By Adebayo Adedeji
For the purpose of the Osun gubernatorial election slated for July 2022, the trio of Yusuff Lasun, Najeem Salaam and Moshood Adeoti have visibly reached a common ground to dislodge the incumbent governor, Gboyega Oyetola. Oyetola, elected in 2018 on the platform of the All Progressives Congress, APC, will be seeking a re-election on the same platform in 2022. Ceteris paribus, he is due to fly the flag of APC, considering the support he enjoys within the party.
The recognised structure of the party in the state is firmly in the hands of the governor. Lasun, Salaam and Adeoti have lost the grip of the party, hence their decision to form a parallel group to realise their political ambition. Under aegis of The Osun Progressives, TOP, the trio continue to stir hornet’s nest, share seditious materials aimed at destabilising the government of Oyetola.
Whereas Lasun has obtained the governorship nomination forms of APC, Salaam and Adeoti equally have been touted to be interested in the governorship race. However, it will remain a tall order for anyone to clinch the APC ticket from Oyetola. He calls the shot. So, just five options are available to the three warring aspirants: 1. Reconcile with the governor and work for his re-election. 2. Stay in the party but stand akimbo in the election. 3. Stay in the party, continue to engage in anti-party activities to give another party a leverage. 4. Join PDP and queue behind their candidate. 5. Join one of the mushroom parties to contest the governorship election.
Lasun was the deputy speaker of the House of Representatives in the 8th Assembly led by Yakubu Dogara. The deputy speakership he enjoyed for four years, his critics claim, is the source of the enormous wealth he now flaunts around and uses to build his political structure. Lasun, multiple sources explain, was a struggling real estate agent before he won the 2011 seat in his Osogbo federal constituency.
In June 2018, two civil society organisations urged Nigeria’s anti-corruption agencies to probe him over his alleged involvement in a N1.1 billion water contract scam. In separate press statements, the Civil Society Network Against Corruption (CSNAC) and Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) alleged that Lasun used his personal company, Nur & Company Nigeria Limited, to secure contracts worth about N1.1 Billion from the federal government through the Ministry of Water Resources. This allegation has not been sufficiently put to rest. This, according to many of the commentators, suggests Lasun has some skeletons in his compound; thus he should be subjected to integrity test.
Again, his democratic credentials are daily impugned on the account of his double dealing and anti-party activities. The story has it that he colluded with the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in 2003 to oust the sitting governor and candidate of his party, Alliance for Democracy AD, Chief Bisi Akande. He was later rewarded with the chairmanship of the Osun State Capital Territory Development Authority OSCTDA in 2004. He later abandoned PDP to rejoin the progressive party for the purpose of 2007 House of Representatives election which he lost to Leo Awoyemi of PDP.
His political acceptance also is suspect because over the years, Lasun has struggled to win elections for APC in his domain. In the 2018 gubernatorial election, even when he wielded powers as the Number-six in the country, Lasun could not deliver his Irepodun Local Government to his party. While APC polled 6517 votes, PDP polled 8058. A similar thing happened in the 2019 general election: whereas the senatorial candidate of APC polled 10,474 in Irepodun, PDP candidate polled 12,272. Of the 10 local governments in the senatorial district, APC won in all except in Lasun’s Irepodun. These recent results speak more about his political status and viability.
Those close to him maintains he is an overrated politician whose rank is depleted, thus his decision to swallow his vomit and reconcile with Aregbesola and his yes-men with whom he engaged in pig fight some years ago.
Najeem Salaam is the immediate former speaker of the state assembly. A close ally of Rauf Aregbesola, the assumed leader of TOP, Salaam seems to be the only known politician in Ejigbo, his hometown, currently against the governor’s re-election. Everyone appears to be on the same page with Oyetola.
The paramount ruler of Ejigboland, Oba Omowonuola Oyesosin some months ago identified with Oyetola and lauded him ” for his humility, kindness and listening quality.” Ogiyan said Oyetola’s administration ” is so productive that we can’t think twice to reciprocate his unique gesture with massive support towards his re-election in office next year.”
The grand Imam of Ejigbo Central Mosque and Chief Imam of Ansarudeen Central hold a similar opinion with Ogiyan Oyesosin. The grand Imam, Sheikh Omotokese and Sheikh Salahudeen, of Ansarudeen, appreciate Oyetola for his leadership and intervention in rehabilitating Ejigbo General Hospital, Primary Health Centres, township road and other related government projects, which their son Najeem Salaam, as Speaker of the Osun State House of Assembly for eight (8) years, could not draw to them. They promised to reward Oyetola’s commitment to the general well-being of the people with unalloyed support for his re-election.
Adeoti is the third person in the tripartite alliance aimed at removing Oyetola in 2022. From Iwo town, Adeoti was the Secretary to the State Government of Osun in the administration of Aregbesola. He polled 49,742 votes when he contested on the platform of ADP in 2018. Of the votes, 16, 425 came from his hometown of Iwo. However, since his return to APC in June 2020, his lieutenants and strategists have emptied themselves into IleriOluwa, a campaign group for Governor Oyetola. One of the strategists is Sunday Akere, former Commissioner for Information in the government of Rauf Aregbesola. Akere is now the Political Adviser of Governor Oyetola and he is building the rank of the governor’s campaign with foot soldiers deplored by Adeoti in the 2018 election.
In Iwo, for instance, Oyetola’s re-election bid got a boost some days ago when the monarchs in Iwo, Ayedire and Ola-Oluwa Local Government Areas declared their unalloyed support for the Oyetola administration. The seventeen (17) traditional leaders, under ” Ayiwola Network of Kings,” endorsed Oyetola for second term in appreciation of the leadership he has projected in human management, respect for traditional institution and good governance despite the financial challenges experienced by the state.
The same governor that is enjoying the pan-Osun solidarity is the one some petulant and spent politicians want to bully to submission and dislodge with empty boast. Does loud-mouthness win elections? It is doubtful if it does. Because if it does, Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun and Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo would have lost their re-election bids in 2015.
In 2015, former Governor Olusegun Osoba left ACN alongside Amosun’s deputy, Segun Adesegun and three senators on the platform of the party. Seven (7) of the nine (9) members of the House of Representatives from the state and a large chunk of the members of the House of Assembly equally joined them. But against all chest-thumpings of Osoba and his lieutenants, Amosun won his re-election in grandstyle with 306, 998 votes as against 201,440 votes of PDP. Strangely, the hyperbolic SDP where Osoba and other quislings collapsed into polled paltry 25, 826 votes!
In a like manner in Oyo, two APC senators Ayoade Adeseun and Femi Lanlehin dumped the party for PDP and Accord respectively, but the people of the state, who believed Ajimobi had worked for their interest stood by him and made his second term ambition a reality. Ajimobi polled 327, 310 votes to defeat the former governor of the state, Rasheed Ladoja of Accord who polled 254,520. The winning set the jinx-breaking record for Ajimobi as the first governor in Oyo to win a second term.
These two elections are testaments to political reality that voters make big names in politics, not other way round. Big names are not made in vacuum.
Adedeji, a Public Affairs Analyst, writes from Osogbo
