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HOW ZONING DECIDED THE OUTCOME OF THE RECENT ONDO GOVERNORSHIP ELECTION

Published

4 years ago

October 14, 2020

From Josephat Omeke

More facts have continued to emerge from the just concluded Ondo State governorship election conducted by the Independent National Electoral Commission. Although many pundits predicted the victory of the APC gubernatorial candidate in the election and incumbent Governor Chief Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, only a few arrived at that conclusion on the basis of competence and performance but on extraneous factors and considerations.

Aside from the incumbency factor which favoured the APC both at the state and federal level, one of the party’s high points was an amazing success Governor Akeredolu recorded in reconciling with members of the Unity Forum, a dissident breakaway faction of the APC in the state which swore to do everything to replace the Governor with one of their own following irreconcilable differences.

This group which remained the greatest formidable threat to the reelection of Governor Akeredolu providentially imploded just a few weeks to the party’s primaries. That happened when most of its members angrily rejected the emergence of Chief Olusola Oke( SAN) as the group’s consensus candidate to battle Akeredolu at the party’s primaries.

Capitalizing on the rift, the Governor effectively utilized the weapon of divide and rule to ensure that members of the Unity Forum never got back together again thus leaving it completely disorganized at the time of the primaries and which eventually led to his smooth and seamless nomination as the governorship candidate of the APC.

Fully aware that his trouble with members of the Unity Forum did not disappear simply because he had picked his party’s ticket, the Governor laboured relentlessly and eventually succeeded in wooing all the members of the Forum to his side after meeting their tough conditions.

The Ondo A P C thus went into the general election as one single and the united party whose only worry was how to defeat Eyitayo Jegede an acclaimed formidable force who had once again emerged candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party. Jegede’s strength did not only lie in his towering personality but also the fact that he came from Akure, the largest single voting block in the state with over 200,000 registered voters.

Aside from the Akure factor which the PDP banked heavily upon, Jegede was seen by many as a candidate to beat owing to his charisma and campaign-style which focused steadfastly and tenaciously on major weaknesses of the Akeredolu’s administration. One of such low points and which resonated well with the Ondo electorate throughout the electioneering was that of the exorbitant school fees charged by the state-owned institutions and which he Jegede promised to bring down. Ondo from where Ekiti state was carved out remains one of the most educated in the country and thus sensitive about issues pertaining to education.

However, Jegede had many low points one of which was his failure to bring in big fishes into his fold to match those paraded by the APC. One such big fish outside members of the Unity Forum was Alhaji Jimoh Ibrahim, the man who battled him bitterly for the PDP’s gubernatorial ticket in 2016 and who later decided to throw his weight behind Akeredolu’s reelection. Others include Chief Alasaudura the incumbent Minister of State for Niger Delta Affairs who also worked tirelessly for the Akeredolu 2020 project.

Chief Jegede’s woes were compounded by the refusal of his erstwhile Godfather Dr. Olusegun Mimiko a former Governor of the state to support his ambition once again and who instead threw his weight behind the candidacy of Agboola Ajayi who later became the candidate of the Zenith Labour Party.

However, many observers of Ondo state politics were of the opinion that although Governor Akeredolu’s performance, as well as other factors aforementioned, contributed to the outcome of the election, zoning was one single most decisive factor which swung the pendulum in favor of Akeredolu.

According to them, Ondo state is one of the states in the federation where the zoning of political offices including that of Governor is regarded as sacrosanct and inviolable had over the years had the practice deeply entrenched in the politics of the state. The people of the state were thus aware that the next Governor of the state come 2023 would emerge from the Ondo South Senatorial District.

Since both former Governor Ade Adefarati who governed the state from 1999 to 2003 and Chief Olusegun Agagu who took over from him did not complete two terms, it was only after Governor Olusegun Mimiko from Ondo central senatorial district had the privilege of doing so that the zoning principle with regards to governorship became firmly established in the state.

After Mimiko’s eight years, the incumbent Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu from Ondo North Senatorial district took over in 2016 and sought reelection in 2020. Naturally, if Akeredolu was allowed to complete two terms, it would indisputably be the turn of Ondo South Senatorial district being the only senatorial district yet to take its turn in 2024.

It’s pertinent to note at this point that it was this same zoning factor that worked against Jegede in 2016 that returned to haunt him in the 2020 election. This is because Chief Jegede of the PDP came from the same Ondo central senatorial district as Mimiko who served two terms and had already utilized the slot of the senatorial district. The zoning albatross thus continued to be the nemesis of Jegede’s campaign and from which he never recovered.

Agboola Ajayi the incumbent deputy Governor who came from Ondo south senatorial district and who ordinarily would have been the most favoured in terms of zoning was largely seen as unserious by most Ondo people partly for choosing a relatively new party with weak structures to prosecute his ambition. This was so because the same party he chose; the Zenith Labour Party was unable to guarantee victory for former Governor Mimiko the founder of the party at his 2019 Senatorial election.

Again and most importantly, there was a general feeling in Ondo that both Ajayi and Jegede ( none of whom came from Ondo North as Akeredolu)were breaking the zoning arrangement by contesting against Ondo north which should be allowed to finish its own eight years so as to enable Ondo south take its turn in 2023.

Furthermore, aside from what Ondo people felt about the ambitions of the two gentlemen with respect to truncating the entire zoning or rotational arrangement, most people of Ondo south particularly who would have had sympathy for Jegede and the PDP felt that a vote for Jegede would give him a fresh eight years as opposed to Akeredolu who just had four more years to transfer power to them.

They thus voted massively for A PC not necessarily out of love for Akeredolu or his party, but to protect the zoning principle from which they stood to benefit sooner than later. This explains why APC won all the local government areas of the Ondo South senatorial district thereby sending a clear message that they preferred to wait for four years with Akeredolu than eight years with Jegede. It’s thus indisputable that it was the massive votes from the Ondo south senatorial district that became the stroke which broke the camel’s back and decided the outcome of the Ondo election more than anything else.

Taking a cue from Ondo state, as well as the majority of other states which believe in zoning, political parties must begin to respect the issue of zoning of political offices in their choice of candidates for elections to avoid having their fingers burnt as happened in Ondo state. The latest case has thus further confirmed the fact that the electorate’s attachment to zoning is by far stronger than that of their political parties. This is understandably so because zoning or the rotation principle unlike mere political party affiliation guarantees equity and a sense of belonging to all the component parts of a state.

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Business

Tax Reform Bills: The Verdict of Nigerians

Published

1 week ago

March 6, 2025

The Gleamer

Ismaila Ahmad Abdullahi Ph.D

The public hearings conducted recently by the two Chambers of the National Assembly have elicited positive responses from a broad spectrum of Nigerians, cutting across regional interest groups, government agencies, civil society groups, concerned individuals, the academia, and Labour Unions, among diverse others. Contrary to a few dissensions hitherto expressed in the media, almost all the stakeholders who spoke during the week-long sessions were unanimous in their declaration that the hallowed Chambers should pass the tax reform bills after a clean-up of the grey areas.

The public hearings were auspicious for all Nigerians desirous of economic growth and fiscal responsibility. They were also a watershed moment for the Federal Inland Revenue Service, which had been upbeat about the tax reforms. Indeed, the public hearings had rekindled hope in the tenets of democracy that guarantee freedom of expression and equitable space for cross-fertilisation of ideas. Without gainsaying the fact, the tax reform bills have been unarguably about the most thought-provoking issues in Nigeria today, drawing variegated perspectives and commentaries from even unlikely quarters such as the faith-based leaders, student bodies, and trade unions, which speaks much about the importance of the bills.

In the build-up to the public hearings, not many people believed that the bills would make it to the second reading, much less the public hearings. Even the Northern stakeholders who seemed unlikely to support the passage of the bills have softened their stance and have given valuable suggestions that would enrich the substance of the bills. The Arewa Consultative Forum came to the public hearings well-prepared with a printed booklet that addressed their concerns. It concluded with an advisory that the bills should be “Well planned, properly communicated, strategically implemented and ample dialogue and political consensus allowed for the reforms to be accepted.”

The concerns of ACF ranged from the composition of the proposed Nigeria Revenue Service Board as contained in Part 111, Section 7 of the bill, the unlimited Presidential power to exempt/wave tax payment as proposed in Section 75(1) of the bill, the family income or inheritance tax as contained in Part 1, Section 4(3) of the bill, to the issues around development levy and VAT. On the development levy, the ACF stated that unless the Federal Government is considering budgetary funding for TETFUND, NASENI and NITDA, it does not see the “wisdom behind the plan to replace (them) with NELFUND”.

The position of the North was equally reinforced by the Supreme Council for Shariah in Nigeria, Northern Elders Forum, Kano State Government, Professor Auwalu Yadudu, and the FCT Imams. Like the ACF, these stakeholders lent their respective voices to the Section on the Inheritance Tax in Part 1 of the bill and the use of the term ‘ecclesiastical’, which, in their views, undermines certain religious rights and beliefs. The Kano State Government, represented by Mahmud Sagagi, affirmed that “we support tax modernisation” but cautioned that “we must ensure that this process does not come at the expense of states’ constitutional rights and economic stability”. Professor Auwalu Yadudu, a constitutional law professor, drew attention to the use of the ‘supremacy clause’ and cautioned that the repeated use of “notwithstanding” in the bills would undermine the supremacy of the Nigerian constitution if passed as such.

Other stakeholders that made contributions at the sessions included the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas, Fiscal Responsibility Commission, Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission, Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria, Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria, Nigeria Customs Service, and a host of others. While most of their concerns bordered on technical issues requiring fine-tuning, they were unanimous in their support for the bills. They aligned with the position of the Executive Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service, Zacch Adedeji, Ph.D. and the Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, Mr Taiwo Oyedele, which is that the extant tax laws and fiscal regulations are obsolete necessitating reforms aimed at creating a fair and equitable tax and fiscal space to grow Nigeria’s economy.

In one of the sessions, Dr Zaach Adedeji expounded on the criss-cross of trade activities in the Free Trade Zone whereby companies misuse tax waivers as exporters to sell their goods or services in the Customs Area at an amount usually less than the price the operators in the Customs Area who pay VAT and other taxes sell theirs thereby disrupting business transactions. This way, the operators in the Free Trade Zone shortchange the government in paying their due taxes by circumventing extant regulations, which are inimical to the economy’s growth.

Overall, the presentations were forthright, foresighted, and helpful in elucidating the issues contained in the bills. According to the statistics read out at the end of the hearings at the Senate, 75 stakeholders were invited, 65 made submissions, and 61 made presentations. At the House of Representatives 53 stakeholders made presentations. By all means, this is a fair representation. Given the presentations, it is evident that the National Assembly has gathered enough materials to guide its deliberations on the bills. As we look forward to the passage of the bills, we commend the leadership of the National Assembly for their unwavering commitment to making the bills see the light of the day.

Abdullahi is the Director of the Communications and Liaison Department, FIRS.

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