Ondo: Parties draw battle line

As attention shifts to Ondo State after the Edo campaigns and elections, Dare Odufowokan takes a look at the likely candidates of the leading political parties and their strengths.

After this weekend’s governorship electoral tussle in Edo State, all eyes will be on Ondo State, where another political contest is scheduled for October 20, 2012.
The contest in Ondo is between an unbending opposition eager to displace an incumbent who is obviously not in a hurry to quit the Alagbaka Government House.
Consequently, political parties, their leaders and the members are traversing the length and breadth of the state to mobilise support at the nooks and crannies of the Sunshine state ahead of the October election. 
Though most of the registered political parties have made claims of preparedness for the forthcoming election, insiders said the stage in Ondo is set for an electoral collision of just three leading parties in the state, namely the ruling Labour Party, (LP); the People’s Democratic Party, (PDP) and the Action Congress of Nigeria, (ACN).
Even before the primaries, influential candidates are already emerging. For the ACN, where indications suggest that Chief Rotimi Akeredolu (SAN), a former President of the Nigeria Bar Association, will likely emerge as the candidate, the Ondo gubernatorial election is a must win and the party is not leaving any stone unturned in its bid to clinch the coveted office next October.
If antecedents and performance will be the major determining factors in the contest, then the party may be coasting home to victory soon. Now a very popular party in the state, the ACN is expected to draw support and inspiration from the five neigbouring SouthWest states of Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Osun and Ekiti, where the party boasts of governors that have good records as performers.
Akeredolu, who also served as a Commissioner for Justice and Attorney General in the state during the administration of one of the military administrators, stands tall among the contending figures. An accomplished professional, pundits say his candidature is no doubt a push in the right direction for the ACN.  
From Owo in the northern senatorial district of the state, home town of the late octogenarian politician and first civilian governor of the state, Chief Michael Ajasin, Akeredolu embodies the agitation of the people of his zone, the Akokos, for a shot at the governorship seat. 
Another positive pointer to the party’s readiness to displace Governor Mimiko is the mature and successful way it handled the alleged grievances of some aspirants.
With nearly all his co-aspirants promising to remain within the party and work for his success at the polls, Akeredolu and his party appears set for a fight to finish at the gubernatorial contest. And this is one fight the party is dying to win come what may.
For the PDP, which before now in the state, was seen as a party in coma, the emergence of its candidate seems to have generated some activities in the sleepy party. 
The party’s candidate is a two time member of the board of the Niger/Delta Development Commission, (NDDC), the immediate past National Legal Adviser of the party and a former chairman of the Ondo State Oil Producing Area Development Commission (OSOPADEC), Barrister Olusola Oke.  
Seen as the only candidate among those who vied for the party’s ticket who can reawake a hitherto languishing party, Oke is what the remnant of the embattled PDP in the state came up with in a last minute effort to remain in contention for the Alagbaka Huse.
From the southern senatorial district of the state, an area which is producing the oil that puts the state among the oil producers in the country, the party and its candidate is banking on the population of the area and the obvious neglect of the area by the Mimiko administration to win the election. 
As the incumbent governor and the leader of his largely one-state party, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko is the obvious candidate of the ruling Labour Party. 
More than anything else, the Mimiko camp appears to be banking on a combination of the famed ‘luck’ that is usually associated with the governor and the sympathy he enjoyed from the people of the state during his struggle to regain his mandate after the April 2007 governorship election in the state.
It is commonplace to hear aides of the governor saying something like ‘our principal has been lucky in all the strategic moves he had embarked upon since 2003.’ It is primarily for this reason that such aides see no reason why that same luck will not count for him in October.
Supporters of the incumbent who share this ‘lucky man’ view are ever quick to tell you how they left the Alliance for Democracy to pitch their tent with the PDP in 2003. They also speak of how the Iroko emerged as a strong pillar in the PDP, going on to emerge as the Secretary to the Government (SSG) in the government of Segun Agagu.
They are wont to cap it with how luck still smiled on them when they again moved to the Labour Party to prosecute the 2007 election, sealing their good run with the victory at the Appeal Court, Benin City. To them, these are good omen that can be repeated in October.
Aside from their claims that Mimiko has performed creditably well in the last three and a half years as governor of the state, his supporters are optimistic that the people of the state are yet to forget his travails in the hands of the PDP and as such, will still be sympathetic towards him when the governorship tussle takes off fully in a matter of weeks.
As the countdown to the October polls narrows down to mere weeks, none of the parties appear set to concede defeat before the election proper but one thing that is certain is that the people of the state are ready and eager to speak with their votes come October 2o.