+How TESLIM FOLARIN Lost Out In The Ministerial List
The race for the ministerial candidate, who will represent Oyo State in President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s cabinet, was tough and laid in intrigue that caught many political pundits’ guessing off the mark. Most speculators who thought that Senator Teslim Folarin was the right person to be picked for the job had forgotten that Folarin supported the former Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo for President before the All Progressives Congress (APC’s) primary.
Their inability to hit the bull’s eye in their speculations and forecasts were not unconnected with the fact that the President’s political party, All Progressives Congress (APC), did not win the governorship election in the state. The APC’s governorship candidate, Teslim Folarin, lost the election to the People’s Democratic Party (PDP’s) candidate, Engineer Seyi Makinde. He was the incumbent and won his second term with the support that spread across other political parties.
Despite that Folarin lost the election, he still remains the leader of the APC in Oyo State as the governorship candidate. From this vantage position, Folarin was expected to have a free and automatic access to pick the ministerial nominee slot for the state. That was not, however, to be. The expectation of Folarin’s camp for the nomination, was regarded in many quarters as a compensation for the man who lost the governorship election. That, however, did not materalise as Folarin was Osinbajo’s man. The painful aspect of the whole drama that was stunning to observers is that a governorship candidate of another party, the Accord Party, Waidi Adebayo Adelabu, was announced the ministerial nominee to represent Oyo State.
Adelabu, the man outside the APC’s loop ran the governorship election on the platform of Accord Party as he lost the intra-APC contest for the ticket to Folarin. To most APC stalwarts, especially those who belong to the late Iziak Ajimobi’s faction, the emergence of Folarin as the governorship candidate was not unconnected with the influence of the immediate past acting National Chairman of the APC, Mala Buni, who was the immediate former Governor of Yobe State. The presence of Buni at the national headquarters of the APC at the time had ensured that the party structure in Oyo State was shakened and turned upside-down to allow new men who were loyal to him and against Ajimobi’s camp to take over the running of the party. That was how Isaac Omodewu emerged the APC’s Chairman. The new Omodewu leadership of the party in Oyo State threw jitters down the spines of many aspirants who had intention to contest the recent general elections as there were many allegations that Omodeuru was resolute to carry out the Mala Buni’s agenda in Oyo State.
That was how Adelabu, who was the APC’s candidate in the 2019 governorship election and several others who were not in the Mala Buni’s list lost their nomination bids. The favourities of the new leadership in the state that was led by Folarin emerged the APC’s candidates for the various elections. Expectedly, the party imploded. Adelabu and those who felt aggrieved and could not brook what was fed to them in the party defected to other parties. Adelabu took his supporters to Accord Party (AP) to realised his ambition. He lost. Many had thought that was the end of his political journey for now. It was expected that he would return in 2027. There were, however, those who said that Adelabu’s sojourn in the Accord Party was akin to Heijira done by Prophet Mohammed that saw the holy prophet leave Mecca to Medina when he felt the atmosphere of hostility against him and his followers was becoming too soaking, ubnbearable and not conducive to their survival and propagation of Islam.
Unlike Prophet Mohammed, who stayed in Medina for a long time before returning to Mecca, Adelabu has been constrained to leave the Accord Party to answer a national call. City People learnt that Adelabu had consulted not only leaders of the APC including Ahmed Tinubu before he left for the Accord Party, but also consulted political leaders in the state. It was gathered that he consulted the Otun Olubadan, High Chief Rashidi Ladoja, who, it was learnt, suggested Accord Party as an ideal party to contest the recent governorship election.
The high-tech political gamesmanship that preceded and dogged the 2023 general elections that were marked by defection, alliance and re-alliance has largely produced a ministerial list that has more than APC members on it. The list could be called a pot pourri, or a cabinet of national government. Party loyalty was not the only factor that qualified nominees to be on the list. Those who were not members of the APC, but lent their weight and gave their support for the realisation of Tinubu’s presidency were also on the list. It could, therefore be said, without fear of contradiction, that Adelabu was one of the nominees who sailed to the Senate for screening and approval to be ministers because of his inter-partyrelationship with President Tinubu.
Those who scouted for ministers got to Oyo and found out that they could not ignore Adelabu despite the fact that he did not contest the governorship election on the platform of the APC. His ubiquitous structure that greatly depleted the rank of the APC when he left the party was a proof that he has a large following that could not be ignored. Besides, there was a strong suspicion that Bayo as many of his suppoerters used to call him is a political son of Asiwaju Tinubu. The then presidential candidate of the APC refrained from meddling in the politics that produced Teslim Folarin as the APC’s governorship candidate in Oyo State to allow party’s supremacy to rule the day. Tinubu could, however, have forgotten that Folarin was Osinbajo’s supporter.
Grapevine recalled that Teslim Folarin was not a member of the progressive political family. He was from the the late Chief Lamidi Adedibu’s caucus, a conservative political group. He first went to the Senate on the platform of the PDP. His defection to the APC was facilitated by a meeting of the late Otunba Alao Akala an Oyo State ex-Governor, Senator Folarin and the first two-term governor of the state, the late Ajimobi in London. It was at that meeting that the three big political weights in Oyo State zealed a pact that made Akala and Folarin to defect to the APC and swelled the rank of the party. He however, rode on the shoulders of Buni to become the candidate of the APC in this year’s Oyo State governorship election.
Party men and women who were totally committed to ensure the victory of the APC at the poll, said that Folarin did not do enough to ensure success of the party at the election. It was learnt that Folarin did not even provide adequate logistics to mobilise supporters for the total coverage of the state to ensure the success of the APC at the poll. There was inadequate provision of vehicles to facilitate movement of supporters to take their campaign to every nook and cranny of the state. That, however, was not the main reason Folarin was dropped from the ministerial list. His earlier support for Osinbajo did the deed. Despite his defection to the Accord Party, it was learnt that Adelabu still maintains a personal cordial relationship with President Tinubu. On this note, supporters of Folarin alleged that their principal was sacrificed on the altar of vexation of the Ajimobi group’s insistence that a beneficiary of Buni’s gambit in Oyo should not be rewarded for a work earlier done by them.
Now that the control of the National APC was no longer in the hands of those who benefitted from Mala Buni’s chairmanship of the party, Folarin has no voice or weight in the caucus that is now dictating what rules the day in Aso-Rock. That was why Folarin lost out in the race to ministerial appointment in the present dispensation.
– Tajudeen Adigun
08039180360
