As you read this, the people of Ondo State should be out there trying to cast their ballot in today’s governorship election, which is a three-way horse race among incumbent Governor Olusegun Mimiko of Labour Party, Olusola Oke of Peoples Democratic Party and Rotimi Akeredolu of Action Congress of Nigeria. The state has been heavily charged. In the build-up to the poll, there had been heated debate, tension-soaked campaigns and some skirmishes here and there. Anyone who has been following developments in the state would have seen all of that coming. Why?
There had been allegations of treachery, vaulting ambition and inter-state domination in the build-up to the poll. It’s a turf war, a battle to protect turf in which plenty ego is involved. At the end of the day, some ego would either be kindled or bruised. If you ask me, I think Governor Mimiko is the man to beat in the election. But for me the ultimate battle is not today, it’s in four years’ time when Mimiko would have given way. With the inroads the ACN has made into Ondo State, with the kind of political battle the party has waged against Mimiko and the opposition it would provide in the state going forward, will Governor Mimiko be able to pick his successor and foist his own on the state in four years’ time? Can Ondo ultimately afford to be different from other South-west states which had already fallen to the ACN? That would be the big question then.
Help, the President’s Otuoke House Under Water
I am drawing attention to this in order to underline two points. One, that President Jonathan is human and, as such, subject to the whims of nature after all. The other is if the President’s house is vulnerable to flood, what happens to houses of millions of other Nigerians in the affected states? The President had disclosed on Tuesday in Abuja that his personal house in Otuoke that was initially spared by the flood had been submerged up to window level. He spoke at the launch of “Save One Million Lives,” a UN Commission on Live Saving Commodities for Women and Children, at the Presidential Villa. What I’m driving at is this year’s rain and resultant flooding has got no boundaries; it does not recognise any social status and as such all hands must be on deck to rally round those affected one way or another. Why is it that we don’t plan ahead in this country?
