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LANRE ADEWOLE examines the internal struggles for power and relevance in the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Lagos State in the build-up to picking the party’s governorship candidate for the next general election.
THE unprecedented is happening in Senator Bola Tinubu’s political family in Lagos State, known as Bourdillion caucus. The ‘Lion of Bourdillion’ is not only being challenged openly over the processes that would culminate in picking a governorship candidate for their platform, the All Progressives Congress (widely tipped to sustain the winning streak of Bourdillion caucus since 1999), the famed exclusive internal conflict resolution mechanism that had reined in agitations in the past, clearing the way for the ultimate leader, is also being publicly jettisoned for once, with the decision of some aggrieved members to seek judicial justice in the face of alleged Bourdillion injustice over party congresses.
Those adept at political permutations know how invaluable party congresses at ward and local levels are to serious contestants and aspirants, and this must have informed the ‘mini war’ that those congresses turned in Lagos State, despite the formidable presence of the national leader of the party in the state, who allegedly played the cards of all contending forces in the power struggle by reportedly backing those who insisted on electing the executive members and future delegates to the governorship primaries as well as those who wanted the status quo of hand-picked exco members sustained in the name of ‘unity list.’
Tinubu reportedly played a fast one on all the contending camps by leaving on a tour of America, then London and Dubai in company with his close allies like Alhaji Lai Mohammed hours to the commencement of the congresses, with his absence said to have created a lot of confusion and controversy as contending forces were dropping his name to back their claims up on whether the exercise had been cancelled or not.
At the end of the controversial exercise, parallel lists reportedly surfaced in several local governments, with pockets of protests by aggrieved groups before the banger from the party’s leader at a stakeholders meeting where he allegedly rejected many victorious lists from the challenged exercise and the clincher of zoning the governorship ticket of the party to Lagos East, comprising Ikorodu, Epe and Badagry, Igbogbo, Agbowa, among others.
With some heavyweight governorship aspirants knocked off by the decision on zoning, the ‘inside’ of the party has been rumbling, though it appears that the leader would eventually have his way on the zoning, considering the fact that the dynamics of ambitions are gradually changing with hitherto also-ran from the senatorial zone suddenly becoming front-runners, while certain heavyweight aspirants from the other two zones are gradually receding to the background.
What appeared the festering catalyst for the crisis was the life of its own that the rumoured endorsement by Tinubu of a former Accountant-General of the state, Akinwunmi Ambode, suddenly took after the zoning declaration.
Contrary to the claim that Tinubu allegedly endorsed him following his resolve to yield the ticket to the Christian community in the state since none of such faith had been elected as the state governor since its creation, Saturday Tribune gathered that his candidacy might have been settled since 2012 when he reportedly retired prematurely from the civil service and went on degree accumulation spree from the likes of Harvard to prepare him ahead for the job, according to an insider.
The frenzy of his alleged endorsement was said to be the turning point for other strong caucuses in Bourdillion political dynasty, which Saturday Tribune findings showed, are ready to do battle with the ‘Lion of Bourdillion’ for once “to make him realise that times have changed and this is not 2007 when he was in charge of everything - political and administrative powers,” according to an aggrieved out-zoned governorship aspirant.
Saturday Tribune can reveal that the Tinubu political family is now fragmented into three major groups, two minor groups and politically-strong individuals who are going solo to prove a point to the leader.
While the largest of the major groups, according to findings, remains with him and possibly holds the ace in the eventual emergence of the governorship candidate, the other two major groups have the capacity to effectively play the spoiler in the election proper, if the former goes ahead with the Ambode project.
An arrowhead of a major group told Saturday Tribune that they had not only resolved to play the spoiler as it was the case in 1992 when protest votes from aggrieved defunct Social Democratic Party (SDP) members landed late Michael Otedola of the National Republican Convention (NRC) the governorship seat, despite SDP winning the majority in the House of Assembly, but they also “will find willing ally in PDP (Peoples Democratic Party) who are already thinking of ‘rig and damn’. And don’t forget they have federal might behind them. Let them impose him (Ambode) and they would see how easy it would be to damn them. The Fashola’s case you are talking about is different. Are we as popular as we were in 2007, with all these policies against okada and others? Didn’t you see how the last council election turned out?”
Though APC’s spokesperson in the state, Joe Igbokwe, neither confirmed nor denied the Ambode agenda when he was contacted, he told Saturday Tribune that the party shall cross the bridge when it gets there. Disgruntled insiders are not leaving anything to chance as they keep honing their battle plans and enforcing the preliminaries, with the indication of embarking on a long-drawn battle, being the decision to sue Tinubu and national chairman of the party, Chief Bisi Akande, over the disputed congresses.
Saturday Tribune can also reveal that the other two major groups contending with Tinubuists are in a working agreement though still fighting their individual battles since their interests regarding aspirants are divergent. Both are collaborating on a need to surprise Tinubu at least for once, though he practically made the two leaders of the groups as far as political relevance is concerned.
Saturday Tribune can also reveal that a leading aspirant in the race is being jointly sponsored by the two groups without either being aware of such, since he is popular across board and he could well be their joker against Tinubuists when the chips are down, since he reportedly meets all the attributes the leader is desiring, including zoning and religion. The leader is also said to be enamoured of him and if his hands are forced on the alleged Ambode’s endorsement, the said aspirant could come in handy for the Tinubuists.
The litigation on the congresses, according to insiders, is all about voice of Jacob and hands of Esau, with Saturday Tribune gathering that it was filed to get the leader back to the negotiating table and if he decides to damn them, get the party distracted to the point of crisis and eventual failure at the general elections. The main contention of those kicking against the alleged imposition of Ambode is that the leader can’t and should not have everything, with a chieftain in the aggrieved corner saying that since the zoning had been conceded to him, he should allow those who had been slaving for him politically to have good run in the race.
The chieftain pooh-poohed the alleged position of the leader that Ambode is a seasoned technocrat like the incumbent Babatunde Fashola, with potential to turn out a great success like the incumbent. The chieftain pointed out that many top politicians in the state are high net-worth technocrats, adding that, “Asiwaju has to learn how to reward loyalty, not coming at a point like this to say they are looking for technocrats. Many of us are even better technocrats.”
Changing timesA cross-section of both Tinubuists and disgruntled Bourdillion disciples who spoke with Saturday Tribune agreed that Tinubu might still end up having his way by naming a replacement for Fashola regardless of contentions by groups within. But there was near unanimity that times are changing and the process might pose a bigger challenge than the Fashola scenario when the likes of Senator Tokunbo Afikuyomi left the party in anger and eventually returned.
Then, according to party analysts, Tinubu was government and party, with near absolute power to dictate the pace as the official leader of the party by the virtue of being the governor. Though Fashola is not pretending to be the official leader of the party by the virtue of being the governor, the fact that he is the government cannot be wished away even if he has not shown predilections of a godson who is battle-ready to dislodge his god-father.
With Tinubu’s eyes said to be firmly on the presidency one way or the other, Fashola might present a moral conundrum for Tinubu since it would be like a taboo to ask an eight-year governor, regarded as possibly the best in the nation, to simply disappear into political oblivion after his governorship since both the presidency and the Senate seem out of his reach, at least for now, considering the fact that the leader’s wife, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, is from Lagos Central like Fashola and would be sacrilegious to ask her to step down for the exiting governor, unless she voluntarily decides to, and there are no such signals in sight yet.
An insider, however, said Fashola could be moved to Lagos West, as done with Afikuyomi for his second term, currently occupied by Senator Ganiyu Olanrewaju Solomon, who is not only running for governor but has had the seat twice. A logjam could occur if Solomon wants the senatorial seat for the third time as a compensation for taking the governorship slot away from his zone, though he has also reportedly claimed that his mother is from Lagos East which should qualify him on zoning basis.
There have been talks of Fashola emerging as Secretary to the Government of the Federation or Chief of Staff to the president if APC wins the centre, but it remains to be seen if such promise would be enough for him not to show more than a passing interest in who succeeds him. And with the governor’s Commissioner for Works and ally, Dr Femi Hamzat, neck-deep in the race, Tinubuists might need more than promises of prominent roles at the centre to convince a sitting governor not to have a say in who succeeds him after eight eventful years in the saddle and enough political experience and wherewithal to boot.
Party faithful are wondering if it is possible for a prominent commissioner like Hamzat to be gunning for his boss’s seat without the active backing or even prompting of the said boss, with fingers now being pointed at Fashola as Hamzat’s under-the-sea drummer. And now that zoning and religious consideration are about to lock the incumbent’s apparent anointed in the cooler, though Hamzat’s mother is reportedly from Epe in Lagos East (father is a traditional ruler in Ogun State), which would naturally qualify him as a Lagosian, would Fashola accept without a whimper, his leader’s alleged anointed, whose origin has also become contentious with the traditional ruler of his town having to openly debunk that his prized subject is not from Ilaje Ese-Odo in Ondo State?
Hamzat’s governorship project reportedly kicked off with Asiwaju’s blessing, just like that of others who had declared and those about to and a lot reportedly went into it before zoning and religion came into the mix. Will Fashola/Hamzat camp succumb in the face of being deliberately sent on an alleged wide goose chase, considering the report of Ambode’s alleged anointment, dating back to about a year into Fashola’s second term? A source with ears to the ground at the party’s top echelon revealed that almost all the contending forces have option ‘B,’ considering the fact that Asiwaju is a consummate politician who can spring surprise. But the source noted that “don’t forget he would now be contending with those who know him inside out. I am sure Asiwaju would not commit the blunder of forcing Ambode the way he did Fashola because both settings are different.”
Option ‘B’With the emergence of Fashola in 2007 as the party’s candidate, Tinubu has established a pattern of choice in the minds of his lieutenants. They know his final bus-stop is not always so until it is impracticable to change the chosen candidate. Those deep in the mix revealed that even Fashola was a main campaigner for the supposed candidate in 2007 before Tinubu’s last-minute political magic turned campaigner to candidate. Many chieftains of the party are of the opinion that Ambode’s project might go the way of Gbajabiamila, popularly known as Gbabee in Lagos politics, who was already carrying himself as the crown prince before Tinubu reportedly dumped him like hot-potato for former Commissioner for Special Duties, Tola Kasali, who Fashola was reportedly campaigning for before the incumbent was eventually picked as the candidate.
A council chairman confided in Saturday Tribune that there had been a supposed Bourdillion directive to campaign for Hamzat before the Ambode project suddenly gained currency.
Tinubu’s strategy of political flexibility when it comes to the pervading feeling of certain stakeholders in Lagos which he can’t wish away is said to be responsible for the said constant shift in endorsement. This is even as there are insinuations within the party that Tinubu projected the Ambode agenda to neutralise Fashola’s Hamzat project and may likely use Ambode as a trade-off when he would have to eventually sit with Fashola and convince him why he should drop the Hamzat project. It is being said that both might be asked to drop their favoured anointed and settle for a consensus, neutral candidate.
Interestingly, a certain aspirant may end up being the contending forces’ consensus choice, which may assuage feelings in certain quarters, particularly those who feel Tinubu should only have his way with zoning and other camps have their say on the eventual candidate.
The contending camps could be said to have read Tinubu’s body-language well, considering the confessions in certain quarters that from day one, nearly all camps had both Muslim and Christian leading aspirants, polled from the senatorial zones, thereby making it practically impossible for Tinubu to ignore them in the areas of requisite criteria.
Epe again?Barring any last-minute miracle, Epe may produce another governor soon after the late Sir Michael Otedola, with almost all the front-runners tracing their root there, with the exception of Ganiyu Solomon, whose mother (nee Oluwa) is reportedly from Ikorodu. Ambode; Speaker of the state Assembly, Adeyemi Ikuforiji and Commissioner for Works, Dr Femi Hamzat, are from Epe, while former Commissioner for Health, Dr Leke Pitan, is from Agbowa in the same favoured zone. A controversial royal blessing last Thursday from the paramount ruler of the state, the Oba of Lagos, Rilwan Akiolu, has opened a new vista in the power struggle within the party. Akiolu did not only seal it for Epe, he publicly anointed Ambode, in the process, throwing jabs at Fashola and his anointed by saying an Ogun State indigene, obviously referring to Hamzat, should seek governorship in Ogun State.
Apart from royal fathers being generally perceived as oracles, the umbilical cord between “the leader” and royal oracle in the state is said to be getting thicker by the day. Will the oracles have the final say? Answers are in the bowel of days ahead.
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