Insight Battle for Oyo State: Will Makinde survive APC tsunami?

Seyi Makinde will be vying for re-election in Oyo State governorship election on March 11, 2023. The incumbent governor hopes to win the polls to fulfill his second term bid to govern the state.

His political career seems shaky, with him forming a faction against his party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). Furthermore, the Oyo State political scene is unique as being a governor in the first term is not a guarantee for a second term in office.

Dataphyte analyses Makinde’s chances to navigate and overcome the hurdles before him to emerge as a second-term governor on March 11th, 2023.

Political wilderness

Seyi Makinde and four other governors formed an alliance to revolt against the PDP’s presidential primary outcome, which saw the former Vice-.President, Atiku Abubakar, emerge as the party’s standard bearer. This started after their principal, Nyesom Wike of Rivers State, lost to Abubakar and was overlooked for vice-presidential position.

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The G-5 governors, as Makinde and four others are known, revolted against the party and made some seemingly difficult demands. One of their demands was the resignantion of the PDP Chairman, Iyorcha Ayu, who eventually refused to vacate the position.

However, Makinde and other members of the G-5 faced backlashes, with some of them later seeking court injunctions to protect themselves from the PDP’s imminent expulsion.

Three of the four G-5 governors contesting for positions lost their senatorial bids. Samuel Ortom of Benue, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu State, and Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia all lost bids to move to the National Assembly. Makinde remains the only one of the four contesting for a position whose fate is yet to be decided.

Second term jinx
Since the return to democracy in 1999, all the governors, except one, who were elected as Oyo State governors failed in their second-term bids.

Elected under the umbrella of the Alliance for Democracy (AD), Dr Lam Adesina served for just a term from 1999 to 2003. Rashidi Adewolu Ladoja of the PDP replaced him from 2003 to 2007. Ladoja’s deputy, Christopher Alao-Akala, served as governor from January to December 2006 for the period when he was impeached but later reinstated.

Christopher Alao-Akala won the primaries and contested in the 2007 election, for which he emerged victorious and served till 2011. He lost his second-term bid to Abiola Ajimobi of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN).

Late Ajimobi is the first governor to win a second-term election bid in Oyo State. He served two terms from 2011 to 2019, after which his party lost to Seyi Makinde of the PDP in 2019.

The voting pattern

The All Progressives Congress (APC) won the state in the just concluded presidential election. The governor could not canvass votes for his party as APC polled 449,884 votes against PDP’s 182,977 votes. 

Also, the National Assembly seats saw APC claiming all the senatorial seats and nine (9) out of the available 14 House of Representatives seats. The PDP won the remaining five.

If this result points to how the next round of the election will go, then it can spell doom for the governor in his second term bid.

However, over the last three election cycles, only in 2015 did the governor’s party win the majority of the National Assembly seats. In other years, the Oyo State electorate had different voting patterns for different elections.

In 2011, the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) won the governorship seat in the general election. However, it was only able to win 35.29 percent of the National Assembly seats. It won six seats, with PDP and Accord taking six and five seats respectively.

The APC got 11 of the 17 seats in the National Assembly in 2015, claiming 64.7 percent of the seats and winning the year’s governorship. At the state house of assembly, the party won 18 of the 32 available seats, which was 56.75 percent success.

APC lost the governorship election to PDP in 2019 but took a larger proportion of the National Assembly seats in the year. The APC won 11 while PDP took the remaining six seats. The state house of assembly election saw the PDP winning 81.25 percent of the available 32 seats. The PDP won 26 seats while the APC won five. The ADP won the remaining seat.

Thus, the voting pattern at the national level does not reflect that of the state-level elections.

Makinde’s chances

The governorship election in Oyo State will be keenly contested, and Seyi Makinde stands a higher chance of defeating Teslim Folarin of the APC, said Head, Democracy & Governance at Justice, Development and Peace Commission (JDPC), Jide Bamgbose.

“Although he is one of the G-5 governors, he has the backing of some of the party’s powerful supporters,” he noted.

Bamgbose predicted that there would be a higher turnout in the state for the election than what was witnessed in the presidential elections.

“The people of the state are very sensitive to the governorship election and don’t support a leader who has failed them. This can be seen in the past leaders not succeeding in their second term bids. The only one who succeeded lost his senatorial election as his second term in office was marred by poor performance.”

He pointed out that various assessments of Makinde had been positive. “He has addressed the infrastructure deficit in the state and paid salaries of teachers, civil servants, and pensioners, which the people see as success,” Bamgbose further said.

According to him, “We operate a stomach politics, and Makinde has provided for the welfare of the state and even paid the backlog of salaries.”

He added that he saw the people coming out in droves to vote for Makinde in the forthcoming election.