OLAJIDE OMOJOLOMOJU 31/05/2011
It was during the flag-off of the South West zone presidential campaign of the Peoples Democratc Party (PDP) at the historic Mapo Hall in Ibadan, the capital of the old Western Region and present day Oyo State, when the President, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan referred to those in charge of the four of the states in the zone as ‘rascals’.

Though, doing a mop-up exercise following the opprobrium that that name calling attracted, the president and his media men denied ever describing the governors of Lagos, Osun, Ondo and Ekiti states as rascals. Speaking at the rally on February 8, President Jonathan said that “the South-West is too important to be left in the hands of rascals. We must take it over from them. The ruling party must take over Lagos. We must also take over Osun and Ekiti states.” But events after the 2011 elections have shown that the people of the South-West preferred rascals to lord it over them, as they not only voted out the vestiges of the PDP in the zone, they also overwhelmingly gave the rascals’ party, the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), fresh mandates to oversee the affairs of the three states in the zone where elections took place, thus bringing to five out of the six states that made up the zone that the ‘rascally’ ACN controls.

Describing the South-West as a ‘mini- Nigeria’ which houses the nation’s bulk of economic activities, President Jonathan said that the zone was the only one in the entire country where a high percentage of the inhabitants are non-indigenes. Disclosing to the mammoth crowd of party faithful that gathered in the ancient city of Ibadan, President Jonathan had said then that the ruling PDP was determined to chase the rascals from all the Government Houses in the zone, saying that no stone would be left unturned in the bid to take over the entire South-West zone by the PDP, placing special emphasis, especially on Lagos State, the commercial nerve-centre of the nation. He had said: “Lagos is a commercial centre and the ruling party must control the state. We will take over Ekiti, Osun and Ondo States. Before 2015, we will take over the South-West. South West is too educated and civilized to be left in the hands of rascals.”

But rather than ‘drive’ the ‘rascals’ out of the South-West, it was the other way round as the ‘rascals’ roundly trounced the PDP, chased them out of the zone and have actually taken over the total control of the entire zone. As it was in Lagos State before the rerun ordered by the courts in Ibeju-Lekki and Ikorodu, which the PDP won, the opposition ACN, which many believed to be the re-incarnation of the Alliance for Democracy of the 1999 era, not only retained the governorship, it also won all the seats in the state House of Assembly. It also cleared the three senatorial seats as well as the House of Representatives slots, leaving nothing for the PDP. It was the same story in Osun State, which was the only state the ACN won in the presidential poll. The ACN won all state House of Assembly seats as well as all the National Assembly seats in the State of the Living Spring.

In Ogun State, the ACN won the governorship election, the three senatorial slots, all but one of the House of Representatives seats and won the majority, 18 seats, in the state House of Assembly, leaving the remaining eight to be shared between the PDP and the Peoples Party of Nigeria (PPN) Ekiti State was equally not different as the ACN won all National Assembly seats and 24 out of the 26 state Assembly seats, leaving only two for the PDP. And in Oyo State, the ACN won two senatorial seats, four House of Representatives seats and 14 out of the 32 state Assembly seats. It crowned it sterling performance in the state with the top prize, the governorship slot. Thus the PDP which was in total control of the South West four years ago now has in its kitty only19 House of Assembly seats in the entire zone, where there were about 176 states Houses of Assembly seats, about 11.4 per cent. Of the remaining 157 seats, the ACN is now in charge of 132 Assembly seats while the Labour Party (LP) is in total control of 25 seats in Ondo. Of the 18 senatorial seats in the zone, the PDP won none. The ACN took control of 15 while the LP which is the party in power in Ondo State cornered three.

Political analysts believe that the downward trend in the fortunes of the PDP in the South-West is a resultant effect of the massive rigging of the 2007 election superintended over by former President Olusegun Obasanjo, whose ‘door- die’ politics almost plunge the zone into crisis. They also believe that the performance index of the Lagos State governor, Babatunde Raji Fashola, and the nonperformance of the PDP governors, before some of them were booted out of office for not winning the election and the arrogance with which many of them ran their states administration precipitated the wind of change that blew across the entire zone.

In 2003 and 2007, it was ‘Hurricane Obasanjo’ that swept through the length and breadth of the South-West, but in 2011, it was ‘Tinubu Tsunami’ personified by the ‘broom revolution’ that permeated the entire zone. But after the euphoria that accompanied the victory of the ACN in the South- West, political analysts are of the opinion that what the ACN need to do is to sustain the tempo of performance of the Lagos State government, saying that the Lagos State government has set the yardstick to measure the performance of the other governors elected on the platform of the ACN. It has been argued that the electorate in the zone have no equal across the length and breadth of the country when it comes to political education. This perhaps explains why they voted massively for President Jonathan during the presidential election, with the exception of Osun State, Nuhu Ribadu, the ACN presidential candidate won, a development which gave the South-West PDP a sense of false hope of winning in the governorship and House of Assembly polls. They had argued that if the president could win convincingly in the South West states, then the PDP would cruise to a landslide victory.

But, alas, the result of the governorship and state parliamentary election proved them wrong, despite that many analysts had attributed the ACN’s victory pre-election in Osun and Ekiti states to judicial pronouncements. It had been argued in several quarters that the PDP did not win the presidential election, but President Jonathan. For the first time in 12 years, the PDP won Lagos State in the presidential election, but ACN’s victory at the governorship and House of Assembly poll was a landslide, with Fashola garnering over 400 per cent of the votes of the PDP governorship candidate, Dr. Adegboyega Shamusideen Dosunmu. Fashola polled 1,509,113 votes against Dosunmu’s 300,450 votes It is therefore clear to all stakeholders that the zone is now under the control of the ‘progressive rascals’ of the ACN and the general belief is that the governors of the states as a matter of urgency must create a synergy to develop the zone culturally and socio-economically in the mould of the old Western Region under the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, whose vestiges and legacies are scattered across the old Western Region.

Analysts believe that this is the time for the governors to repay the people of the zone who have reposed so much confidence in them by creating a platform where there would be a uniform development of the zone.

Yorubaland is very diverse, you can confirm it by the diff native hats 

SW govs, are y'all ready?

He who laughs last, laughs best



Long Live The Great South Western States Of Nigeria




Fashola the rascal schooling Odechukwu

Viva Los Rascals

Foolish yorobah rascals