04/12/2022
GUBER ELECTIONS IN OGUN STATE ARE WON BY COLD CALCULATIONS, STRATEGIC ALLIANCES AND COALITION OF FORCES
By DG Dr Kunle Salako
In Ogun State as in many other climes, not one factor determines election results either at the primary or general election. My retrospective analysis of the outcomes of the 9 gubernatorial elections so far held in Ogun State since 1979 has identified 8 key factors that determined how the election eventually turned out. Though the relative influence of these factors on the eventual outcome varies from one election to the other, they have been found as consistently featuring in the analysis and each candidate that eventually won the election have also been found to have had at least 5 of these factors in his favour. These factors are listed below in no particular order:
1. Strength of the political party as determines by its grassroots pe*******on and leadership cohesion
2. Actual and perceived financial strength of the gubernatorial candidate.
3. The power brokers/godfathers behind the gubernatorial candidate
4. Absence of cohesion in the main opposition or alternate party.
5. High votes by the candidate in his senatorial district
6. Popularity/street credibility of the candidate
7. The political trend in Yorubaland and in Nigeria or bandwagon effect
8. Other factors like public sympathy, past records, past attributes like eloquence, personality etc
Any objective cm scientific discussion of how Ogun West should play politically going forward need to be premised on such analysis and conscious plan to increase the score of gubernatorial contestants in Ogun State in these areas.
Whereas, one may argue theoretically that having 1 candidate, from a senatorial district put the district at an advantage to win a statewide election, practically speaking , that has not been the experience in Ogun State since 1979. In all the 3 instances of 2011, 2015 and 2019 that gubernatorial candidates from Ogun West were frontrunners, it will amount to gross oversimplification and nativity to put our loss at the doorstep of multiple candidates only.
Over the years, it has been clearly demonstrated that sentiments and political bravado will not win a statewide election in Ogun State. Rather it is cold calculation, strategic alliance and coalition of forces within and without that delivers victory.
The 2011 loss is not because AIO and GNI ran against each other, it was more because the "political principalities" could not agree within themselves and decided to fight to finish. In 2015, when GNI lost to Amosun, the factor of the loss was not Senator Odunsi that came into the race who scored less than 5% of total votes cast but because the person seen as the chief promoter of GNI could just not be allowed by the "afobajes" of Ogun State to install a Governor for the State.
In 2019, while the combined votes of AAA and GNI surpasses that of DA by about 90,000, can we really say that all those 90,000 votes would have gone for AAA or GNI if either had withdrawn for the other? It's an hypothetical question that nobody can really give a correct answer to but from what I know about politics and the roles played by personal, caucus cm local interests, I doubt if either would have been able to secure more than 50% of the 90,000.
In 2007, Senator Ibikunle Amosun was the only gubernatorial candidate from Ogun Central that was worth any reckoning, he went on to loose to the incumbent Otunba Gbenga Daniel with almost 300,000 votes. This is despite the fact that Dipo Dina of the AD from the same Senatorial District with Gbenga Daniel garnered close to 70,000 votes.
Going forward, Ogun West need to become more politically discerning and less emotional. We need to be more calculative and tactical. Like our elders will say, gbogbo a*o ko laasa loorun. Let the 2023 apostles do their own while the 2027 also does theirs but let nobody think either is a spoiler. In my assessment, both sides are merely using 2023 as a springboard for 2027.
copied from DG Dr Iziaq Kunle Salako.
