Ekiti: The Untold Story
Why Re-run Creates Tension In The Country
The Yar'Adua, Obasanjo, Tinubu, Agagu, Kalu Connection
The 2011 Election As The Hidden Agenda
From Martins Oloja (Abuja Bureau Chief)
THERE are indications that national and provincial political issues have been shaping the noisy and stalemated re-run of governorship election in only 63 wards in 10 local government councils in Ekiti State.
Specifically, one of the issues that have reverberated in Ekiti and indeed the Southwest revolves around alleged politics in Abuja's seat of power, notably inside the President's office.
The other is the power struggle for the soul of the Southwest between two groups of political actors - former President Olusegun Obasanjo and former Governor of Ondo State, Dr. Olusegun Agagu on the one hand and former Governor of Lagos State, Chief Ahmed Bola Tinubu on the other hand.
Besides, former Governor of Abia State, Chief Orji Uzor Kalu, has been tangentially linked to the issues in a unique way that will raise the bar of politics of North-South dichotomy in 2011.
The Guardian gathered that the stake in Ekiti became higher two months ago after the Court of Appeal sitting in Benin removed Dr. Agagu from office.
And back home, the former governor began to talk to many PDP stalwarts in the area about some of his experiences and warnings he did not take seriously more than a year ago when the election litigation began against his tenure.
From there on, close political associates and some commissioners that served in his administration were reportedly never guarded in telling top political leaders from the area what Agagu confided in them during and after the Benin verdict.
They alleged that Agagu "was warned over a year ago by some top intelligence and security operatives to beware of Abuja big politicians that were then planning to heighten tension in the area.
The aim of the plotters, according to the Agagu aides, was to assist some opposition forces to prosecute all the PDP governors in the Southwest."
This "was to allow the opposition to deplete the influence of the ruling PDP in the Southwest," which the then Governor Agagu had helped to consolidate in the area.
Dr. Agagu, as the Power and Steel Minister and a governorship aspirant, had written a blueprint that assisted the political Southwest to swing the PDP way through the 2003 elections that got Chief Obasanjo a controversial second term as president.
The crux of the Agagu story that had been spread far and wide within the Southwest is that there was more to the politics that dethroned him from the seat of power in Akure than a successful election petition.
In this regard, he and his associates are said to have drummed it to the remaining Southwest PDP governors in Oyo, Osun and Ekiti that "they need to guard their mandate with fear and trembling" as a complex web of politics around 2011 general elections might consume them.
It was learnt that the hint Agagu had ignored was bolstered by a confirmation from former President Obasanjo, who reportedly consoled him with a story of how a combination of conspiracies from Lagos and Abuja had worked against him (Agagu) in order to spite him (Obasanjo) in the new politics within the PDP ahead of the 2011 polls.
One respondent in the Obasanjo camp summed up the scenario at the weekend, quoting the former President.
"Chief Obasanjo revealed to his associates including Dr. Agagu that the mission and indeed the specific objective was "to weaken his political base of (Southwest) in order to reduce my influence within the PDP over who carries the flag in 2011 as they feel my support is critical."
"But now they feel is it expedient to destroy PDP by removing part of my brain-box including Agagu and his colleagues in the Southwest zone, where they have found an ally in a former governor in the Southwest, who has a big war chest to assist in demolishing Obasanjo's Southwest in order to become a Yoruba leader at all cost."
In other words, the Obasanjo henchmen are fully persuaded that Tinubu has been working in concert with Abuja to decimate the political clout of Obasanjo in Southwest.
In the same vein, Obasanjo reportedly consoled Chief Onyema Ugochukwu, long before the Court of Appeal judgment that he (Onyema) would not get Abia as "Abuja has included the Southeast as a political bargaining chip with Orji Uzor Kalu."
Obasanjo's men had alleged Kalu was recruited by Abuja to deal with former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, who was said to be plotting his way back to the PDP where he had hoped to contest the 2011 presidential election.
According to the intelligence Obasanjo reportedly shared with his men, Kalu's "curiously poisonous criticism of Atiku" was part of the new deal with Abuja to allow him (Kalu) to have his way in Abia, Imo and even Anambra State where a governorship election will take place this year.
Kalu's Peoples Progressive Alliance (PPA), that had been allegedly assisted in Abia and Imo, will be further assisted to take over Anambra State "where a spirit of political crisis is a permanent resident."
Obasanjo's men also allegedly fingered a former leader of PDP in the Southwest (who was very close to the former President) as part of the willing tools being used to deal with Obasanjo.
The Obasanjo camp equally is never tired of harping on the conspiracy theory that "it is the politics of taking over the Southwest at all cost that is largely responsible for the lingering political crisis in Osun state, too."
The governorship election petition in Osun State has been returned to square one, the Court of Appeal sitting in Ibadan having directed the Election Petitions Tribunal in Osogbo to retry the petition filed by the governorship candidate of the Action Congress (AC), Rauf Aregbesola.
Tinubu is assumed to be the de facto leader of the AC in the country, somewhat overshadowing former Vice President Abubakar, who ran on the platform of the party in the April 2007 presidential contest.
However, the Obasanjo group is concerned by the negative effect of the "solid media empires" of the former Southwest and Southeast governors that are allegedly involved in the political conspiracy against Obasanjo and Atiku.
A worried member of the camp said recently at a caucus meeting: "The two former governors began building their media empires when they were in office. And now in the current debate and struggles for the souls of Southwest and Southeast, the biggest casualty is sadly the truth.
"The media houses have some of the best and the brightest in the industry to write to pull down opponents of their owners."
The Obasanjo group also say they were fully persuaded that most of the huge bills including litigation and cost of advertising the judgment of the prosecuted election petition in Ondo State were borne by Tinubu, among others, "in pursuit of his agenda in the Southwest and even Edo, an old ally of the Southwest."
In February, when The Guardian began inquiries into this political project, a questionnaire was sent on a litany of allegations against Tinubu, who is in the eye of the storm.
He was asked to comment on, among others, the allegation that he had been the brain behind the political crisis in the Southwest and a string of electoral victories in the area including Edo State where his party, the Action Congress, has recorded a landmark victory against the ruling PDP.
Besides defending the allegation that he helped the Labour Party (LP) in "capturing" Ondo State from the PDP in his bid to control the Southwest political leadership, he was also to speak on being reported as the power behind the struggle to take over Osun from the PDP.
Curiously, instead of responding to the string of allegations, the former governor of Lagos State sent this SMS in two sentences as a response to our inquiry:
"The evil of electoral (fraud) should be fought with all resources available to humanity. There can be no rule of law, which President Umaru Yar'Adua has pursued, without free and fair election."
In the same vein, in March this year, we sent a questionnaire to Kalu through his email address and through two of his well-known management staff in an organisation he has an interest.
But at press time, Kalu had not responded to our query - that he has a pact with Abuja to assist in demonising former Atiku and in return his party, the PPA would retain Abia and Imo State.
