Mr. Teslm Folarin, the candidate of the All Progressives Congress in the 2023 governorship election in Oyo State, has expressed his dismay and hinted that he was sacrificed for the presidential poll.
Folarin, an ex member of the Senate, vied for the seat of the governor against the candidate of the PDP, Seyi Makinde. The APC gubernatorial candidate talked at the Ologuneru Area of Ibadan, Oyo State capital at an event for the recently inaugurated members of the National Assembly from Oyo State.
The APC candidate specifically said, “If we are talking about the strongest party in Oyo State today, it is APC. We won three senatorial seats and nine out of federal constituency seats. Our people are already in the election tribunal and I can tell you that we would win two more federal constituency seats. On the governorship election, we were thrown under the bus”.
From his expression, Mr. Teslim Folarin is of belief that he was sacrificed or perhaps, he was the bargaining chip in the elections. His All Progressives Congress did fantastically well in the presidential and NASS elections. Bola Tinubu won the state with over 400,000 votes while the APC took the three senatorial districts in the state.
Mr. Folarin must have expected an easy ride to victory in the subsequent gubernatorial election. He must have been really disappointed in the outcome of the March, 2023 governorship election. Seyi Makinde really worsted the ex senator in the election.
Yet it doesn’t mean that Folarin was the sacrificial lamb. There have been no pieces of evidence that Bola Tinubu liaised with Seyi Makinde and that the governor paved the way for his kinsman.
Prior to the elections, Seyi Makinde and four other governors of the PDP had an axe to grind with the PDP’s presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar. They decided to snub the former vice president. And there has been no rapport between Makinde and Peter Obi of the Labour Party.
That means Mr. Seyi Makinde was left with no other option but to throw his weight behind the APC presidential candidate Bola Tinubu. That is the logic. Makinde couldn’t be neutral in the election. The most reasonable alternative to Atiku Abubakar is Bola Tinubu. But there doesn’t appear to be a deal between the incumbent president and the Oyo State governor.
If there were, would Seyi Makinde still leave his party loyalists and candidates who were vying for seats in the National Assembly in the lurch? The PDP candidates in the February, 2023 polls were literally handpicked by Makinde. So, would Mr. Teslim Folarin say Makinde throw those guys under the bus?
The poor performance of Teslim Folarin reflect how acceptable he is in Oyo State. It shows he’s not an alternative to Seyi Makinde, who is a household name in the pacesetter state till this moment. The gruesome killing of Lateef Eleweomo continues to haunt the APC candidate. He ought to know that.
The reality the APC candidate may find difficult to accept is that he’s no march for Makinde, who has endeared himself to the Oyo State people.
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