War in the Southwest: How Obasanjo and Jonathan are flexing muscles

*Make una fight, una be mate*

President Jonathan – Obasanjo

The majority of the men and women who thronged the meeting of the BMT Youth Organisation in Ibadan last Tuesday were obviously not youths. Men and women with some obviously grandparents could not have passed for youths. But it was convenient for them given that they came to hear out Alhaji Sabo Mohammed, the national chairman of the BMT youths and his entourage. They were also being recruited, perhaps without their knowledge, as foot soldiers into the war that has broken out between the incumbent president, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan and his benefactor and predecessor Chief Olusegun Obasanjo.
Given Jonathan’s mastery of Obasanjo’s historical predilection to furtive political operations, it was not surprising that the incumbent was now meeting his teacher and patron in his own game. Like a game of chess where pawns are offered for knights, both sides are trading tackles and pawns in a game that is inevitably focused on the control of the country. But before controlling the rest of the country, both forces are determined to get a foothold on the Southwest’s slippery political turf.
Of course there are reasons. The Southwest is not expected to present a candidate in the 2015 presidential election and as such, the zone could present a formidable block of votes for any candidate from outside the zone.
President Jonathan’s capacity to dispense favours and patronages is definitely something he is not shying away from using in the combat. When the administration announced the names of board appointments of the juicy Nigerian Ports Authority, NPA the president made the concession of leaving at least one position to one of Obasanjo’s closest lieutenants, Lekan Mustapha. It was a pawn.
But just as the Obasanjo group won a pawn in the form of a board appointment in the NPA, the Jonathan group surreptitiously ate a knight with the successful removal of Chief Olagunsoye Oyinola as national secretary of the party.
Oyinlola, who is a close associate of Obasanjo was also the point-man of the former president and the governors in the National Working Committee, NWC of the ruling PDP.
Oyinlola’s ouster was undoubtedly celebrated in the Tukur/Jonathan camp despite assertions to the contrary. The speed with which Tukur moved to replace Oyinlola last Monday after the court ruling did not show any sign of personal loss.
But even at home in the Southwest, Oyinlola’s loss was also being hailed especially among his many enemies within the party who felt marginalised with the ascendancy of the Oyinlola/Obasanjo tendency.
Indeed, the court ruling was instigated by a court process initiated from Ogun State. The court action was itself a fallout from the internal dissension within the party in the region.
Oyinlola was dragged to court by one of the PDP factions in Ogun State opposed to Obasanjo following the national secretary’s refusal to honour the faction’s list of candidates for the Ogun State local government elections.
That President Jonathan has decided to take the war to Obasanjo in the latter’s home turf is significant. The surreptitious actions of the BMT Youths is reflective of the emboldened character that the incumbent president has lately acquired in the quest for the survival of his political legacy.
Below we present a state by state report on the situation on ground.
ONDO STATE
The PDP in Ondo state could best be described as a house divided against itself since the party lost political control of the state after the judicial affirmation of the Labour Party victory in the April 2007 governorship poll. The party has since then been wobbling even entering last October’s governorship poll as a divided house.
The party is polarised into three factions with loyalties to Dr. Olusegun Agagu, a former governor of the state; Prof. Olu Agbi, a former Secretary to Government and former Ambassador to Austria ; and Dr Dare Bada a former governorship aspirant of the party leading the third faction.
The Agbi and the Bada factions, nevertheless are generally said to have the sympathies of Governor Segun Mimiko, the incumbent governor who came to power on the ticket of the LP.
Though not a member of the PDP, Mimiko who was a former PDP member is generally said to be a crucial factor in the Jonathan, Obasanjo conflict in the state.
At the heart of the crisis in the Ondo chapter of the PDP is the perceived quarrel by many of the continued grip of the PDP structure by Dr. Agagu even after his removal from office as governor.
But despite Agagu’s hold on the recognised state structure, it is generally known that he remains almost irrelevant in Abuja .
Dr. Mimiko through his early support for Dr. Jonathan has sufficiently wormed his way into the Jonathan personal and political lives of the Jonathans that he is now known to pull more weight than any other PDP official from the state.
Mimiko’s was attracted to Jonathan first by the Ijaw spirit. Even though he is not Ijaw, the governor who has a sizeable population of Ijaws in his state was able to see the Ijaw born president as one of our own and thus the early support he had for the president, ensuring that he delivered Jonathan in the polls in 2011.
It is as such not surprising that he is allowed to make key appointments from the state into federal appointments.
Jonathan was also said to be largely unenthusiastic towards the PDP campaign ahead of the state gubernatorial election last October an issue that many PDP officials may raise to oppose him in 2015.
Obasanjo who drove Mimiko to the Labour Party is now not making things easier for Mimiko with his renewed love for the governor. The former president has been known to praise Mimiko’s achievements in office after a number of inspection of projects undertaken by the incumbent governor.
Now with Mimiko rumoured to be returning to the PDP after his inauguration next February, the governor is now said to be stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea in making a choice between the Jonathan and the Obasanjo tendencies in the state.