Ahead of the primary election of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ondo State, indications emerged that the leadership of the party was at a crossroads over the choice of its candidate for the forthcoming governorship election in the state.
This is just as the leadership of the APC at the national and state levels awaits the choice of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu among the governorship aspirants jostling for the ticket of the party.
The Nigerian Tribune gathered that the sudden death of one of the aspirants, Paul Akintelure, whom Tinubu was said to have initially settled for, threw the race open, and the President is said to be in a fix over his choice among the governorship aspirants.
An unconfirmed source disclosed that the development has forced the president to reassess his choices and may convene a stakeholder meeting in order to take a position on the party’s primary.
According to him, the President needs the contributions of the stakeholders in order to take the decision, as he does not want to single-handedly take a decision on such a sensitive matter for the entire state.
But a high-ranking member of the party executive disclosed that the president is interested in the upcoming election in the state, saying the election marks the first test of Tinubu’s influence in Southwest politics since assuming the presidency.
According to a reliable source, Tinubu has narrowed down the aspirants to two, which include Olusola Oke and Wale Akinterinwa, disclosing that the incumbent governor, Lucky Aiyedatiwa, might be sidelined following concerns over issues surrounding his certificate.
According to the source, Akinterinwa is seen by the president as the only candidate who can carry on Aketi’s legacy.
However, the stumbling block is the fact that Akinterinwa hails from Ile-oluji, an ondo dialect-speaking town that is less than five kilometres from Ondo town in the central senatorial district of the state.
The president’s concerns stem from the belief that the former finance commissioner may find it difficult to secure the votes of the core local government areas in the southern senatorial district, which include Okitipupa, Irele, Ese-Odo, Odigbo, and Ilaje, which constitute the core southern regions of the state.
Oke, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria and a member of the Presidential’s legal team, is perceived as independent-minded and enjoys widespread grassroots support across party lines, particularly in the core southern regions of Ilaje, Ese-Odo, Okitipupa, and Irele.
Apart from this, Oke has previously contested the governorship twice and has been winning Okitipupa and Ilaje with overwhelming votes.
Political observers believe that Oke has the political capital to unsettle the PDP and dismantle the opposition parties in the state, arguing that Oke has the capacity to diminish the influence of the PDP across the three central senatorial districts.
But the Co-convener of the Lucky Aiyedatiwa Campaign Organisation Foot Soldiers (LACO-FS) in Ondo state, Biyi Poroye, said
the tale of certificate scam is no longer new in the state but said detractors are only crying wolf where there is none.
Poroye, however, charged the good people of the State and social critics to dig into the past and present of all the governorship aspirants across the party lines.
He said, “The people of the state should query how an aspirant becomes a millionaire overnight and wants to become the Governor of Ondo State.”
Speaking on the certificate scandal, he said, “Thankfully, facts don’t lie. Recall that the then Governor of Lagos State, Alhaji Lateef Jakande, in his developmental stride in the education sector, relocated some dilapidated public schools to his newly built public schools.
“Therefore, Governor Aiyedatiwa, who claims that he entered Ikosi High School in 1980 and passed out of the school in 1982, was right after all, because he was relocated to that school when he was in Form 3, and he passed out of the school in 1982, at Form 5.”
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