There are clear indications that the Special Assistant to the President on Political Matters, Senator Babafemi Ojudu, may emerge top in the All Progressives Congress, APC, governorship primary election scheduled for tomorrow, Saturday 5 May 2018 in Ado Ekiti, the state capital.
Findings show that the journalist cum pro-democracy activist-turned-politician is well ahead of other aspirants in popularity among the delegates that are to decide who clinch the APC ticket for the governorship election slated for July 14, 2018.
Ojudu who started his ambition with a peace move among fractured party members in the state in April 2017, has earned popularity for himself as a loyal party man with genuine intent to liberate the people from present economic downturn traceable to governmental ineptitudes of the past.
Impeccable sources among the delegates to elect party candidate for the July election tomorrow disclosed that many minds have been made up to ensure Ojudu gets the ticket to put stability in the party and to ensure power do not slip from the party in the state again.
In Ado Ekiti, hometown of Ojudu, where the bulk of the votes would come, sources said the delegates have resolved to vote en-mass for their bold and brilliant son, in order to break the jinx of leadership exclusion that has trailed the capital city since the return to democracy.
The delegates are more concerned that out of the three major contenders in the race for the Oke Ayaba government office; only Ojudu has a clear record of seeing the party to the desired stardom and liberate the people from the current economic mess and political strangulations by the incumbent government.
Senator Babafemi Ojudu along with the Chief Segun Oni and Dr. Kayode Fayemi are the three major contenders for the Ekiti State number one post, with other 30 aspirants in their trail.
The snag with the chances of duo of Oni and Fayemi is said to be fundamental as they were scored them low in popularity by the teeming delegates, coupled with the fact that both have only a four-year single term to go before throwing the party into another serious electoral chaos.
Fayemi, findings revealed is the least desired the aspirants for want of leadership qualities that can restore power to the party and ensure unity among all party faithful.
Between 2000 and 2014, Fayemi’s administration was said to have been fraught with highhandedness, corruption and sundry governmental ineptitudes, which warranted his ouster in 2014 by the incumbent opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, led by Governor Ayodele Fayose
However, Fayose’s ignoble reign since then has inflicted so much poverty on the people resulting from leadership crudities, nonchalance and a display of high level ignorance that has plunged the state into untold hardship.
Oni on the other hand is widely seen as a usurper of PDP blood, merely fraternising with the APC with the aim of revenging what he saw as his betrayal by the incumbent governor Fayose. His closeness with former president Olusegun Obasanjo is also seen as an albatross.
It will be recalled that Fayose pitched his tent with Fayemi against Oni in the legal tussle that trailed the rigging of an election that brought the present APC to over three years legal tussle between 2007 and 2010. Oni was finally found guilty of electoral misdemeanours and power was given back to Fayemi.
Oni, with his loyalty to former president Olusegun Obasanjo, is believed to have one of his legs in the Social Democratic Party, SDP, where his godfather holds sway.
Many loyalists of Oni, we learnt, are already holding crucial positions in the Ekiti SDP, and are believed to be holding forth for Oni who cross-over is much anticipated than his winning the APC Saturday ticket.
Ojudu, the lead aspirant, has been involved in developmental projects in the state since its creation in 1996. He veered into elective politics when he contested alongside incumbent governor Fayose and thrashed the latter to a distant third, with a wide margin.