Six days before the Ondo State governorship election, the atmosphere may not be as heated as it was in the Edo election, but there has been intense intrigues, horse-trading, and deception leading to uncertainty about its outcome. Until the votes are counted and a winner declared, nobody could be able to say for sure that this is where the pendulum would swing.

If the votes would count, as expected by reasonable members of the public, none of the 18 candidates would say with certainty that he would win the election. But field reports and analysis show that the two topmost contenders are the incumbent governor and candidate of the All Progressive Congress (APC) Mr. Lucky Ayedatiwa and his PDP counterpart, Mr. Agboola Ajayi. The two have the highest rating to emerge as the next governor of Ondo State on paper.

Any other candidate defeating both will be an upset. However, factors within the two topmost parties could tilt the election one way or another. The incumbent governor, Mr. Ayedatiwa, though enjoys the advantage of aligning with the President and the federal government, which could easily mobilize human and material resources in his favour, (federal might) there is the real threat of sabotage.

He would, however, be helped by the politics of 2027. For the 2027 political calculations, the southwest geopolitical area is important to President Bola Tinubu if he decides to run for re-election. Right now, the opposition PDP controls two out of the six States in the zone: Oyo and Osun States. President Tinubu would desire maximum support from his southwest zone in his re-election bid. That is why he would support his party to hold on to the States it controls while prospecting for others.

The Trouble Within the APC
All may appear calm within the APC family but beneath that calmness lies a venom over unresolved governorship primaries issues. For a very long time, members of the Aketi group were lukewarm towards the candidacy of Governor Ayedatiwa and sat on the fence. It took the intervention of Governor Sanwo-Olu of Lagos to broker a rapprochement between Governor Ayedatiwa and the group represented by their arrowheads including Mr. Wale Akinterinwa and Princess Oladunni Odu. Hitherto, the governor never wanted to meet the group collectively but negotiated with members of the group individually.

Though the group can be said to have been restored to the APC campaign for Ayedatiwa, it is believed that the resolution of their differences is largely cosmetic lacking in depth. Part of the grievances against Ayedatiwa by the group was that since he was given the ticket after the Primaries, the Governor refused to reach out to anybody. The Governor countered the allegation saying members of the group did not congratulate him. There may not be much commitment on the part of the group towards the Ayedatiwa ticket because nothing has been put on the table for the group. The group would have loved to know what was involved in their investment in the Ayedatiwa ticket before deploying all their arsenals to the campaigns.

Their case is not much different from that of Senator Jimoh Ibrahim who participated in the APC governorship primaries and challenged its outcome legally. Ever since the case was decided upon by the Court, he has not shown up to campaign with the governor anywhere in the state including his senatorial district. He was said to have stated that all he owed the governor as a good party man was his vote. Participating in a television programme recently, Senator Ibrahim dismissed any opposition to the governor in the contest as a waste of time.

The Opposition PDP
The PDP has its internal dynamics, though not as divergent as the APC. The PDP’s biggest challenge is the resources to fight the incumbent and the federal might. On the Street, the people clamour for and invite the PDP to take over from the APC. The hardship the APC has brought upon the people through its reform programme is a factor that has made the party not to be popular but the will to vote against the party is at its lowest ebb on election day due to other considerations.

The pull-out by the Mimiko group is a factor but politics in Nigeria is drifting away from big names winning elections. It is street popularity that now matters. What could have been a problem for Mr. Agboola Ajayi would have been if Mr. Eyitayo Jegede played a revenge game. In the 2020 election, Mr. Agboola Ajayi pulled out of the PDP to join Olusegun Mimiko in the Zenith Labour Party. This had some effect on the performance of the PDP in the election. But Mr. Jegede has forgiven and is moving with the PDP candidate’s campaign. The PDP is more united but it takes more than unity to win the election in Nigeria today.

The Fear of Vote Buying

Vote trading -buying and selling- is the biggest threat to Nigeria’s democracy. It has resulted in a massive loss of confidence in the electoral process. It explains why poor governance is unpunished. It has become the fulcrum of political strategies by the candidates and their parties. Elections have become transactional. Winners in elections may not be decided on the richness of their manifestoes but on how much they offer. In the recent Edo election, voters got as much as N20,000.00 per vote at some polling units.

Vote buying is on the card in the Ondo governorship election. It would depend on who can spend more. Usually, the incumbents have more capacity due to the availability of the State’s resources. The story may not be different in Ondo state. The two sides are mobilising resources through their campaign councils. The PDP may not be as cohesive and coherent in mobilising its members across the board for this election. The APC has more to dispense but some persons have described Governor Ayedatiwa as a bit stingy and are praying that he should be stingy to himself in this election.

The Campaigns End Wednesday, Thursday

By INEC regulations, all campaigns should end on Thursday. Therefore, the two political have scheduled their grand-final campaigns to be attended by their bigwigs for Wednesday and Thursday. The APC will hold its campaign on Wednesday while the PDP will hold its own on Thursday. Both campaigns will be dominated by speeches, dances, and defections by politicians and closing statements will be made.