Ondo 2024: Desperation and Propaganda of Endorsement
As the APC inches towards the party primary in April, aspirants in the party have left no stone unturned to woo members and secure their support for votes.
The incumbent governor, Hon. Lucky Orimisan Aiyedatiwa, has continued to behave in ways that confirm the allegation of his desperation to profit from the sickness and eventual death of the former governor, Arakunrin Akeredolu. We all remember his vicious statement: “no one wants to be governor for one year”.
Since he became a circumstantial governor, Aiyedatiwa has been in the news for negative reasons, one way or another. From the allegation of fake WAEC certificate, to the battering of his wife, as well as the unresolved reasons for which he was to be impeached.
Curiously, and in a most uncharitable manner, the Speaker of the House of Assembly, Olamide Oladiji, who was at the forefront of seeking accountability from the then embattled Aiyedatiwa, as Deputy Governor, has since unashamedly dispatched an endorsement for Aiyedatiwa, for which some members of the House are calling for his head.
In the trajectory of Aiyedatiwa’s desperation to be governor, he has been accused of enlisting the support of individuals who are considered to be detractors of late Akeredolu. This is not to mention the courting of former close allies of Akeredolu, that are simply modelled on the nuances of betrayals.
Aiyedatiwa’s camp is also deploying the strategy of verbal and physical violence, with the notoriety of a virulent critic of Arabinrin Akeredolu recruited recently to sustain the vulgarism to be unfolded very soon. This is not to mention the verbal attack on some APC aspirants in a video, having the daughter of Tinubu, Iyaloja General Ojo, where Aiyedatiwa smiles sheepishly in complicity.
The red-capped supporters of Aiyedatiwa have been accused of introducing cultic ideological preponderance that is akin to forceful agents of coercion. In an attempt to give the impression of acceptability to outsiders, particularly party leaders in Abuja, Aiyedatiwa has procured many endorsements, with such getting diminished as soon as purchased. Two example are the refutation of the celebrated endorsements in Owo/Ose, and that of select APC elders for which Prof. Borrofice and Ambassador Iji that were part of the group that purportedly endorsed Aiyedatiwa have also told the whole world that they would only support the best candidate in the APC.
Amidst these many concerns is the allegation that Aiyedatiwa is romancing former governor Mimiko, to be able to defect to the PDP, if the APC denies him the guber ticket. It is no longer absolutely true that Aiyedatiwa does not have political structure, as he has built an unreliable followership through the use of appointments as a bait. He has succeeded, very largely, as gullible people are salivating on sighting appointments as Caretaker boss of local government and LCDAS, and commissioners. Poverty and greed have a way of blinding a brilliant mind.
In a note depicting vitiated confidence and threatened relevance, Aiyedatiwa’s group has resorted to threat, blackmail and propaganda to deceive the good people of Ondo State, and armtwist President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and APC leaders in the national. An instance of this was the article written by Aiyedatiwa’s online media aide, Abire, in which he overtly but metaphorically warned APC leaders of the Edo-like negative consequences of not picking Aiyedatiwa as APC candidate for the coming Ondo guber election. The question is: what will Aiyedatiwa and his over-rated supporters do if he loses the APC ticket? The answer is absolute nothing, as they do not matter in Ondo State politics, apart from the inherited office of the Governor.
True to prediction, Aiyedatiwa’s hired e-rats have just fired another propaganda, in an attempt to profit from the announced visit of their principal to President Tinubu, to the effect that Tinubu and APC national leaders are set to announce their endorsement of Aiyedatiwa.
What are these respected leaders going to endorse?: treachery, wife battering, controversial certificate, incompetence, structurelessness, desecration of the memory of Akeredolu, etc. We wish Aiyedatiwa and his handlers would desist from deceiving the good people of Ondo State, particularly APC members that will be choosing the candidate for the party, as truth has a way of demolishing lie, without using a bulldozer.
No doubt, the coming days will witness more propaganda, but the desirable candidate of the APC, and acceptable would-be governor of Ondo State, will be unveiled very soon.
However, as the waiting continues, and the clock ticks towards the date for the primary election of the APC, we must be wary of the desperation and propaganda of Aiyedatiwa and his cohorts, who are presently lavishly feeding on our commonwealth
