‘What Happened In Edo Will Be Replicated In Ondo’-Makinde’s PDP Ready To Take Over S/West From Tinubu

Saturday’s victory of the Peoples Democratic Party in the Edo governorship election has given hope to leaders of the party that the take- over of South West may be imminent.

The Alliance for Democracy used to be the dominant political party in the South-West when Nigeria returned to democracy on May 29, 1999.

Although Olusegun Obasanjo, who hails from the South-West, won the presidential election on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, the AD thrived in the South-West which is widely regarded as the base of progressive politics in the country.

Obasanjo had appointed one of the arrowheads of the progressives in the South-West, late Chief Bola Ige, to head the Ministry of Power, a move seen as a ploy by Obasanjo to win at his political base when he contested for second term.

The AD entered into an alliance with the PDP to vote Obasanjo in the presidential election and to vote AD in the governorship poll.

But the arrangement did not work out well for the AD governors in the region as they all lost to PDP except Bola Ahmed Tinubu who managed to retain Lagos.

Obasanjo won re-election but the AD was relegated to play second fiddle from that time.

Tinubu became the rallying point for the progressives in their bid to reclaim the South-West.

Although there was no time the PDP won all the six states, the All Progressives Congress which the progressives eventually metamorphosed into reclaimed the South-West when the PDP was dislodged at the federal level.

Ayo Fayose and Dr Olusegun Mimiko who were PDP governors at the time still had their mandates running.

Fayose failed in his efforts to retain Ekiti State for the PDP as Dr Kayode Fayemi defeated Fayose’s deputy, Prof Kolapo Olusola and Mimiko also failed to retain the PDP in power in neighbouring Ondo State when Rotimi Akeredolu defeated Eyitayo Jegede of PDP and the PDP lost all the states.

However, the alliance between Seyi Makinde of the PDP and the agrieved members of APC and other parties in the countdown to the 2019 governorship election paid off.

Makinde was elected governor of Oyo State and his election gave fresh energy to the PDP in the South West.

Now Makinde is seeking to turn the tables against Bola Tinubu’s APC in the zone.

As the only PDP governor in the region, he is the leader of the party in the South-West.

At the inauguration of the campaign of the governorship candidate of the PDP in Ondo State, Eyitayo Jegede, Makinde said the PDP was set to take back the control of the states in the region from the APC.

Makinde also urged the people of Ondo State to remove the yoke of slavery put on their necks by the APC government. He said Independence from servitude would come for the people in the state on October 10, which he described as a unique date.

Makinde said, “In 2019 in Oyo State, the PDP was not anywhere. The party was not at the federal level, not at the state level and not at the local government but we have God and the people, so, we won them hands down. If it happened in Oyo State it will happen here.

“This election is your Independence. You will deliver a good result. It’s either you want to continue in servitude or freedom.

” We want freedom in the South- West . It started in Oyo State and it will continue in Ondo State. It is time to let the sun shine again.”

Makinde, who was in Edo State where the PDP defeated the APC led by former National Chairman of the APC, Adams Oshiomhole, despite the support given to its candidate , Osagie Ize-Iyamu, by Tinubu.

The Oyo State governor, who is the Chairman, National Campaign Council of the PDP for Ondo State governorship election, while returning to his state from Edo joined Jegede, the PDP candidate in Ogbese, Ondo State to canvass for votes for the candidate.

The Lagos State PDP has also said the party’s victory in Edo State would spur it to win the state in 2023.

The PDP in Lagos State said this through its spokesperson, Gani Taofeek, who expressed optimism that the party would also ensure it emerged victorious in the Lagos State governorship election in 2023.

“To us in PDP Lagos State, we have grasped from the well deserved victory, the renewed commitment and resoluteness. Our effort is to also win Lagos State to end godfatherism and imposition in Lagos politics.

“As a matter of fact, we are now more than ever before, fired up to win Lagos State,” he said.

Gani noted that the party would manifest the ability in the coming by-elections in the state and eventually the 2023 general elections.

However, a former Vice Chairman of the Senate Committee on National Intelligence, Senator Boluwaji Kunlere, said it was too early to predict if the PDP would reclaim the region from the APC.

The Secretary of the PDP in Osun State, Mr Bola Ajao, expressed optimism that the PDP would win back the states from the APC.

Ajao, who said this in an interview with our correspondent, said that the alleged non-performance of the APC government at the centre and states would turn the electorate against the party.

Ajao said,” PDP was in control of five states in the South-West between 2003 and 2007 so we can do it again. We can return the states back to the PDP. Their misgovernance will even make it easy for our party to achieve.

” Except they rig, I don’t think there is any state where they can win any credible election in the whole of the country. If elections are credible , APC will hardly win two states in the entire country. There is too much hardship, insecurity and all manner of corruption in the land. The APC promised heaven and earth but they never delivered on any. Is that the type of party you think will win elections again? “

A former Publicity Secretary of the PDP in the South-West, Ayo Fadaka, said the PDP would win every state in the South-West if the elections are free, fair and credible.

Fadaka said, ” What Governor Seyi Makinde said is very possible. You can see what happened in Edo State, the same will be replicated in Ondo and the entire South-West.

‘The APC should be preparing their handover notes because the people of the South-West will send them back to the opposition politics which they are good at playing.”