Ondo: APC, PDP Gang Up Against Akeredolu’s Re-Election Bid

By Ayodele Oni, Akure

Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu has been enmeshed in one crisis or the other since he won the primary election of All Progressives Congress, APC in Ondo state in 2015 which has greatly affected the fortune of the party particularly during the last general election.

The party only won only one out of three senate seats and five out of the nine seats in the House of Representatives.

The situation would have been worse in the House of Assembly election if not for the conscription of former Governor Olusegun Mimiko into the arrangement to make the ruling party get convenient majority in the assembly and it worked.

Those that know say Akeredolu committed some grave mistakes in the last three years as governor because he’s a neophyte that’s still learning political tricks.

“As a senior advocate of Nigeria, SAN he found himself in an unfamiliar terrain, aside his law profession where he has soared and towered,” one of his critics told the magazine yesterday.

The source said his foray into the politics has however taught him a different lesson and added to his life experience.

Having rode on the crest of the powerful Abuja mafia and dared the Bordillion power bloc headed by the APC national leader, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Governor Akeredolu must have now realized, that governance is not by the chains of degrees or educational attainment, analysts say.

He is currently battling with legal challenge of the primary election which produced him.

The case was instituted by one of the aspirants Segun Abraham Apart from this, the crisis orchestrated by the removal of the party executive he inherited at the state level and the endless critics by the opposition People’s Democratic Party, (PDP) have cast a slur on his return to power next year.

Also of note is the results of the last election in the state in which PDP made a great showing.

This is an indication that things have greatly changed within the ranks and file of the ruling APC in the state, close watchers of politics in the state say.

Now that scheming for another governorship election is unfolding in the state, as the tenure of the present administration will terminate next year, there are clear indications that Governor Akeredolu may not find it easy to secure a second term ticket.

He urgently need to resolve issues with party leaders like Prof Ajayi Borofice, former deputy governor, Alhaji Alli Olanusi and others in his quest for a second term ticket.

With the ticket in his kitty, his critics have taunted that the senior advocate-turned politician will still have sleepless nights with the opposition PDP which won two senate seats and three House of Representatives seats during the last election as the party is working round the clock to return to power in the state.

But sources told the magazine that Governor Akeredolu is leaving no stone unturned with his administration embarking on infrastructural development of the state as well as regular payment of workers salary.

He has succeeded in clearing the seven months owed by the previous administration after the workers union threatened the APC led administration with strike.

How these can go a long way to remove the dark clouds that hovered around his quest to return to Alagbaka Government House remains to be seen.