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APC, 2023 Presidential Primary: Kayode Fayemi as the Way Out

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APC, 2023 Presidential Primary: Kayode Fayemi as the Way Out By Alaba Osatuyi

 

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As the 2023 presidential election kicks off with parties now conducting elections to pick standard bearers, one party that has continued to attract intense attention is the governing All Progressives Party (APC). It is normal that the ruling party faces more challenges about how to pick its candidate where the incumbent is not seeking a return ticket having exhausted the constitutional limit.

 

 

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During a transition like this, the intensity of contestation and complexity of intrigues can sometimes get to the breaking point for the ruling party.
One should therefore sympathizes with the APC at this time, even, as it is locked in a flux in the high octane of succession politics. With twenty-three aspirants jolting to win the ticket of the party, there is no doubt that the battle is going to be sulfuric, combustible and explosive.

In spite of the motley of characters pretending to be aspiring, simply because they could pay the one hundred million naira ticket fee, what seems to be too plain to ignore is that fact that the main contenders are about four of the lots. For me, the primary will revolve around Rotimi Amaechi, Kayode Fayemi, Yemi Osinbajo and Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Of these major contenders however, it seems, destiny is waiting for the youngest of them to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari.
Even as the days get closer, what is now apparent to Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his fanatics is that he might not secure the ticket of the party, despite his dominant presence and larger-than-life posture. Nothing buttresses this position than his bare-knuckle but self-inflicting jibes that he threw in Ogun state on June 02, 2022.

Signs indicating all will not be too well with his campaign began to emerge when he ran through many northern states last week and he was told almost the same thing by almost all the governors he met, that, whomever the president supports and directs them to follow, they would follow. This practically devastated Asiwaju, irretrievably.
He had hoped naively that Buhari, who though, had not shown any commitment to him or to anyone, would stay neutral to allow the most “prepared” win. So, he had virtually become a traffic warder on the political streets of the northern states in the last one month. But all the hopes seemed to have collapsed with the choreographed answers he got whenever he went, including from the Borno state governor, whom many had thought was a forgone conclusion.

It was therefore an unexpected anti-climax when the president disclosed in a meeting with the progressive governors on June 1, 2022 that he would want to play a critical role in the selection of his successor. To many political observers, this was a major challenge for Asiwaju. This is because there was no doubt that Asiwaju and the president have not been best of friends since Buhari became president. Indeed, there had been instances when Asiwaju had had to publicly criticize the administration. One would even recall instances Chief Bisi Akande wrote bitter letters that clearly condemned Buhari and even asked him to resign at some point.
But, Asiwaju had another graver problem. He is not in the good books of most of the governors because of the annihilating politics he and Oshiomhole played going into 2019 election as part of his ultimate long-term plan to plant his sympathizers in all the states as governors, ahead of this day.

As a survival strategy, Asiwaju has been courting the national assembly and practically secured an alliance with them. In fact, the electoral law was amended to cure what Asiwaju thought could hinder him going into the election. So, many clauses were deliberately infused into the law to serve the political end of the NASS members and Asiwaju in particular.

Unfortunately, they were caught in their web of political conspiracy with the exclusion of statutory delegates from those eligible to vote at the convention. All their desperate effort to cure this grave self-infliction has been blocked by the president. As it stands now, the major electors at the primary will be national delegates who would have emerged from the political structure of the governors.
Worse still, to leave nothing to chances, the president seems to be interested in a consensus arrangement that will ensure a seamless process of candidate selection for the party.

So, when a frustrated Asiwaju spoke rather boisterously to the embarrassment of reasonable observers, it was obvious that he probably has gone for the broke. Much as his battalion of online supporters have tried to rationalize his intemperate speech, there is no doubt that it has caused an irredeemable damage that has eroded any possible clue for a makeup situation between him and Buhari.

For some unclear reason, the Tinubu supporters have made Osinbajo the focus of their acerbic campaigns and there seems to be the feeling that he is the only “real” challenge to Asiwaju’s passage. His sights generally irritates them and every of his steps is scrutinized bitterly.
Indeed, Osinbajo is a formidable figure in this contest. He has a lovable and easily ingratiating personality. His intelligence, charm and confidence can truly rankle a jealous competitor. Indeed, if the party ticket were to be decided directly by Nigerian generally, Osinbajo will be the undisputed winner of the ticket; however the politics of this particular primary election seems to be out of his pick for some factors beyond his control.

And this is understandable. Anywhere in the world, the primary election of any party is mainly a product of intense political horse-trading among the conclaves of party caucuses. In the Nigeria political environment, the governors of the ruling party are the most potent and dominant caucus. The National Assembly can sometimes provide a strong voice, but during a national election where their own political survival is at the local level, their ability to deploy their number to an advantage is grossly hampered.

In this particular instance, unfortunately, the NASS members have amputated and castrated themselves out of relevance. The Asiwaju factor, which Buhari usually tried hard to propitiate to, is, unfortunately now under a testy situation that only days can tell, if it has not completely lost its potency.

Consequently, those who would eventually decide who will be the party’s standard bearers are not those whose consideration would be the sartorial photogenicity of Professor Osinbajo or the monarchial carriage of Asiwaju, but cold power brokers who would negotiate to ensure their own continued relevance in the scheme of things.
According to analysts the ticket seems to be between Kayode Fayemi and Rotimi Amaechi. But the current political configuration of APC and the need to get the middle position may work for the former. According to some insiders, the two forces at play are the governors who want one of them to succeed the president and the inner circle of the president who seem to prefer Rotimi Amaechi for some obvious reasons.

Luckily for Kayode Fayemi, he also enjoys a good relationship with the so-called inner caucus of the Buhari administration. In fact, the Tinubu forces recognized this since 2016, when Fayemi led the political master stroke that produced Akeredolu in spite of all the machinations of Asiwaju to ensure Akeredolu never won the primary and the governorship election. Thereafter, the Tinubu forces started a barrage of media hostilities against Fayemi whom they first derided as a “traitor”, an “ingrate” and an “Akintola”, among other uncomplimentary expletives used to umbrage him then. All these they now direct at Osinbajo.

Similarly, Kayode Fayemi is a man personally loved by the president for his sound intellect, maturity and ability to build bridges and consensus among diverse interests. The president said this much in a speech he gave when Kayode Fayemi was quitting Buhari’s cabinet to re-contest for the Ekiti State governorship election in 2018.

Since becoming the Chairman of Governors’ Forum, Fayemi has steered the Forum from unhealthy acrimony and controversies that used to be its hallmark to that of potent policy peer-review platform that has worked cooperatively with the federal government on so many socioeconomic programmes. He has worked with uncommon maturity to ensure mutual respect between the federal government and the Forum without any major antagonism as it used to be.

What observers have come to the conclusion about is that Kayode Fayemi is the median candidate for all the converging factors. Being Yoruba will assuage the thirst of the South West and be easy to placate Asiwaju. His age, education, Teflon image and ability to build network will easily sell him across board. Even though there will be an initial shock and pushback, the emergence of Fayemi, will ultimately represent the finest hours of the political shift that the nation has been yearning for a long time.

Even those who have become so fanatical about some of the candidates will be easy to persuade to accept the compromised candidate because of his less problematic nature. It will be a ticket that the youths, the not too old, the old and many other interests can easily connect with.
Except if it is not God’s wish, it seems the Fayemi presidency has become inevitable. This will be Ekiti’s finest hour, even as we wait for the outcome of the APC convention over the next few days.

Alaba Osatuyi
Ado-Ekiti

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Sahara weekly online is published by First Sahara weekly international. contact saharaweekly@yahoo.com

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Presidency officials with ‘satanic’ succession plans behind el-Rufai, Yahaya Bello’s ordeal – APC chief

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48 mins ago

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May 7, 2024

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Presidency officials with ‘satanic’ succession plans behind el-Rufai, Yahaya Bello’s ordeal – APC chief

# Says ‘if they don’t repent, Tinubu’ll attend their funeral’

 

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A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, Jesutega Onokpasa, has revealed that certain appointees of President Bola Tinubu are plotting to succeed him before the end of his tenure and are seriously wishing that the President will not make it to 2027 for their selfish reasons.

Onokpasa, a lawyer and former member of the APC Presidential Campaign Council for Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, who lamented the alleged hypocrisy, pull him down mentality and anti-party activities going on in the governing party, laid curses on those he accused of wishing Tinubu dead, saying, “If they don’t repent, Asiwaju will attend their funeral.”

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He said this in a video, where he was seen addressing party members and drawing their attention to the belief that the ongoing drama around the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission’s allegations against former Governor of Kogi State, Yahaya Bello; and the continued attack on former Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai, were plans mapped out by these individuals to allegedly perfect their plans.

Expressing concern over ill treatments, selective prosecution and hounding meted out on some prominent chieftains of the party since the emergence of Tinubu’s presidency, Onokpasa alleged that the particular appointees he was referring to in Tinubu’s government were behind the ordeals of former Governors Yahaya Bello, Nasir El- Rufai and Abdullahi Ganduje in order to perfect their “satanic” succession plans, while allegedly wishing that the President would no longer be around by 2027.

Referring to a particular appointee of Tinubu whose name was not mentioned, the chieftain said, “You drive Rufai away, you start hounding Ganduje, although there are other things involved, you start attacking Yahaya Bello, what did you do? You don’t have mandate my friend, you are just an appointee… you think we don’t know what is going on?

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“Listen, Asiwaju is a child of God. Asiwaju will rule this country for eight complete years. There is nothing anybody can do about that. He will rule this first four years, he will so perform, Nigerians, again, will vote for him and next time around, we will win a majority of the total votes cast. So, all these your satanic plans, plotting that our President will not make it to 2027, you are wasting your time. Get that through your head.”

The party chieftain, who Nigerians know to be a die-hard supporter of President Tinubu, also angrily bemoaned what he called the attitude of “using and dumping” people who worked for the victory of the President in 2023, while those who were against the President and even insulted him, were being given priorities “over authentic supporters and genuine Batists.”

Onokpasa, who was also a member of the APC Presidential Legal Team and Chairman, Tinubu Media Support Group, said, “Of recent concern to me is the case of my younger brother, His Excellency, the former Governor of Kogi State, Yahaya Bello. In this party, we have had our brother, the former governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El Rufai basically chased out of our party despite what he did for us to make us win. Now, it is Yahaya Bello. A few weeks or months ago, it was our National Chairman, Abdullahi Umar Ganduje that was basically almost being chased from our party.”

Blowing hot against those behind the ugly trend, who he claimed were arrogating powers to themselves at the detriment of Tinubu’s wellbeing, and warning them to desist, Onokpasa stated, “Listen, we cannot tolerate such nonsense in a party. Let everybody in this party come to his senses. We know how we won election. We won election because of the grace of God, because the grace of God is upon our President, Asiwaju. We won election with the lowest margin. This our government has the lowest margin since 1999. We won with less than 40 per cent of the votes. In every other election, someone had won with 50 per cent of the votes.

“Everybody that contributed to our victory is important to me, because me, I am a fanatical Batist. This is the way I see Bola Tinubu’s administration. Bola Tinubu is a child of grace. The way I see it, God wants Bola Tinubu to be our President and we need him to be our President for eight years. What we should all square up to right now is a question of, there is no need to beat about the bush; there are people in our party who don’t believe in our President. For whatever reason they feel, I don’t know where they went to, that’s their headache.”

He cautioned those wishing Tinubu dead, stressing that the president would make it beyond 2027.

“Even after that eight years, he (Tinubu) will become an elder stateman for many years after that and none of you … all of you doing this rubbish, if you don’t repent, Asiwaju will attend all of your funerals. I am the one that is saying it,” he said.

Onokpasa recounted how a young man died in Edo State after wishing the President dead, saying, “I will like to share a story with you. There was this young man in Delta State where I come from. He had the guts to come to me and he said, uncle, this man, Bola Tinubu that you are supporting is going to die before the election and I told him, are you the God that created him? Do you know what happened? May his soul rest in peace, he died before Bola Tinubu won election.”

“There are people in this party who don’t believe in Asiwaju, they never believe that Asiwaju can make it to 2027. Do you know what? All these people, if they don’t repent, Asiwaju will attend all of their funerals. They are mad! They don’t have mandate, it is Asiwaju we voted for, it is Asiwaju that has mandate, it is Asiwaju that is the President. And we need Asiwaju to run complete eight years to finally make this country the pride of the black race,” APC chieftain stated.

On the Bello-EFCC controversy, he said it was for the court to decide, stating, “Nobody is supporting corruption. However, we fight corruption according to law and you will not have a personal indifference with somebody and then you use the instrumentality of office to torment that person. We will not tolerate that in this party. We must not.”

He also lambasted a particular appointee that he portrayed to be high-handed, alleging that the appointee funded an opposition member against the APC candidate, Usman Ododo, during the Kogi State governorship election.

The popular Tinubu loyalist said, “I mean, can you imagine the nonsense. You sponsored somebody who left our party, he used to be a member of our party committee, you claim to be a member of our party, you now sponsor him against our own candidate, Usman Ododo, you give him money, he lost, we defeated him. Sorry! Then, you say his lawyer, my learned friend, Jibril Okutepa, he is the one that you now brief to torment Yahaya Bello?

“I am very proud of Yahaya Bello, Yahaya Bello helped Asiwaju to win election. Anybody who helped Asiwaju to win election is my brother. He is my father’s son that my mother gave birth to. I don’t owe you any apology, who are you? Nonsense! You will turn all of us to cowards?”

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Gas Explosion: Lagos Lawmakers Demand Better Enforcement Of Safety Law

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2 hours ago

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May 7, 2024

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Gas Explosion: Lagos Lawmakers Demand Better Enforcement Of Safety Law

Gas Explosion: Lagos Lawmakers Demand Better Enforcement Of Safety Law

 

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Following a recent gas explosion in the Ajeromi/Ifelodun area of Lagos that resulted in fatalities, the state House of Assembly has called on concerned ministries, departments and agencies of government to step up enforcement of safety laws to protect lives and property.

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The House, at plenary presided over by Rt. Hon. Mudashiru Obasa on Monday, tasked two ministries – Physical Planning and Urban Development as well as Special Duties – to up their responsibilities to ensure that lives are protected against sales of combustible substances in residential areas.

The House frowned against the proliferation of gas shops across the state and asked the Lagos State Safety Agency not to compromise on enforcement of laws regulating the activities of such outlets, a statement by Eromosele Ebhomele, Chief Press Secretary to the Speaker, said.

A recent gas explosion had led to the death of 15 residents with at least 35 others sustaining injuries according to their representative at the Lagos Assembly, Hon. Sabur Oluwa (Ajeromi Ifelodun 2).

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The House urged the government to support the victims in the form of relief materials.

Before the lawmakers observed a minute silence for the victims of the explosion, Speaker Obasa sympathised with the affected constituents and emphasised the need to address the issue.

He acknowledged that gas regulation falls under the ‘exclusive list’, but urged the state to find a way around it to prevent further tragedies.

“Having gas shops and outlets within the community without proper regulations must be looked into. It calls for concern and we must look for a way out,” Dr. Obasa said as he directed the Clerk, Barr. Olalekan Onafeko, to communicate the resolution of the House to the appropriate authorities.

Meanwhile, the Assembly has commended the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) and the Gbagada General Hospital for their swift handling of emergency cases brought to the facilities.

Hon. Desmond Elliot (Surulere 1) said he witnessed how medical personnel at the two hospitals battled to save the lives of fire accident victims recently.

“Our health sector should be commended,” he said while acknowledging the collaboration between arms of government resulting in elevated healthcare standards in the state.

“The commitment and dedication I witnessed in the handling of fire victims at LASUTH and the Gbagada General Hospital are encouraging, reflecting a system where all hands were indeed on deck.

“When I got to the wards, I met over nine doctors and nurses attending to the victims at the LASUTH. I saw the same thing at the Gbagada General hospital,” he said.

Speaker Obasa, who emphasised the role of the legislative body in recognising and supporting such commendable endeavours, added: “This is exactly what the House is expected to do at all times.

“We will always commend the MDAs for a job well-done, and anywhere they falter, we will always point such out.”

He, thereafter, directed the Clerk to forward letters of commendation to the management of LASUTH, Gbagada General Hospital and the Commissioner of Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi.

 

Gas Explosion: Lagos Lawmakers Demand Better Enforcement Of Safety Law

Eromosele Ebhomele
Chief Press Secretary to the Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly.

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Governor Fubara Cries Out

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1 day ago

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May 6, 2024

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Governor Fubara Cries Out

 

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Rivers State governor, Siminalayi Fubara, has alleged that there are fresh plans to cripple his government.

 

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Fubara disclosed this during a meeting with members of the House of Representatives Committee on Public Petitions at the government house, Port-Harcourt.

 

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The governor noted that leadership and respect is not earned by force.

 

He maintained it is the character and style of a leader that will encourage and engender the love and respect of the majority of the people.

 

 

Fubara noted that governance is solely about the interest of the people and leaving behind, good legacies; warning that power, no matter how long it is wielded will sure come to an end one day.

 

 

The federal lawmakers who were in the state to carry out an assignment thought it wise to visit the Governor and give him a few words of encouragement before they leave town.

Governor Fubara told them that as far as he was concerned there is no political crisis in the state.

Fibara declared that he will never buckle under any pressure especially the deliberate attempts being made to cripple his government.

Leadership, according to him, is about the touching the lives of the people positively.

“He added that the love and respect of the people can never be earned by force or intimidation.

Governor Fubara maintained that he would continue to empower the people and focus on building good legacies in the state.

Governor Fubara also used the opportunity to call on the National Assembly to defend what is right and speak out when things go wrong.

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