The lingering feud between Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State and ex-governor Ayo Fayose of Ekiti State after the South-West Peoples Democratic Party congress could affect the party’s chances in the 2023 general elections.
The congress of the PDP in the South-West, held on Monday in Osogbo, the Osun State capital, passed but its outcome has worsened the bitter rivalry between Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State and a former governor Ekiti State, Ayo Fayose.
The party in the zone has been enmeshed in leadership crisis that predated the congress.
Fayose was on the side of Makinde during the 2019 electioneering. However, the situation has since changed. Since 2020, the two political associates have become rivals over the control of the party in the zone.
The leadership and the control of the party in the South-West is said to be the cause of their acrimony.
According to stakeholders, it has been politics of survival and assertion between the former Ekiti governor and the incumbent in Oyo State over the past one year.
Makinde, being the only PDP governor in the South-West, is assumed to be the leader of the party in the region.
However, Fayose who reportedly enjoyed same privilege when he was the only PDP governor in the South-West until he left office in 2018, believed Makinde should not claim to be his leader.
There were no specific roles said to have been played in resolving the crisis between the two former friends.
However, there were insinuations that the National Chairman of the PDP, Prince Uche Secondus, and Makinde are no longer close after the 2019 election because of some issues.
Some party members were of the view that the national chairman did not intervene while the crisis raged because he was allegedly satisfied with how Fayose and his (Fayose’s) loyalists were treating the governor.
A former Minister of Power and Steel, Dr Wole Oyelese once accused Secondus of fueling the crisis between Makinde and Fayose.
He had said that Secondus who ought to have intervened to prevent the crisis from degenerating, allowed it to fester until the party was polarised along loyalists of the two PDP leaders.
Oyelese had said, “With the current position of things, there is hardly any state that the PDP can be sure of winning in the South West in upcoming elections. Political neophytes and dreamers may think and say otherwise, but the reality is stark enough to the discerning ones.
“It is therefore time for Secondus to change his style and realize that posterity will not be kind to him should the PDP be allowed to disintegrate in the South-West.
READ ALSO: Five feared killed as cult groups clash in Ekiti
“The current “rofo-rofo” fight between Fayose and Makinde is needless and not in the best interest of the party in the South-West and should be resolved by the chairman without further delay. It has certainly become a disgrace that must be stopped.
“The call now is for Secondus to wake up and restore sanity to the party by being the father of all instead of the role of a sectional and factional leader which he currently seems to be playing,”
Former Governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola also visited Fayose but he could not reconcile the duo. Similarly, the Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, was in Ibadan to reconcile the two warring sides but Fayose and his loyalists stayed away from the meeting.
They said they could not sit with Makinde especially at the Government House, Ibadan to discuss any matter.
The feud became fiercer shortly before the congress which was moved from Ibadan to Osogbo. Makinde had issued a veiled threat to the National Working Committee of the PDP led by Secondus that the date and venue of the congress should not be changed.
The governor later succumbed to pressure as the party changed the date and the venue but the congress was seen as a contest that would determine who among the two leaders in the region is really in charge.
However, Fayose doused the tension when he entered the hall where the delegates and party officials were while the process was about to start.
READ ALSO: ‘I was a radical Muslim as a youth’ – Buhari’s Minister, Pantami renounces controversial comments
He went to where Makinde sat and the two engaged in a warm embrace exchanged pleasantly.
Fayose, while addressing the delegates admitted that Makinde was his political leader in the region and he promise to accept whatever the outcome of the election would be.
Makinde also said the contest was between members of the same family and whoever won would be immaterial because the ultimate goals of the party is to defeat the All Progressives Congress.
The result of the congress which produced Ambassador Taofeek Arapaja, who is a former deputy governor of Oyo State as winner, came as a surprise to many.
Arapaja, who is the candidate of Makinde scored 343 votes to defeat Dr Eddy Olafeso who polled 330 votes.
Olafeso, who enjoyed the support of Fayose conceded defeat right there and both Makinde and Fayose congratulated the winner and promised to reposition the party and return it to winning way.
Makinde, who took to his Twitter handle said, “Congratulations to Ambassador Taofeek Arapaja and other officials duly elected today. Our task of repositioning the @OfficialPDPNig begins now. I thank every participant as well as the organising committee of the PDP South West Congress for a peaceful and orderly congress.”
Fayose being a seasoned politician had probably sensed that the contest would not be in the favour of his candidate and shortly before the end of voting, he left the venue while delegates from Oyo State were still voting.
Although he promptly congratulated the winner but he raised the issue of alleged over-voting but he did not expatiate on it further.
Fayose had said, “Arapaja’s 343 and Olafeso’s 330 votes, has simply shown strength on the two sides, this should be explored by the party, going forward. I thank the National Working Committee for helping to bring this congress behind us.
“Whatever may be our reservations on the issue of over-voting, we have chosen to look at the larger picture, which is the PDP. We must therefore use our energy and resources to rebuild the party.
“I congratulate Ambassador Taofeek Arapaja on his emergence as the South-West Zonal Chairman of our party, the PDP. Like I said in my speech at the beginning of the congress that we should win together and we have indeed won together.”
Despite the assurances from the two PDP leaders that they would work together to reposition the party and move on from there, keen watchers of the political development in the South West are of the opinion that the crisis, having been allowed to linger for so long had generated bad blood among the supporters.
They said the crisis might have negative effects on the chances of the party in the governorship elections coming up in Ekiti and Osun states in 2022 and the general election in 2023.
Meanwhile, the deep rooted animosity still came to the fore despite the assurances by Fayose as he alleged that some dead persons and invalid were accredited to vote.
The former governor had said he had accepted the result of the congress not because the other side won but because he could not defect to another party.
He had said a former majority leader at the House of Representatives, Mulikhat Adeola-Akande identified some of the dead people on the list.
He had also said that a transport union leader threatened to kill him if he attended the congress. He said he decided to attend the election because of the threats, saying he didn’t care if he was killed there.
A prominent chieftain of the PDP in Ibadan, Alhaji Adebisi Olopoeyan, who is in the camp of Fayose told our correspondent that the congress was rigged in favour of Arapaja.
He alleged that there was over-voting by eight votes and that the votes of some delegates from Oyo State who cast their ballots for Olafeso were collected and voided just to ensure that Arapaja was declared the winner.
According to his own calculation, Olafeso scored 340 votes while Arapaja polled 335. He, however claimed that the exercise was manipulated to save Makinde from ridicule.
He also alleged that delegates from Ondo State were ‘bought’ just to deny Olafeso home support.
Olopoeyan said, “What Fayose said at the congress venue was a political statement. He said that to douse the tension and that was what calmed down many people. They brought about 2000 hoodlums to Osogbo for an election between members of the same party, what would they have done if it were to be a governorship election? What the governor’s supporters did is a shame to the party.
“The hoodlums including a leader of the drivers union threatened Fayose in that video, they also threatened me. They came for the two of us, Fayose and I, So, how can I work with the governor when all these attacks were targeted at me? I can’t. it’s over.
“They spent over N1bn on this election to save the man from shame because we would have defeated them hands down but despite the huge fund wasted on the congress to buy delegates, they still did not win and they had to resort to manipulation and deliberate voiding of votes for Olafeso.”
The Chief Press Secretary to Oyo State Governor, Mr Taiwo Adisa, was contacted but had yet to react to the allegations against his as the time of filing this report.
But a former minister Oyelese, who is also from Oyo State just like Makinde, however expressed excitement about how the election ended. He lauded Makinde and Fayose for their maturity, while hailing Arapaja on his victory at the poll.
He also observed that the bad blood generated might be far from being over; saying the reconciliation of the followers of the two leaders must be urgently done so that it would not have a negative impact on the party in the future polls.
A former Minister of Transport, Ebenezer Babatope, said in an interview with our correspondent that he was confident that the PDP would remove every obstacle on its way.
Babatope said, “ The party is supreme to any person. Nobody can say the party will lose because of him. It is not the issue of Makinde or Fayose. The party will remove every obstacle on its path and this will lead to victory.”
The Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Diran Odeyemi, told our correspondent that zonal executives were not very powerful in the PDP but said only the chairman at the zone is allowed by the constitution of the party to be part of National Working Committee.
Speaking on the effects of the acrimony between Makinde and Fayose and how it has polarised the party in every state in the region, Odeyemi said there was no cause for concern.
He said, “Every election comes with its own peculiarities. The peculiarity of this congress is that Makinde and Fayose are supporting different candidates, if tomorrow there is a presidential aspirant or candidate that Seyi Makinde likes and Fayose likes the same person, they will work together.
The Senator who represented Ekiti North in the 8th National Assembly, Senator Duro Faseyi, commended the Bukola Saraki-led PDP Reconciliation Committee for reconciling Makinde and Fayose before the Congress.
He said, as we move forward, I am hopeful that they will continue to work to ensure that our party emerges stronger across board.”
However, it appears the feud is far from over as Fayose and Olafeso have made comments which Makinde makes to believe the feud is far from over.
Both Fayose and Olafeso have condemned the poll.
Olafeso had earlier congratulated the winner immediately after the result was declared but he later said the exercise was rigged in favour of Arapaja, thereby condemning the congress.
But the governor while reacting to the allegations and the volte-face made by Fayose and Olafeso said their comment came as a surprise.
Speaking in a statement by his Chief Press Secretray, Taiwo Adisa, Makinde said Fayose’s claim that he is deadly despite his gentle mien is wicked and malicious.
The statement read in part, “While we would not like to take issues with Mr. Fayose and those who contested against Ambassador Arapaja, over the outcome of the congress, we would like to caution that no one should attempt to impugn the personality of Governor Makinde, a peace-loving individual, who has never got anything by violence. The peaceful conduct of his campaign while running for office as governor of Oyo State is an attestation to this fact.
“Therefore, going on air to say that Governor Makinde is “quiet but deadly” is not only unstatesman like, it is also unguarded, malicious and wicked.
“We make bold to say that while those who lost the election at the congress are allowed to rue their loss despite the assurance by Governor Makinde that there will be no winner or loser, it is expedient that they guard their utterances and avoid any descent into the gutter.”
Stakeholders believe the two factions may continue to battle each in coming days even though the election is over.
