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| Senator Ali Modu Sheriff And Gov. Olusegun Mimiko |
Crisis has reportedly erupted in Ondo State yesterday over the decision of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC to drop Mr. Eyitayo Jegede, the anointed candidate of Governor Olusegun Mimiko and the factional Chairman of the PDP, Alhaji Ahmed Makarfi for the bussiness mogul and Senator Ali Modu Sheriff PDP faction candidate, Mr. Jimoh Ibrahim, News Punch understands.
Facts according to New Telegraph are beginning to emerge on how a purported political solution to the nomination crisis trailing the PDP for the November 26th governorship election in Ondo State crashed like a pack of card.
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| Eyitayo Jegede and Jimoh Ibrahim (The Embattling Ondo PDP Candidates) |
According to a source privy to the undercurrent moves in both Makarfi and Modu-Sherrif’s camp, the issue over who will be the standard bearer between both factions shouldn’t have degenerated to the level it got yesterday, whereby INEC had to resort to a court ruling before listing a candidate for the party ahead of the poll.
According to the source, “Mimiko’s camp underrated Jimoh and one is amused that a political general like Mimiko will watch and see his house come down easily like this.
There were several effort made by some stakeholders with the intention of reaching a feasible truce where both interests will be satisfied but ego, over confidence and misplaced priority didn’t allow the Mimiko Camp to bend.
“I can tell you for free that Mimiko and Ibrahim used to be friends, in fact, there was a pact between them both in 2012 when Mimiko was about to seek re-election as governor but after the election, things didn’t work out between them especially on the ‘agreement’ on bringing Jimoh on board as a consultant on economic issues.
“A legal trap was set for them by the Sherrif’s faction of the Ondo PDP who waited for two weeks to end of INEC’s nomination window before approaching the Court to validate Jimoh based on a ruling last June.
Interestingly, they didn’t join Jegede in the suit but only INEC, who they knew won’t appeal the judgement.” Another reliable source told Saturday Telegraph that the Mimiko camp refused to seize the advantage of a political solution dangled before them but rather chose to ignore and call the acclaimed billionaire names.
“Instead for them to seek peace with Jimoh Ibrahim, they rather chose to be begging Modu-Sheriff, who incidentally unknown to them was using them as pun. What he (Sheriff) said that he won’t pressurise the INEC on which candidate to pick between both factions, was as a result of intense heat on me to step down on the candidature of Jimoh.
Everyone knows that Jimoh cannot ordinarily win election but ignoring him completely is also political suicidal,
“Jimoh Ibrahim was expecting them to approach him for a political truce but they felt they should rather appease Sheriff.
For Jimoh, it’s not a do-or-die affair but he always insists that the candidate of the PDP must come the South. He was ready to step down but not for Jegede. He wanted to step down for Mimiko’s former Commissioner, Sola Ebiseni, who defected to the APC.
But they wouldn’t want to listen to anything other than Jegede who is from the Central.”
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