2023: Oyo ACCORD – “Accordingly preparing for failure”

The lessons people learn from history are that they never learned, that is why history keeps repeating itself. Many of my beloved party associates are porting from the All Progressives Congress (APC) to the ACCORD party (AP) and I feel for them and also feel sad about the turn of events.

I feel for some of them (not all) because of their commitment and building of the APC in the past years however, they felt frustrated and abandoned their beloved party to try their luck in the ACCORD party.

During the time we were in AD – the Alliance for Democracy (1999-2007) by then, AD has metamorphosed into the Action Congress (AC). During the build-up to AC, a meeting was held at Osun State. A meeting was held at Osogbo in which the Leader of the party Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu (BAT) insisted that the late Lam Adesina is their ‘person’ in Oyo-State as such, 60% of the party structure will be handed over to him and other groups in the AD (Heritage group was our group being Led by Senator Abiola Ajimobi) after series of the altercation, we left in anger because we can’t realise the gubernatorial ambition of Senator Abiola Ajimobi in the Action Congress (AC) of that time. (Just as some members of APC look for the alternative platform in ACCORD), first, we tried African Democratic Congress (ADC) and later left for the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP).

ANNP appeared formidable in the election of 2007, which we believed that we won but robbed the electoral victory. We were able to achieve a strong show in the election because of our alliance with Senator Rasidi Ladoja, the then incumbent Governor of Oyo state, who put political apparatchik of government behind us.

The situation is not with ACCORD now, as the incumbent Governor Seyi Makinde, will be contesting in 2023. So the ACCORD sojourner will not have the power of the incumbent Governor to support for electoral victory at best, he may woo them to support his ambition, may best be liking to ADC of 2019.

Hence it is obvious to political discerner to know this ACCORD experiment is destined for only one result – ‘Exercise in futility.

Engr. Seyi Makinde was in our team in 2007 as he contested the Oyo South Senatorial election, which he lost. He subsequently went to SDP the party he spent his blood and sweat to build, the platform failed him twice in the gubernatorial election. (Similar to this ACCORD, Senator Ladoja also tried this ACCORD which failed him). Engr. Seyi Makinde wised up and went to PDP with the “Omi tun tun” team, and he subsequently hijacked (Jagba) PDP Gubernatorial Ticket by the grace of God, he is the incumbent Governor of Oyo-State, the position which terminates on the 28th May 2023 bearing opportunity for the second time.

Before the election of 2019 16 State Honourable and one Senator ported to ADC from APC to form ADC, at the turn of events of the 2019 election, ADC failed woefully in Oyo-State, all the State Honourables and National Assembly members failed to win the election only to form a coalition with Makinde.

If ANPP of Ajimobi, ACCORD of LADOJA, SDP of Makinde. ADC of Honourable members failed.

Then it’s clear, that without the expertise of a Soothsayer, the current ACCORD Party will fail.

Strictly speaking, the next Governor of Oyo-State come 2023 is Teslim Folarin or Seyi Makinde.

“Third force” has repeatedly failed in Oyo-State, the current exercise is an exercise in futility, waste of time, waste of energy and resources.

 

Prof. Adeniyi Olowofela, Commissioner representing Oyo State at the Federal Character Commission (FCC), writes from Ibadan,