The more you look over the Ondo State coming election, the less you see. But the intrigues go beyond what is playing out. At the centre of it is the dress rehearsal for 2019. The target remains Tinubu. Quite unfortunately, there are so many collateral casualties that the battle will consume and has actually consumed. The first was Segun Abrahams, the man supported by Tinubu for the ruling APC ticket. The next was Eyitayo Jegede while the last will be Olusola Oke. And with the way things are going, Rotimi Akeredolu might be the only candidate for the November 26 election. 

Shortly after Tinubu made his preference for Abrahams known, Buhari Boys went to work. They adopted Akeredolu. The arrow-head of this is Kaduna State governor, Nasir el-Rufai. His foot soldiers are Babatunde Fashola and Kayode Fayemi. With massive financial war chest, the objective was to show Tinubu that APC can win election in any state in South-west without his input. Ekiti State election too will be coming up around one half years from now. Same with that of Osun. The same plan is afoot: checkmate Tinubu; capture those states and raise new political leaders in the South-west. 

However, there was a problem. 

Even with INEC effectively becoming an appendage of the Presidency, intelligence reports have shown that Akeredolu can never win a free and fair election with the political machinery of Rahman Mimiko, the Ondo State governor, working for Jegede. Buhari Boys got to work again. They got the Modu Sheriff faction of the PDP and Jimoh Ibrahim to go to court and challenge the emergence of Jegede and with Justice Okon Abang always ready to do his own part of the assignment, Ibrahim was quickly recognised as the ‘authentic’ candidate. And here is what the Publicity Secretary of the Sheriff faction, Yemi Akintomide, had to say about the judgement that gave the ticket to Ibrahim:

“This is victory for democracy, the triumph of truth over falsehood, godliness over godfatherism and a sweet beginning of a new dawn for the state.”

When Jegede went to court and the Boys saw the speed with which the judges were going, they got one Biyi Poroye to write a petition against the judges that they were biased. But in a bizarre turnout, Poroye disappeared when his petition was to be heard. The judges withdrew themselves. Sources told me yesterday they the judges were put under massive pressure to stand down because the hawks knew that before the case could be assigned to another set of judges, time would have gone. 

Let me make this clear: Modu Sheriff faction of PDP is EFFECTIVELY working for the Presidency!

With the fate of Jegede almost sealed, they moved to Olusola Oke, the man who contested with Akeredolu and moved to Alliance for Democracy, AD, to pick the party’s ticket. Sources said Buhari Boys were aware that it was the Tinubu group that asked him to move to AD with promise of logistic and financial backing. But if he felt the AD ticket would be his just like that, he was dead wrong.  The National Legal Adviser of AD, Kehinde Aworele, has said the party’s National Executive Committee of the party does not recognise Olusola Oke as its governorship candidate in Ondo State. You should ask yourself the last time the NEC of AD met as leaders of a functional political party. But when they needed to deal with Oke, the NEC came to life! 

If you think Aworele was speaking on his own, then you are living in Mars. In the days ahead, the confusion that statement was meant to cause in Oke’s camp will fester. He would have no time to campaign again and the next thing is that the ‘NEC’ of AD will bring another name as the “authentic” candidate of the party for the governorship election. That new candidate and Oke will start fighting over the ticket and they will be on that until election day! 

If you notice, the only candidate campaigning now is Akeredolu. And that is the only candidate that might likely contest the November 26, 2016 election. That is the candidate of the Presidency. The plan is to make the contest a walk in the park for him. 

And with the way things are going, it is almost a done deal. Unfortunately…