The gubernatorial elections have been held in oyo state and the winner has been announced;the incumbent won and remains governor for another four years. This is in spite of all the noise that was made from different quarters prior to the polls on why the incumbent should not be reelected for reasons ranging from the failure of his govt in the education sector,elitist policies that weren't favorable to the poor,owing workers salaries,bloated contracts and abandoned projects.

Well,I'd like to adduce a few reasons why I think ajimobi won in spite of the hues and cries from some quarters for his replacement at the just concluded guber polls held last saturday in oyo state

1. Power of incumbency:this cannot be overlooked considering how things played out in certain areas where the machinery of state and its resources were deployed fully in massive spending and mobilization of different interest groups for the reelection of the incumbent. This extra fillip helped in reaching out to many people especially the market women and their associations where gifts(cars,loans etc) and food items(stomach infrastructure) were generously shared to appease some otherwise disgruntled interests which really helped in securing him the needed votes even in his opponents strongholds.

2.Achievements of the present administration:any objective minded individual residing in the state or has been away for some time and visited recently would readily agree that an ajimobi govt performed more than all the previous administrations put together since 1999 especially in the areas of physical infrastructure and security. There hasn't been any of his predecessors since this new republic started that has made conscious and calculated efforts to give oyo state a facelift like an ajimobi govt has done; check out the dualisation of major roads,construction of flyover,beautification of the state capital and city centers through planting of flowers,evacuation of waste periodically as well as the introduction of monthly and weekly sanitization exercises,etc

3.Split opposition: there was no formiddable opposition in the state cos the pdp that could have played that role had already been split after it conducted its primaries to select a gubernatorial candidate where a certain teslim folarin emerged after he'd cleverly scheming out the power weights in the party like an akala who hurriedly left afterwards to join the labour party and another credible candidate like seyi makinde following in his heels to join SDP where each emerged govenorship candidates in their new respective parties. A ladoja who had left pdp many years earlier to form accord party could not be brought back too. If the opposition had worked together,they could have been more formiddable in defeating the incumbent party,say for example that an akala or a teslim had worked with ladoja's accord,they would've trounced apc going by the results of last saturday's polls where their combined figures outnumbered that of the incumbent

4. The bandwagon effect: the triumph of the apc at the presidential elections held two weeks earlier had a band wagon effect on last saturday's polls as people in the state caught on to the sentiment that it would be in the state's interest to be under the same party as that at the centre so it can enjoy the full benefits derivable from such. This made some undecided voters to cast their votes for apc to realize this dream of having a progressive party both at the centre and state levels.

5. Well,it seems the incumbent is indeed loved after all cos if this was not the case,he would have been massively voted out in spite of the other reasons mentioned. To be fair to the incumbent,his tenure has been a largely peaceful one which has been attracting a number of big businesses and job opportunities to the state in recent times

Reasons why he won??
He has the majority votes....Nothing else!
OYO have decided...let's move on.