Unlike most of the other states
in Nigeria one peculiarity and constant political factor that has been driving
the politics of Ondo State since its creation is the political psychology,
perception and ideology coupled with the nature of the people who normally vote
during elections which has placed it as the only state in the South West State that
has an unbroken history of swimming against the tide in matters of electoral
decisions.
It is also historical that from
the creation of the state in 1976, amongst all the other states in South West, Ondo
State has consistently maintained an unmatched chronological landmark achievements
of confronting, humbling and winning against the federal might.
Looking back at the political
antecedents of the past, it has become more or less a known fact that as far as
Ondo State is concerned, the talk about Federal has never held water in the
political history of the state .the emerging political actors and the latest
political sentiments in Ondo State today.
During the second republic it
was Pa Michael Adekunle Ajasin of the Unity Party of Nigeria [UPN] and the
architect of Ondo Progressives clan versus Chief Akin Omoboriowo of the
National Party of Nigeria [NPN] in 1983, and Ondo State voters resisted the
federal might as Ajasin reclaimed his mandate as the State Governor
before the 1993 coup.
Even 15 years after the 1979 and
1983 saga of the aborted second republic the progressives returned this same
feat through the Alliance for Democracy [AD] in 1999 when Chief Adebayo
Adefarati emerged as the AD flagbearer from an obscure regional party to defeat
Dr.Olusegun Agagu an aspirant backed by
the almighty federal might of the PDP.
Apart from 2003, when the Dr.Olusegun
Agagu led Peoples Democratic Party,[PDP] that Ondo State people succumbed to
the Do-Or-Die rampaging of the South
West by President Olusegun Obasanjo and Ondo
State was delivered to the federal might .
This euphoria soon fizzled out
as in 2007 the former status quo and
sentiments of not aligning with government at the center soon resurfaced in
Ondo State politics as the Do-Or-Die political strategy of the PDP Federal might
was humiliated from capturing Ondo State.
It is on record that the self-acclaimed
African largest Peoples Democratic Party, PDP led by Chief Olusegun Obasanjo
despite his Do-Or-Die mentality met their waterloo as the party candidate and
the incumbent, Dr.Olusegun Agagu lost woefully to the Labour Party [LP]
candidate, Dr.Olusegun Mimiko.
Instead the state was
politically seceded to a very minute and relatively unknown Labour Party [LP]
which midwived the government of Dr.Olusegun Mimiko as the state governor
defeating the combined forces of federal might and the power of incumbency.
After the 2007 saga another very keenly contested
guber elections was held in 2012 in Ondo State and on that occasion the federal
might lost and has continued to bow to local might through different
controversial circumstances.
The political atmosphere in 2012
also gave best opportunity to political pundits and analysts in and around Ondo
State the opportunity to re-write the history of the federal might but alas,
the same minority party candidate and the incumbent governor, Dr.Olusegun
Mimiko of LP to the consternation of all flatly defeated both the revolutionary
Action Congress of Nigeria [ACN] candidate, Barrister Rotimi Akeredolu and the then
federal party but abandoned candidate of the PDP, Chief Olusola Oke.
And 13 years on after the
federal might captured Ondo State, political pundits and analysts are however
now pondering that notwithstanding the array of politicians being paraded by
the All Progressives Party( APC) in the forthcoming November guber election, indications
are rife that GOVERNOR Olusegun Mimiko may be on the verge of breaking the jinx
in view of antecedents to his credit as a master on top of the game of politics
in the State.
Though a section of political
watchers of the next gubernatorial election in Ondo State are hoping that the
Federal might victory might pay off this time around in the State because of
the current economic recession and in particular the integrity crusade of
President Muhammadu Buhari, but a substantial number of the people of the state
and politicians feel and believe that Mimiko possesses all it takes to turn the
table to break the jinx under the PDP ticket to ensure that the PDP guber
candidate wins at the election.
Without mincing words, the
forthcoming gubernatorial election in Ondo State between the different
political parties is being seen as that of wits and mastery of the knowledge of
the electorates and neither that of incumbency nor federal might in view of the
known fact that there myriads of unresolved macro and micro issues dogging the
PDP government in Ondo State and the APC government at the center in the face.
However, because the nation has
continued to be enveloped in cloudy, hazy and obscure political atmosphere the
people of the State now have their fears heightened of a possible re-occurrence
of the past political failures of the federal might repeating itself in
2016,but only time ,dexterity of the political gladiators and the political
parties and the voters will tell especially because of unpredictability in
politics.
