oyo and Ogbomoso so that the scorecard of his government would speak for his re-election. With the election of Chief Akin Oke, who was the erstwhile state chairman of the defunct ACN, as the APC chairman, the coast is clear for Ajimobi to clinch the party’s ticket. As of now, the governor only has a contender for the ticket of the APC in the eldest son of Lam, Dr Ayobami Adesina, who has oiled his father’s political machinery to that effect. Though based in the United Kingdom, Dr Adesina has been frequenting the country since his father passed away. He has been holding consultations with leaders across the five zones of the state- Ogbomoso, Oyo, Ibarapa, Oke Ogun and Ibadan.
The dynamics keeps changing almost every time and new actors fall in and out of their comfort zones to join the rainbow coalition. To those knitting the grand alliance, the election will be a walkover against the APC. But to the pro-government group, 24 hours is a long time in politics. As the latter group is working to throw spanner in the work for the “plot,” those forging the alliance are closely knit by the prospect of a change of guard in the state next year.