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After suffering two consecutive defeats in the 2019 and 2023 governorship elections, the Oyo State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) appears to be in limbo and needs to do something to get out of that position. Observers believe that its recent electoral woes are a sign of a deep-seated crisis within the chapter and that it needs to do something if it truly wishes to take over Agodi Government House in Ibadan, the Oyo State seat of power
Its only consolation at the moment is the victory of the President-elect, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, as well as those of the three senators and the nine House of Representatives members elected on the party’s platform.
Rise, fall of Oyo APC
After rising to a resounding victory in the 2011 and 2015 governorship and National Assembly elections, the party remained stable and popular until March 2019 when it suffered a shocking defeat in that year’s governorship election. Having won eight of 14 House of Representatives and two senatorial seats in the February 2019 election, observers were shocked to see the turn of the tide in the March 9, 2019 governorship election.
The then-opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Seyi Makinde, trounced his APC counterpart, Adebayo Adelabu roundly, winning in 32 out of the 33 local government areas. Makinde polled 515,621 votes to defeat Adelabu, who garnered 357,982 votes.
Since then, things have not remained the same with the party. The death of two of its leaders – Abiola Ajimobi and Adebayo Alao-Akala within one year dealt a further blow to the party as there was no other leader that could serve as a rallying point for the party.
The 2021 congresses that produced state, local government and ward executives did further harm to the party in the absence of a rallying figure, and faulty leadership of the then interim national working committee headed by Yobe State Governor Mai Mala Buni. The executives that emerged through the faulty process inflicted wounds among leaders and members. The same experience was repeated during last year’s primaries that produced the governorship and National Assembly candidates.
The situation led to the defection of several members to other parties, including its 2019 governorship candidate, Adelabu, who opted for the Accord party with some senatorial and House of Representatives aspirants. Others chose to join the Labour Party (LP) and the PDP. They all had one thing in common: they alleged that they were robbed of their chances of picking the tickets through the imposition of candidates.
The Tinubu factor
Governor Makinde was a member of the Integrity Group which consisted of the five PDP governors opposed to the aspiration of the party’s candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari. The five governors, led by River States’ Nyesom Wike we’re at loggerheads with Atiku because he did not prevail on the national chairman Iyorchia Ayu to resign for a candidate of southern origin to emerge. In the end, Wike and Makinde supported Tinubu to emerge as president-elect. Makinde’s support for Tinubu is believed to have contributed to the latter’s landslide victory in the state in the presidential election. Tinubu polled 449,884 votes to beat Atiku who got 182,977 votes.
The alliance between the president-elect and Makinde was believed to have earned the governor more votes in the March 18 election. He widened his lead this time by polling 563,756 votes to beat the APC candidate Teslim Folarin who garnered 256,685 votes, a difference of 307,071 votes.
There is still apprehension within Oyo APC about the consequences of the alliance between the two parties, as Tinubu prepares to assume power as the next president. The fear revolves around the future of the Oyo APC.
The Makinde factor
Governor Makinde is viewed as a performing governor because of his policies and disposition to the masses towards him. With the prompt payment of salaries and pensions, recruitment of 5,000 new teachers, taking over of Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH) as sole owner, upgrade of the state’s college of education to a degree-awarding institution and development of infrastructures across the state, the governor is well loved. His second-term electoral victory attested to his popularity.
The governor’s soaring popularity is grossly affecting the ability of the APC to rebound.
Folarin’s emergence
The death of Ajimobi created a vacuum within the APC. Folarin had defected from the PDP to the APC in 2018 ahead of the 2019 general election. He succeeded in securing the party’s ticket and won his third election as the senator representing Oyo Central on the platform of the APC in 2019. The death of Ajimobi and Alao-Akala paved the way for Folarin to take over the party, beating others to the game. Subsequently, his political mastery made him emerge as the party’s governorship candidate, against the popular expectation that Adelabu would be handed the ticket again.
With his wide contacts across the country from his days in the PDP as Senate Leader, Folarin was able to win the majority of party leaders and members to his side, thereby making it easy to be in control of the party. Virtually all former PDP members in the APC joined his camp which largely determined who got one ticket or the other in last year’s primaries. But Makinde’s popularity and Tinubu’s informal alliance with the incumbent governor combined to hand him a defeat in the March 18 election.
Need for revival pills
Commenting on the capacity of the APC to rebound in the state, the Director General of the APC Presidential and Governorship Campaign Council in Oyo State, Dr Isiaka Kolawole, sees the situation differently. He said the party has a huge capacity to win governorship elections soon given the huge population of APC supporters in the state. He insisted that Oyo is an APC state, and that the emergence of Tinubu as the incoming president will facilitate reconciliations within the party and bring it back to its winning ways.
Kolawole who is also the Secretary-General of the Oyo APC Elders Advisory Council added: “I affirm the APC can, and will bounce back in not too distant future time. Aside from the fact that the state is traditionally an enclave of the progressives, the loss of the governorship seat to the opposition arose simply because of fissures within the party. The fissures now rested in the larger interest of the party and its members. All available parameters point in that direction. Remember the Alliance for Democracy (AD) was the first political party to govern Oyo State from 1999 to 2003. But, the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), an offshoot of the AD, later governed the state for eight years between 2011 and 2019. In this regard, it is clear that Oyo State is fundamentally and traditionally a progressive state, and the party’s return to political leadership is just a matter of time.
“Aside from this foundational factor, the APC as a party is peopled by notable and core professionals across endeavours. We have Ph.D holders, engineers, medical doctors, lawyers, accountants, architects, and many others who are all doing very well in their respective fields. All these are shrewd politicians who know their onions and are equally highly connected and deeply committed to breaking new grounds in respect of the task of repositioning the party in Oyo State.
“There will be a lasting reconciliation in Oyo APC soon. With the emergence of Asiwaju Tinubu as president-elect, he is no longer just the leader of our party; he is now the number one citizen of the country. All members will naturally kowtow to the leadership of Asiwaju. We will all bow to his leadership, irrespective of the faction we may belong to. No party member or leader will have any problem reconciling with other members of the APC in Oyo State. The last election has shown that all of us, regardless of our so-called factional tendencies, worked for the success of the APC and the emergence of Tinubu as president-elect, and we all now see him as our rallying point. To this extent, we believe he is in a position to give directives regarding how we should all go in Oyo State.”
But, a member of the House of Representatives, Jide Olatubosun, who defected from the APC to the LP ahead of the 2023 general elections after failing to get his return ticket in the APC, said all that the party requires to return to winning ways is internal democracy. The lawmaker who represents Saki East/Saki West/Atisbo Federal Constituency at the National Assembly said Oyo APC will win again if the party is restructured to reflect inclusiveness.
His words: “The APC can bounce back and win the next governorship election in 2027. But, it has to be restructured to allow all interests to be part of decision-making. The current structure cannot win the governorship election because many people have been shut out. In other words, the executives from the ward to the state level must be dissolved to allow ones with broad-based participation, which reflects inclusiveness. There is a need for inclusive leadership in the party.”
When reminded that with the current leadership structure, the party won three senatorial seats, and nine House of Representatives seats and delivered about 450,000 votes to Tinubu on February 25, the lawmaker dismissed the claim, saying the victories highlighted were recorded by the reason of the massive support which voters across Southwest gave Tinubu because of his competence, pedigree and capability.
He said: “The votes you saw in the February 25 election were a result of the Tinubu phenomenon. It was not a true reflection of the APC’s popularity in Oyo State. Restructuring is the starting point. Once that happens, all stakeholders will work together. Oyo is an APC state. Party members are still on the ground. We only have divisions. Those who left are ready to come back, if things are properly done.”
(Culled from The Nation)
