Amosun's consensus produced a list
of candidates that named him the party's flag bearer for the Ogun Central
senatorial district (his second term as governor ends in May) to replace
incumbent, Lanre Tejuoso, and also named a current House of
Representatives member, Adekunle Akinlade, as the party's consensus
candidate to contest in the governorship election.
The list also named dozens of others
to contest for several elective seats in the state and in the National
Assembly, leading to in-fighting in the state chapter about the fairness of the
process.
APC national chairman, Adams
Oshiomhole, described the governor as an emperor who won't find a home in
the party and the governor in turn called the former Edo governor a dictator
and the stage was set for some really interesting war of words over the months
that followed.
Ogun State governor, Ibikunle Amosun, has been a divisive
figure in the APC over the past five months
The Ogun chapter split into two
factions and each eventually conducted primary elections that produced
different sets of winners in almost all the categories. Even though Amosun was
recognised as the party's senatorial candidate in the final list accepted by
the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), his preferred successor
lost the governorship ticket to Dapo Abiodun.
Akinlade soon left the APC to pitch
his tent with the Allied Peoples Movement (APM) with the full backing of
Amosun who has not made his support for him secret while engaging in a very
public feud with Oshiomhole and the APC leadership.
[TL;DR] Basically, Amosun, a current
APC governor, and flagbearer for the Ogun Central senatorial district, is
supporting the party to win the presidential election, and (of course)
senatorial election, but he's publicly campaigned against the party in the
governorship election that has his preferred candidate contesting from an
opposition party against the APC flag bearer. It's like how, if you stress your
brain really hard, two plus two is sometimes equals to 22 and not four.
But everyone can agree that 4+4 = 10 [Twitter/@BuhariCentre]
Now that we're all caught up, let's
talk about the insanity of Monday's rally that should deeply embarrass the
ruling party.
The crowd of APC supporters, torn
between loyalty to the party and loyalty to Amosun, became a tool of disgrace,
pawns in the game of power played by megalomaniacs.
Long before Buhari's arrival at the
venue, violence had broken out between Abiodun's supporters and Akinlade's
supporters, for whom it makes no sense to be at an APC rally but let's roll
with it for a minute.
The crowd only got worse as the
program progressed. The Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, was
the first to feel its stinging ire after he triggered the crowd's anger by
suggesting that they should only vote for APC candidates in the forthcoming
elections.
"This is an APC rally. I belong
to APC and I'll vote APC, and I expect that for all of us who are here, we vote
for the APC from beginning to the end,"
he said but was drowned out by chants of "APM!" from the crowd.
Former Osun State governor, Rauf
Aregbesola, was the next to fall as he came on stage to beg the crowd, like
a bunch of obstinate children, to toe the party line and only vote for its
candidates.
The biggest jeers of the day were
reserved for Oshiomhole who came on the stage to chants of "Ole! Ole!
(Yoruba for 'thief')", a situation that only worsened when he mentioned
Abiodun's name as the party's choice.
APC national chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, was jeered by the
party's hostile crowd at the Ogun State rally
He was soon swarmed by security
operatives after a projectile was launched at the stage and his speech had to
be brought to an abrupt end.
To save face, Amosun, the resident
master puppeteer and Architect-in-Chief, made a return to the stage to appeal
to the crowd to behave itself, like little children on a short leash, in the
presence of the president.
"I beg you in the name of God.
Please, our father (Buhari) is here, please don't disgrace me here," he told the unruly crowd.
When Buhari eventually made his way
to the stage, he was more cautious about the big elephant in the room and,
rather spinelessly, told the crowd to vote for whomever it chooses for the
elections.
"I appeal to you to practice
your civil rights to come out next Saturday and on the 2nd of March and choose
whoever you like across the parties. This is your right and I have no problem
about it," he said as the crowd cheered his
tacit approval.
However, the president's next
action, an unavoidable campaign rally ritual, was to raise Abiodun's hand as
endorsement of his candidacy as the party's flag bearer.
Almost all the northern area he has covered all the northern state, and some south east and west, INEC has released the result accordingly.
