Ahead of the 2018 gubernatorial election in Ekiti State, over 25 candidates from The All Progressives Congress, APC, are set to do battle, The New Diplomat’s Senior Associate Editor, Olamilekan Okeowo takes a look at the intrigues, power play as top gladiators in the battle scheme to outdo each other.
| The stage is set, the combatants are battle-ready. With the next governorship election in the Ekiti State coming up in about 18 months, it is believed that the election will seal the political fate of some of the candidates. |
Former governor of the state and current Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Kayode Fayemi, is plotting to reclaim the seat he lost to the incumbent, Ayodele Fayose, while Engineer Segun Oni is reportedly aiming to reclaim the seat which he vacated unceremoniously in 2010 following the nullification of his election by the Court of Appeal which declared Kayode Fayemi of the defunct Action Congress, AC, as the duly elected governor of the state. Oni was then the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
Oni and Fayemi are now in the same party as a result of political alignments in the run-up to the 2014 governorship election in the state.
Fayemi’s ambition is reported to be causing disaffection within the party and tearing the APC, Ekiti State Chapter apart.
In the Fayemi camp is a South-West governor, Plateau state governor, a minister from the South-South who have all allegedly vowed to repeat the feat recorded in Ondo in Ekiti come 2018 with the federal might.
A former Governor Segun Oni, now Deputy national chairman (South West) of the APC, is also said to be eyeing the seat.
Another former governor of the state, Otunba Niyi Adebayo, is another combatant.
Senator Babafemi Ojudu, Hon. Bimbo Daramola, Hon Opeyemi Bamidele, Hon Bamidele Faparusi, Gbenga Aluko, Olufemi Bamishile, Dele Alake are also some names who have reportedly expressed their interest in becoming the governor of the state.
The party in the state is reportedly divided into four parts with some controlled by APC national leader, Bola Tinubu. There is a faction headed by Babafemi Ojudu, under the aegis of The Action Group. Another faction is Ekiti Restoration Group. In the latter group are some members of the seventh National Assembly, who have pledged to mobilise resources to ensure that the party reclaims the state from PDP in 2018 while former governor Niyi Adebayo, Segun Oni and Fayemi are yet in another faction.
All efforts to broker peace among the warring factions had failed, something political analysts in the state say is capable of scuttling the party’s chance of overthrowing the ruling PDP in the state.
A meeting called by the Ekiti Elders Forum in September to resolve the crisis in the state chapter of the party, and reconcile former governors of the state with Bola Tinubu, was a failure.
Otunba Adebayo was said to have angrily denounced Tinubu, insisting that he would neither reconcile with Tinubu nor recognise him as the leader because they were both governors at the same time.
Ex-governors Adebayo, Fayemi and Oni, according to one of the sources at the meeting, came with the constitution of the party and said the party did not recognise Elders Forum, but that they were only at the meeting because of the respect they had for the elders.
A former Speaker of the Ekiti State House of Assembly, Hon Olufemi Bamisile, is another candidate that has expressed his interest in becoming the next governor of the state as early as 2015 when he set up a campaign office next to the secretariat of the PDP. To further underscore his seriousness, he has begun series of empowerment programmes and has also embarked on ward-to-ward visits to party members to sell his agenda to the grassroots.
However, Fayemi and Oni are from the Ekiti North Senatorial District which had produced governors while Bamisile, Faparusi, Aluko are from the Ekiti South Senatorial District which is yet to produce the governor. Orire, Opeyemi Bamidele, and Babafemi Ojudu are from Ekiti Central Senatorial District.
