MEMBERS of the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, in Ondo State have become more cynical of their leaders, Governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Chief Bisi Akande. The two national leaders of the party are now being accused by a section of the Ondo North senatorial caucus of the party as covertly working for the re-election of Governor Olusegun Mimiko.
The Akoko axis of the Ondo North senatorial district comprising Owo, Ose, Akoko North-West, Akoko West, Akoko South and Akoko South-East Local Governments, had orchestrated a mass defection into the ACN, trumpeting the refrain of Akoko agenda, with the alcoholic former education minister, Mr. Olaiya Oni, an principal-traitor against incumbent Governor Mimiko. But the Akoko Mafia did not see what every observer of the politics of the Sunshine State had known for some time: Bola Tinubu had a plan for a coronation, not an election.
His preferred crown prince? Former president of the Nigeria Bar Association, Mr. Rotimi Akeredolu, an indigene of Owo, a federating unit of Ondo North senatorial district.
Akeredolu’s only requisite qualification was essentially in his assistance to purchase judicial victories for ACN in Oyo, Osun, Ekiti and Edo states. He is not known to the political kingmakers in his hometown and the state as a whole. That very fact is not enough to dissuade Mr. Tinubu, who relishes in an invisible aura to appoint certain sole administrators for Yoruba satellite states. This penchant for appointing “ajeles” who pretend as elected governors make many Nigerians sick to the stomach. They find the idea despicable and antediluvian.
Now the ACN crowd of fifty-six guber aspirants which include front-runners like Ekungba, Alasoadura, Agunloye, Boroface, among others, are plotting a major checkmate that will derail the successful coronation of the imperial crown prince. They have always been a treacherous crowd, buoyed by implacable envy, greed and misadventurous quest, never seeing the unprecedented renewal and transformation brought by the incumbent government of Dr. Mimiko. They are now tapping into the anger and disillusionment of their supporters to sell the dummy that Tinubu has always wanted Mimiko to be re-elected. They say their arch-rebel, Tinubu, had never meant well for ACN in the state. The intense resentment against Tinubu, hopefully, would tear the party apart.
The Labor Party in Ondo State denies and says it is an insult to claim that Tinubu and Mimiko are political fellows. They say Tinubu has tried every trick in the book to destroy Mimiko and did not succeed.
A disillusioned ACN foot-soldier put it succinctly to sharpedgenews.com on Thursday night “Tinubu and his crowd ti da ori so apa, apa a pan won, meaning they ganged up against a sinless soul and now by natural law, and they are getting the reward for their treachery.