It is no longer news that former Osun State deputy governor, Senator Iyiola Omisore, is interested in contesting next year’s gubernatorial election in the state. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chieftain leaves no one in doubt that he sees his age-long desire to govern the state as a dream that must come to reality.
But in spite of his very rich political credentials, the senator’s journey towards the Osun State government house will definitely not be an easy one. The Ife-born politician has a lot of hurdles to cross if he must unseat Governor Rauf Aregbesola during the forthcoming poll.
Aside from the internal wrangling within the state chapter of his party, the PDP, many observers of the politics of the state are of the opinion that Aregbesola’s current popularity, if carried all the way to the election, is capable of making Omisore’s quest a difficult one.
Omisore, who observers say is looking good to clinch the gubernatorial ticket of the PDP for the 2014 race, was deputy governor of the state from 1999 to 2003, after which he was elected to represent the people of Osun-east in the Senate. He was re-elected in 2007.
As the deputy governor during the Bisi Akande regime, he was credited with bringing some innovations into governance and party politics. Specifically, he was widely regarded as one of the leading financiers and grassroots mobilisers within the ruling Alliance for Democracy (AD) at that time.
At the national assembly where he headed different committees, including Police Affairs, Housing, Culture & Tourism, Aviation and Appropriation, Omisore pulled his weight and also remembered to give back to his constituency through a number of programmes he instituted.
But after taking a look at the Senator’s credentials, Micheal Odesanya, a Senior Special Adviser to the governor of the state, though admitted Omisore’s prowess as a politician, advised him to forget his dream of becoming governor in 2014.
“Omisore is not a politician to ignore. We are conscious of that. That is why I keep saying Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) is very lucky to have someone like Aregbesola in charge today. Osun State is very lucky that Ogbeni Rauf is the governor here today. If you now consider the person of Aregbesola vis-à-vis his performance since assuming office, you will agree with me that Omisore will have to forget about becoming governor in 2014. This is a very wrong time for him to enter into the race.
“Give it to him, Omisore is a good politician who knows what to tell the people while begging for their votes but the people of Osun are wiser now. Aregbesola has shown them that the last eight years of the PDP in government is a big waste. Omisore represent the PDP here in Osun. He will be campaigning on the platform of the PDP.
“You saw what Osun people did to him during the last senatorial election in Osun East. That is to tell you what to expect if he comes out against Aregbesola in 2014. It will not just be about who can play politics the best, it will be about who has impacted on the people the more. And I don’t think I need to tell anybody that Aregbesola is a better choice anyday than Omisore,” Odesanya said.
There are also indications that Omisore may not find clinching the gubernatorial ticket of the PDP easy after all. According to sources within the party, as part of ongoing reconciliation efforts within the party in the southwest, the party in Osun State may decide to dump its two major contenders for the governorship ticket.
If this happens, Senator Omisore and another major contender for the party’s ticket, Alhaji Fatai Akinbade, may have their governorship ambitions scuttled unless they opt out of the PDP in preference for other parties.
The two politicians, it would be recalled, polarised the party into two major factions preparatory to the 2011 elections before the court truncated the Oyinlola administration and pronounced Mr. Rauf Aregbesola as the authentic winner of the 2007 governorship election in the state.
As a way of preventing a re-ccurrence of the ugly rivalry between the duo and deciding who will fly the party’s flag in 2014, the party was considering appealing to the two contenders to drop their ambition.
“The party has agreed to dump the two politicians to enable peace reign in the party and allow for internal reintegration of party members. The party cannot afford another divided house at the polls again,” a chieftain of the party, who would not want to be mentioned, told The Nation.
Asides the burden of having to run against a popular incumbent governor as Odesanya submitted, political analysts say Omisore, if he succeeds in picking the ticket of his party, will also be confronted by the ghosts of some numerous political battles of the past within and outside the state.
While many amongst the electorate may want to know why he fell out with the progressives in the then AD and decamped to the conservative PDP, others may remind him of events before and after the killing of Chief Bola Ige, former Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, who was shot dead on December 23, 2001 at his home in Ibadan.
It would be recalled that Omisore was accused of complicity in Ige’s death. He was subsequently arrested and detained. But he got off the hook in the end and got elected into the senate. Ige’s killers are yet to be found, 12 years after, and not a few people will remember that when Omisore files out to be considered for election as governor in 2014.
Another hurdle for Omisore is the widespread allegation that he was once found guilty of official misconduct while he was deputy governor. Pundits are of the opinion that unless he is able to proffer a tenable explanation on the issue, it is capable of robbing him of votes, especially among the voting elites.
The allegation became rife following the 2007 election, when the candidate of the then Action Congress (AC), now senator Babajide Omoworare, appealed result of the election on the grounds that Omisore was not qualified to contest the election since he was found guilty of official misconduct as deputy governor.
Although both the election tribunal and the Appeal Court upheld Omisore’s election, ruling that he was qualified to contest the election, the allegation refused to go away. It is not unlikely that it will once again rear its head to torment the Senator in 2014.
Perhaps conscious of the uphill task ahead of him, Omisore has begun to traverse the nooks and crannies of the state, preparatory to the election. In recent weeks, his political machinery has visited scores of towns and villages to remind the people of his ambition.
He has also upped his philanthropic activities as part of the strategy to push through his dream. Communities, individuals and organisations within the state are once again hearing from the Senator.
In addition, he has stepped up his criticism of Governor Aregbesola and the ruling ACN. With a promise that he can do better if elected governor in 2014, he wants the people of the state to vote Aregbesola out.
But Aregbesola’s men have been responding to Omisore’s criticism as mere political statements aimed at misleading the people of the state. According to chieftains of the ACN, the senator will find it difficult deceiving the people this time around.
“How on earth could any sensible person have said that Aregbesola is not performing even as the giant strides he has recorded within a period of two years have earned him accolade both at home and beyond?
“Across the length and breadth of the country today, Aregbesola is being applauded for his stellar performance in the state of Osun, a state that had its development stifled by the seven and a half years of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)’s misrule.
It may be tantamount to unnecessary repetition to start chronicling here again the list of havocs wrecked on the state by Omisore’s party even as he also proved to be a bad representative of the people while in the senate.
“The years that Omisore’s party, the PDP, ruled the state have entered the lexicon of political analysts as the ‘years of the locusts’. It is on record that the ebullient and visionary governor of the state of Osun, Ogbeni Aregbesola, inherited a backward and insolvent state from the PDP. This is a fact that is not disputable.
“But today, he has been able to turn around the life of the state through creativity and prudent management of the state’s meagre resources,” Dr. Bernard Awoleye, a chieftain of the ACN, said.
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