The Labour Party (LP) has suddenly become the beautiful bride in Oyo State. That is the party where every politician who faces the possibility of being frustrated out of his party now runs to for the purpose of actualizing their ambition in 2015. Since 1999, the LP which was among the latter-day registered political parties, during the second term tenure of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, could not be said to be a formidable political party.
It lacked the membership of high profile politicians. Perhaps, for this reason, it could not win any seat. It had, however, been an active participant in all the elections held so far since it was registered. Curiously, the working class which should have seen it as its own, failed to embrace it, even when a labour leader, Alhaji Bashiru Apapa, flew the party’s flag as its governorship candidate in 2007.
It has since become an all-comer platform not only for serious contenders but also for the mere office-seekers, just out to test their popularity. A recent case was the last general election when an American-based physician, Dr. Azeez Adeduntan, just came out of the blues to contest the governorship election on the party’s platform. His performance in the election is now history and he has since returned to the US.
It would be recalled that the only state governor the party parades today, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko of Ondo State, is a product of the same ‘let’s try and see’ set of gladiators. Having dumped the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on the platform of which he served the state as Secretary to the State Government (SSG), during the tenure of the late former governor, Olusegun Agagu, between 2003 and 2007. Mimiko parted ways with his boss mid-way to the tenure and was appointed a minister by the then president, Obasanjo. And when it became obvious that the party, PDP, would field Agagu again in 2007, Mimiko jumped boat and joined the Labour Party, picked its governorship ticket to contest the 2007 election and was judicially declared winner two years after the election and a long legal tussle.
Recent events in the party in Oyo State point to the same old story of position-seekers looking up to the party for refuge. As forerunners to a particular governorship aspirant, Chief Sarafadeen Abiodun Alli, some members of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) recently defected to the LP, making it his (Alli) third political party since the inception of the current dispensation. Mainly young elements between the ages of 40 and 50, the defectors included immediate past board chairmen in the Governor Abiola Ajimobi-led administration and aggrieved loyalists of the late leader of APC and former governor of the state, Alhaji Lam Adesina. It was alleged that in addition to their being upset at the administration of the party post-2011 elections, the defectors were said to be at the vanguard of a crusade for generational paradigm shift in the politics of the state. Curiously, it was gathered that after a series of strategic meetings with the LP leadership, including Governor Olusegun Mimiko in Akure, the APC defectors were allotted a sizable number of slots for the party’s offices, including a co-chairmanship position.
Appointed as co-chairman for Oyo LP is Gbenga Olayemi, who was until last December the Chairman, Oyo State for Youth Development, and is to pilot the affairs of the party in the state with Basiru Apapa, a Co-Chairman, pending the state congress scheduled to hold soon. Other APC members who made LP’s state executive include Musbau Popoola (State Deputy Chairman); Tayo Adeagbo (State Deputy Chairman); Okesooto Biliaminu (State Deputy Chairman); Gbenga Oyekola (State Secretary); Caleb Oyaniyi (State Organising Secretary); Kazeem Adedeji (State Publicity Secretary); Ayo Ogunleye (State Women Leader); Moruf Aderoju (State Financial Secretary) and many others. A letter addressed to one of the Co-Chairmen and jointly signed by the National Chairman of LP, Dan Nwanyanwu, and the National Secretary, A.A Salam, asked the interim committee to set machinery in motion for the conduct of state congresses.
The letter, which was dated February 10, 2014, read in part: “Following the series of deliberations in Oyo State chapter of the Labour Party, the National Working Committee (NWC) has approved the composition of an interim committee to be headed by Comrade Basiru Lamidi Apapa and Gbenga Olayemi as co-chairmen towards the state congresses of the party in Oyo State. Henceforth, the activities of the Labour Party shall rest squarely on the shoulders of the interim committee and they are expected to prepare the party for the forthcoming congresses in the state very soon.”
This development has, however, caused a stir with one of the groups within the party alleging foul-play. The group, Pace-Setter Advance Movement (PAM), projecting Comrade Olu Abiala’s candidature as the governor in 2015 under the party, has kicked and written to all the party’s stakeholders, warning against what it described as holocaust in the party in the state. Abiala, it would be recalled, was until few years ago the Secretary of the State Wing of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) and, like Apapa, he had since the party’s inception identified with it, using everything he is endowed with to build and support it. Apapa himself confirmed this at a meeting of the party early this year when Abiala presented a party-branded bus to LP in the state. In the letter said to be a protest against injustice, signed by the Director-General of PAM, Victor Taiwo, he called the stakeholders’ attention to what he termed “the brewing chaos in the party in Oyo State as informed by a great injustice, or do we say sacrilege, perpetrated against our organization lately.”
He continued: “Prior to 30th January, 2013, the Labour Party in Oyo State was literally barren of any form of political activities; at least as far as 2015 political preparation is concerned. On 16th January, 2013 we made our letter of enlistment available to the Executive of Labour Party in the state. Consequent upon this, our representatives held the maiden meeting with the members of the Executive where we made our position known clean and clear that our mission was heading to the governance of the state. And on 30th January we wrote another letter appreciating the Exco for accepting us.
“As time went on, two groups came to join the fold namely Ayekooto and Grassroots’ Groups respectively. Essentially, up to now three groups that have formally joined the party in the state are the above named groups among which obviously our organization has been the most senior. Up to now, our organization has the record of having galvanized members spreading across the whole 33 local governments of the state.
“If there is one single organization that has revitalized and engraved the identity of the Labour Party on the minds of the people in the state, it is no other than this organization. However, to our utmost chagrin, certain development started cropping up and in a fleeting moment, we were called to the consciousness that same desperate political elements have gone behind the Oyo State party secretariat to lobby the top into hijacking the party structure. Well, as we were not unexpecting further enlistment by other groups, even though we were convinced the proper modality was to go through the state secretariat, we still honoured all meetings summoned by the Ondo State Governor, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, where some other interested candidates were present.
“Now, having jointly agreed by all parties to the sharing formula laid out at the meeting, namely 30% of the Executives being allotted the state Labour Union itself and 70% to all other groups joining the party, it was therefore astounding and looked incredible to us to discover the high profile conspiracy and sheer illegality as clandestinely spun by some fraudulent elements comprised by the new comers having shared out the whole Executive offices among themselves and sending the list to the headquarters in Abuja to the abysmal and contemptuous exclusion of the three main and original groups known to the books of the party.
“And one could not be more aghast to read the news to that effect on the pages of newspapers-a case of tenants sacking the landlords, isn’t it? As matured and peaceful minds, we have therefore deemed it fit to write this letter of protest to you for immediate redress lest things go haywire in the state party.
“Essentially speaking, the development reported on pages of newspapers is totally unacceptable and rejected. We therefore want to rest assured in your sense of justice and harmony that you will address this absurdity as soon as possible.”
The stage now seems set for the battle royale between the ‘landlords’ and ‘tenants’ of Oyo LP.
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