Ajimobi @ 68: The Making of A godfather in Oyo State politics

TODAY, Saturday, December 16, 2017 is a watershed in Oyo state’s political history as the die hard political juggernauts of the conservative party are being formally welcomed into the progressive fold. One man, Sen. Abiola Ajimobi, the executive governor of Oyo State, is the focal point of this rare marriage and incidentally he is celebrating his birthday today.

HAZEEZ AYANSOLA examines the man who is fast becoming a deciding factor in Oyo state’s politics in this piece titled: AJIMOBI @ 68: THE MAKING OF A GOD-FATHER.

Loathe him or like him, one thing that you cannot take away from the present governor of Oyo state, Sen. Abiola Ajimobi, is his ability to fashion out successes from what his contemporary see as unachievable tasks. Sen. Abiola Ajimobi in his characteristic manner has been creating paths where his peers see dead end. Yes, some might argue that his achievements so far have coloration of luck but to say these achievements are totally luck-dependent is to say a farmer does not need to produce any sweat on his farmland before he could have bountiful harvest since he has got fertile land and viable seedlings.

No it doesn’t work that way, God in His infinite mercy has given each individual the intellectual capacity to bend his immediate environment to his caprice but in His bizarre wisdom He has also made each individual a stumbling block to his own achievement. What I am saying is not a scientific jargon nor is it a philosophical expression, it is what the nature has woven arround the success’ secret; to lay hands on the success, one must first of all conquer himself before he can think of conquering others, the vital ingredient that any serious achiever needs to be on top of his game- success creation-.

The ability to discover self, understand the nature of oneself and then playing to the strengths and weaknesses of that self is what Abiola Ajimobi has consistently done, thus, making consistent nonsense of his political opponents in Oyo State each time there is need for political contest. Their failure to neutralise his moves before its inevitable result unfolds in their very eyes is a testament of his superior smartness over all of them put together.

In his room of wisdom, he has mastered keenly the tricks and flicks of these gladiators during contests such that he has always been several steps ahead of them anytime there is need for them to square up with him inside a political ring. It is not as if his opponent enter the ring unprepared, they do not, but what they fail to do each time when they are face to face with him in a ring is to adapt themselves to his technical jabbings, the very tools he uses to wear them out before he descends on them his sucker punches which ultimately send them to their canvass.

In the run-off to 2011 gubernatorial election in Oyo State, he recognized that there were three individuals who held the ace to his becoming the number one citizen in Oyo state, he ensured that he did not mend fences with them, he also railroaded himself into their good books thus earning their endorsement at the expense of the Ankara crusader. While the two of them are now late, Aare Musulumi, Alhaji AbdulAzeez Arisekola and former governor of Oyo State, Alhaji Lam Adesina, the remaining person, Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Adeyemi is still being managed up till today. While he was plotting his victory even before they go to electoral field, his opponents felt their raw power was enough to make them emerge the winner in the royal rumble of Oyo State politics.

As 2015 gubernatorial election was approaching, he knew he needed more than the magic hand of the last-man standing Alaafin of Oyo, instead, he rather campaigned as if his life depended on it. Being a man that covets ‘the first’, Abiola Ajimobi went back to his political magic mirror once more and with it, he was able to discover that his victory key was hidden in Oke-Ogun part of Oyo State. For days he combed the entire senatorial district while his opponents, once again, was battling with supremacy battle in the highly damaged and ruptured Peoples Democratic Party, PDP then at the same time he was liaising with power brokers in that part of the town.

At the end, he ensured that he did not leave the zone without the electoral key in his pocket, he left Ogbomoso zone (his weak area) for Akala, but instead concentrating vigorously on his strong and highly populated areas of Ibadan land. Although the fight was intense as his opponents gave him a good fight but when they all got to the doorstep of power chamber; all he needed to do was to reach out to the key inside his pocket which ensured his passage into the highly coveted seat at Agodi governor’s lodge, he was there seated when the Accord Party but who is not in accord with his words were fighting a lost cause in the court of law. To him, it was a political abracadabra, which left him marveled. Having crossed the path his predecessors failed to do, this time, he has resulted to the victorial tactic (electoral alliance) that was right there infront of his opponents during the run off to his second term election but which pride prevented from making use of.

With the formal defection of the hitherto power blocks (Akala, Teslim Folarin, Arapaja) of the PDP today into All Progressives Congress (APC), the 2019 electoral contest in Oyo state can be regarded as a game-over for PDP remnants as far as common sense is concerned. With this bizarre marriage with his erstwhile political foes, Abiola Ajimobi must have peeped into the playbook of his political mentor, Chief Bola Ahmed Tinubu which plotted the strategy that catapulted APC into Aso-rock’s throne.

They say Abiola Ajimobi is proud but yet he has never allowed his pride to get in the way of achieving result anytime the need arises. It is ironical to say that what Akanji is accused of (arrogance) is the very thing that has eluded them when these people need to breast the tape of electoral victory. They have failed to realise that pride to Ajimobi is a mere tool with which he uses to construe hate hole in their minds, thus, thinking in their wildest imagination that eventually he would be consumed with it. The present hate hole they have dug now is the Olubadan chieftaincy issue but Ajimobi being a smart person that he is will ensure that they are the ones that will be used to fill their self dug hole.

What surprises me is their difficulty to decode that they are all pawns in Ajimobi political chess game. Upon being voted into power in 2011 he found a perfect pawn in Ladoja’s Accord Party members in the Oyo State House of Assembly when he used them to the maximum to stabilise his government. It was Akala’s turn in 2015 as he used his boys to ensure that the leadership of the legislative remains firmly in his grip. He has now gone a step further in his quest to add another first to his plethora of several firsts- not only is he the first to become a senator before being elected as a governor, he is also the first to get elected twice by the ever critical Oyo State electorate as well as being the first to implement the dreaded and sacred Olubadan Chieftaincy Review.

As proud as Ajimobi appears to be, he always been found a perfect ally when the need arises for political alliances in Oyo state. His man management and the ability to hop into the same bed with those that can be regarded as strange bed fellows speaks volume of the emotional intelligence of ‘Mr. Dependable’.

He has taken his time to select his ‘wise men’ in different parts of the state whose views are sacred to him. Where his tentacles could not penetrate yet, he results to alliance using his suaveness to keep them under his wings. If his anointed candidate eventually becomes the number one citizen in Oyo State come May 29, 2019, another godfather can be said to have emerged in the murky and ever tidal of Oyo State political Island except that this one is devoid of political brigandage and crude tactical political warfare of the Late Ibadan strong politician, Alhaji Lamidi Ariyibi Adedibu, Sen. Abiola Ajimobi, rather, is a suave, smart and socially intelligent political godfather.