DISUNITY IN ONDO APC UNITY FORUM – – – BY AKINBIOLA SUNDAY

DISUNITY IN ONDO APC UNITY FORUM
BY AKINBIOLA SUNDAY

With the trends of events of late in the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) in Ondo State, many political observers have opined that the party could lose the state to the Peoples Democratic Party, the major opposition ahead of the October 10, 2020 governorship election. Many observers are of the opinion that the Unity Forum might never be united again, as the state APC Elders Forum wielded the big stick when it disbanded the gubernatorial candidate committee and its report, while sacking the chairman over bribery allegations.
For now, Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu is still standing, as his camp seems intact despite the political storm rocking both parties, save for the issue of direct primaries that the party has decided to adopt in Ondo and Ekiti States. Besides, it also throws a big opportunity for Barrister D. I. Kekemeke and Ambassador Sola Iji both of whom decided not to join the unity forum.

Meanwhile, it will be recalled that the political battle in APC started after the September 2016 governorship primary election that produced Akeredolu as the party’s candidate, without much reconciliation among major contenders. Across the state’s 18 council areas, aggrieved party leaders had organised themselves into a formidable force under the aegis of APC Unity Forum, a pressure group that vows to stop Akeredolu’s second term’s bid. Among members of the group are notable leaders and aspirants in the 2016 election, while a former Deputy Governor and member of APC Board of Trustees (BOT), Alhaji Ali Olanusi is the Chairman. Others are the Deputy Senate Majority Leader, Prof. Ajayi Boroffice, Chief Sola Amodeni and Barr. Taofeeq Abdulsalam, who were sacked from Akeredolu’s cabinet, Senator Yele Omogunwa, Pastor Segun Aiyerin, among others. When our undercover political reporter met with some of these strong men in the group as to what informed the formation of the group, they accused Governor Akeredolu of highhandedness, marginalisation, maladministration and anti-party activities, all of which led to the party’s woeful performance in the last general elections.

After several attempts to reconcile the warring factions proved futile, the faction instituted a seven-man committee in February, and it was headed by Senator Omogunwa. The terms of reference of this committee was to pick a consensus candidate who would fight Akeredolu in the party’s primaries.The other members are Prof Sola Ehindero (Secretary), Elder Mike Adeyeye, Afe Olowookere, Boye Adegbemisoye and wife of a former Deputy Governor, Olukemi Iyantan.

And by the way, the Unity Forum’s platform parades no fewer than ten (10) gubernatorial aspirants, namely: Dr. Segun Abraham, Barr. Olanrewaju Kazeem, Barr. Bukola Adetula, Prince Dapo Adelegan and Mr. Olayide Adelami. Others are Mr. Akintunde Awodeyi, Barr. (Mrs) Jumoke Anifowose, Chief Olusola Oke, Engr. Ife Oyedele and Prince Jimmy Odimayo.

However, there were misgivings about the committee members who were accused of collecting money to favour a particular aspirant, and stalling the report of the committee that was supposed to be made public in March. But the committee serially issued statements to denounce rumours that certain aspirants had emerged as the party’s consensus candidate.

The political gimmick became more intense few days ago, when one of the aspirants, Abraham declared publicly that the group had zoned the ticket to the Northern senatorial district. This was fiercely refuted by the other 9 aspirants.

While the dust was yet to settle on the zoning crisis, the group’s Chairman, Olanusi announced Oke who was a major contender in the 2016 elections, as the group’s consensus candidate. He added that the decision was due to failure of aspirants to reach a consensus on the person to represent them in the party’s primaries. That was the last straw that broke the camel’s back.
He said: “In taking this unanimous decision, all the 10 aspirants agreed to accept the candidate recommended by the committee. However, one of the aspirants insisted he must be convinced that the process would be credible.

“Consequently, on March 24, 2020, 6 committee members met and one was unavoidably absent. They debated on the issue of presenting a candidate, in line with the committee’s terms of reference and the aspirants’ concurrence.

“So, four of the six members opted for Chief Olusola Oke (SAN), while one opted for a technocrat, whose identity was not disclosed and one opted for a female aspirant.”

But the committee’s secretary, Ehindero, alongside three others, kicked against Chief Oke’s emergence, accusing Olanusi and Omogunwa of attempting to rubbish the group’s integrity.
Ehindero declared: “Olanusi is not appropriately qualified and morally empowered to issue any report on the committee’s deliberations, mainly because he is currently a principal suspect in a bribery allegation related to the integrity and credibility of the report of the screening committee. “No input has been made into the report by other members of the parent body, which originally set up the screening committee. This means the report is yet to be brought to the general meeting of the Unity Forum for consideration.”
He asserted that no consensus candidate had been arrived at by the committee. “Hence, the report that has been fraudulently released by Ali Olanusi neither emanates from the accredited secretary’s office nor does it reflect the true deliberations and conclusion of the screening committee members. Rather, the fake report is inspired, sponsored and programmed by known and disguised enemies of both the Unity Forum and the APC in Ondo State…”
Meanwhile, rumours are ripe that some top APC members are considering moving to PDP if they fail to realise their political aspiration in the forthcoming primary election. Olanusi was at one time or the other the state PDP chairman and till date, he remains a highly respected chieftain. Omogunwa was elected PDP senator in 2015, while Oke was a member of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) under PDP. He was also the PDP’s National Legal Adviser and of course, the party’s governorship candidate in 2012.

However, the nine aspirants, who were said to have agreed to Oke’s purported emergence rejected the committee’s result, spontaneously, responding to Senator Boroffice’s declaration charging them to prepare for the primary election. One of the aspirants, Dapo Adelegan, said he was not party to the emergence of any consensus candidate as claimed by Olanusi. “To the best of our knowledge, the other aspirants are still discussing amongst themselves on the possibility of a consensus candidate. Our expectation is that by July 2020, an APC candidate will emerge from a formal primary and will move on to emerge as Ondo State governor in October, 2020 by God’s grace,” he said. On the part of Senator Boroffice, the Asiwaju of Akokoland maintained that “while it is unfortunate that Unity Forum could not present a consensus candidate, it is soothing that all political tendencies in the forum remain committed to APC’s success in the October 10 governorship election in Ondo State”. According to the Deputy Senate Leader,“as the aspirants embark on campaign for APC’s direct primaries, I urge them to continue to exercise utmost decorum and rare camaraderie. The outcome of Ondo APC governorship primaries will offer Unity Forum another opportunity to unite together in the party’s overriding interest”. Boroffice, acknowledging the political tendencies that made a consensus candidacy a difficult task within the Unity Forum, decried Oke’s emergence even as the foremost Professor saw it as a ploy to give Akeredolu a second term ticket.

But then, a source close to Alli Olanusi, Mr. Abisola Babatope, had earlier blamed Boroffice for all the crises in the group, alleging that he was sponsoring another group, Unity Mandate Agenda, to scuttle the selection process. In his words, the Unity Mandate Agenda is a secret political tactics meant to play a sort of divide and rule among the aspirants to frustrate Unity Forum’s efforts. But in a swift reaction, Boroffice has described the allegation as not only a laughable one, but also fallacious and a predetermined attempt by the trio of Oke, Olanusi and Akeredolu to give the latter a smooth ride to re-election.His words: “It is a plan between Olanusi, Akeredolu and the people (Unity Forum Selection Committee). What they are planning is to field Oke as a consensus candidate. A week to the primaries, Oke will now step down for Akeredolu. In return, Akeredolu has promised that after his second term, he will hand over to Oke. It will not work, APC’s national leaders will never approve of Oke.”

And to buttress this claim by Senator Ajayi Boroffice, the Chairman and the Secretary of the APC Elders Forum, High Chief S. A. Idris and Chief Bayo Olafusi have expressed dismay at the former Deputy Governor’s action. According to them, the 52 Special Purpose Committee of Ondo APC Unity Group set up a seven-man aspirant screening committee, whose members, especially the chairman and secretary were singlehandedly picked by Olanusi. The APC elders lamented that it was in defiance of the observation of the members of the 52 Special Purpose Committee, who complained about the composition of the seven-man aspirant screening committee members.
Olafusi insisted that the former chairman deliberately manipulated the selection of the committee members to propagate his personal agenda, “which is to pave way for PDP total takeover of the Southwest before the 2023 presidential election”. He went further to say that “the secretary and two other members, Mrs. Kemi Iyantan and Prince Solagbade Amodeni of the seven-man screening Committee were sidelined in the preparation of the said report. Only the chairman and three others, who are Alhaji Ali Olanusi’s cronies prepared the purported report.”
Idris and Olafusi equally maintained that the APC BOT member singlehandedly approved the committee’s report without recourse to the 52 Special Purpose Committee and dispatched copies to the party’s National Leader, Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu and the National Secretariat.

And consequent upon this, the APC elders resolved that “aligning with the position of the 9 out of 10 APC Unity Group aspirants and in the interest of fair play, Alhaji Ali Olanusi is hereby removed as the chairman of APC Unity Group in Ondo State, for his high handedness and manipulative tendencies. The seven-man Aspirant Screening Committee is hereby disbanded, and their purported report hereby declared null and void”. They went ahead to appoint an interim committee to steer the group’s affairs to fill the vacuum.

Olanusi, however, dismissed the allegations levelled against him, even as the elder statesman claimed that none of the elders has the capacity to sack him as the group’s chairman. To this extent, he sought to know who elected him and when the election took place in the first place. He asserted that he founded the forum and that those people calling themselves elders and leaders of the party are not in anyway his equals in politics.

But Amodeni, one of the three committee members that kicked against the report noted that he had foreseen the embattled chairman’s hidden agenda in consensus candidacy, saying he warned them on the futility of the exercise. He said “from the beginning, I told them that the committee would not be able to achieve any success when the larger house of 45 men and women met and came up with the idea. I remember telling them that we have done similar things before. I equally expressed my fear on whether the outcome would not get us more disunited than we were. I equally told them that the committee had no capacity to determine many things to arrive at a particular aspirant as the consensus candidate”. He sought to know who and who wrote the report and why it was not shown to the remaining three members that never signed. He also wondered why the report sent to leaders outside the state weeks ago without first making it public in Ondo State. Again, it beats his imagination that the committee’s secretary was never accused of abdication when they feel he was not alive to his responsibilities.

Defending the screening committee over financial inducement accusation, Senator Omogunwa said they only received N1.2m as cheerful donations from some aspirants. His words: “When we were holding meetings here, there was no water, no biscuit and we were working day and night. Segun Abraham came and gave us N100, 000. It was in the open. Odimayo gave the committee N200, 000. Another aspirant gave N500, 000, while Kazeem gave us N20, 000 and Adelegan gave N50, 000. It was out of the N1.2m that we booked hotel for the Secretary for three days, as he was coming from Ife.” And on the committee’s choice of Olusola Oke, Senator Omogunwa said the aspirants promised to abide by anybody the committee used its wisdom to select, and that for two days, they had interfaced with the aspirants, who agreed to support whosoever that was chosen. “All the aspirants are competent, but I agreed with the majority that said Chief Oke. The Secretary left without signing. The only woman in our midst did not also sign. We followed the mind of the public,” he said.

However, Ondo State’s Commissioner for information and information, Donald Ojogo has dismissed the allegation that his Principal, Governor Akeredolu manipulated Oke’s emergence as one full of terminological inexactitudes and fallacious in every sense of the word. He described the rumour mongers as crisis entrepreneurs who tend to create conflicts but has resolved never to join issues with them having already understood their “tricks. Ojogo, maintained that Akeredolu would not play politics with the people’s lives and that at such a juncture of time when all hands must be on deck to overcome the evil effects of this global pandemic called COVID 19, the government had shelved politics and was working hard to protect the people of the state from the menace of the disease.

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