The national chairman of the All Progressives Congress Umar Ganduje made it very clear that his party would capture the southwestern part of the country. There has never been a time that a party controls the whole region, which is dominated by the Yoruba people. Yet the former Kano State governor is determined to taking all the six states there.
The APC currently controls Ekiti, Ondo, Ogun and Lagos State leaving Osun and Oyo for the Peoples Democratic Party, which Seyi Makinde intends to protect from the “expansionist movement” of Ganduje. How can the Oyo State governor achieve that when it’s crystal clear that internal wranglings, polarisation, lack of ambitious and proactive leaders are the main problems of the PDP?
Seyi Makinde talked a lot when he went for the campaign of the PDP’s gubernatorial candidate in Ondo State, Mr. Alfred Agboola Ajayi. He alleged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of colluding with the APC and asked the commission to transfer the Resident Electoral Commission. He boasted that the PDP would take over the state.
Surprisingly, it’s the poorest performance of the PDP in Ondo State. The party couldn’t win any of the 18 local government areas. The APC won the election convincingly. Then, Makinde’s attention shifted to Osun and Oyo State.
Osun is very dear to the All Progressives Congress and President Bola Tinubu. They lost the “swing” state in 2022 and 2023. Former governor Adegboyega Oyetola (now minister of blue economy) lost to Ademola Adeleke and in 2023, former vice president Alhaji Abubakar Atiku defeated Bola Tinubu. The president has his roots in Iragbiji, a town in Osun central senatorial district.
Losing Osun for the third time in a row is something that the APC may not afford to have. It’s not that the party would rig the election or repeat the 2018 “magic” of inconclusive election. But the fact of the matter is the incumbent Osun State Governor Ademola Adeleke has played into the hands of the opposition. Hence, the door is open for the APC.
Apart from his nepotism and favouritism to his hometown of Ede, Ademola Adeleke couldn’t maintain the internal crisis. The party couldn’t stop the eventual defection of Dotun Babayemi, who has one of the largest followers in Osun State at this moment, to the APC. The PDP has lost a number of its chieftains and that will reflect in its performance in the next governorship election. What could Mr. Makinde do then to stop the APC from taking Osun State?
If Osun proves too difficult, what about Oyo? All indications point to the return of he All Progressives Congress as well. Mr. Makinde was not meticulous in his permutations in the last general elections. While he watched, the APC took all the senatorial districts and won almost all the seats for that state in the House of Representatives.
Analysts said that he mellowed so as to pave the way for Bola Tinubu, the APC candidate instead of Atiku Abubakar, with whom he had issues. The step he took that time by allowing the APC win the federal elections could become the albatross of the PDP in Oyo State.
Mr. Makinde may be making frantic efforts to reunite the party. He recently opened the secretariat of the party in the southwest region. The edifice in Ibadan was named the Late Adagunodo Zonal Secretariat. That is not enough. The party is fractured. It has lost the energy, the will to slug it out with the APC. Ganduje may just be few years away from actualizing the bud to control all the states in the southwest geopolitical zone.
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