PDP's renewed quest for South West

The storm is gathering in the South-west. It is in connection with the 2015 general election. Though the election is still some two years away, political gladiators in the area are already gearing up for battle.
The impending political showdown is for the political soul of the zone. The South-west is the stronghold of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN). Presently, the party controls five of the six states in the zone while the Labour Party (LP) controls one state. But recently, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) declared its intention to take over the zone in the next election.
Though the PDP controls the Federal Government and 24 governorship seats as well as majority of seats in the two chambers of the National Assembly, the ruling party has been unable to maintain a foothold in the
South-west to the consternation of its leaders. Recently, President Goodluck Jonathan declared that his party must take over the reins of power in the south west in 2015. Jonathan spoke through his special adviser on inter-party affairs, Senator Ben Obi in Oshogbo at a reception in honour of a forme
r governor of Osun State, and PDP National Secretary, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola. For the president, 2015 is PDP’s expected year to take total control of the South-west. But that would not be the first time Jonathan will be declaring openly his party’s interest in the ACN stronghold. In the run up to the last presidential election, he made a similar boast, stating that: “Lagos is a commercial centre and the ruling party must control the state.
We will take over Ekiti, Osun and Ondo States. Before 2015, we will take over the South-west. South-west is too educated and civilized to be left in the hands of rascals.” As part of measures to make the party’s dream a reality, Jonathan reportedly met with former PDP governors from the South-west, a forthnight ago to apparently fine tune measures to wrestle the area from the ACN.
Long before the President’s declaration, PDP leaders in the zone had boasted   severally that they will rout the ACN in the zone in the next election. The party’s National Vice Chairman (South-west) and former governor of Ekiti State, Mr Segun Oni had stated repeatedly that the days of ACN as the ruling party in the zone are numbered. On its part, the ACN described the PDP plans to take over South-west in 2015 as mere daydream.
The party’s National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, says that the leadership of the PDP is merely seeking to be relevant. According to the ACN spokesman “The South-west is completely out of bounds for them (PDP). There is no amount of manipulation or grandstanding that will sway the people and allow the PDP to come back in the south west. “I keep telling the PDP that they should be more concerned about states they are controlling because those states will fall to the ACN. They will try but they will not succeed.
We are not perfect, but we will respond to issues as they come we are also proactive.” This is not the first time the PDP would be targeting the South-west. It would be recalled that in 2003, during the tenure of former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo,  the party had said it was going to capture the zone.  It made good its threat as it over ran the zone taking over Ondo, Osun, Oyo, Ogun and Ekiti from the Alliance for Democracy (AD). It was only Lagos State that survived that onslaught.
In the 2007 general election, the ruling party retained all the states it won in 2003 and made spirited attempts to add Lagos to the list of its conquest. But again, Lagos eluded it. However, in a twist of fate, the PDP lost Ondo, Osun and Ekiti to the LP and ACN respectively at the state election tribunals in the aforementioned states between 2009 and 2010. While it lost Oyo and Ogun States in the 2011 general election.
The Lagos State PDP, in keeping with the desire of the President and party’s top hierarchy to over-run the South-west in 2015, particularly the much coveted Lagos State, said the die is cast for the next general election. The chairman, Lagos PDP, Captain Olatunji Shelle at a recent press briefing said it is overdue for its party to govern the state. He said t
his because Lagos has not fared well under the ACN government in the past 13 years. “We believe it is now overdue for our party to form the next government in the state and 2015 is our target to realize this goal. We are committed to this agenda,” he stated. But the ACN publicity secretary in Lagos State, Mr Joe Igbokwe says the PDP is turning the issues of governance into a huge joke. Igbokwe told Daily Sun that the PDP can never win Lagos State or any of the states in the South-west. He says this is because the people of the zone are very comfortable with the ACN administration.
The ACN publicity scribe said it’s works in the zone will always speak for it in every electoral contest. In his words “We are turning this into a joke. Politics is supposed to be a serious affair. When people turn serious issues of governance into mediocrity, we don’t need to give way to what they are saying by replying.
In the South-west, Lagos where I work, the only thing we have to say, the only story we have to tell the people is the work.  “So, if you say you want to come and takeover South-west, they will ask you what you have done. We always tell them (PDP leaders), you have been at the helm of affairs for 14 years now, what have you done? All the things you promised fourteen years ago, are still there. So, what are you going to tell them(the electorates).
Take Lagos for instance, what will the PDP tell the people?” Like Shelle, the publicity secretary of the PDP in Lagos state, Mr. Taofik Gani said there is no stopping his party in the 2015 election. Gani told Daily Sun that the PDP has it needs to wrestle ACN to the ground in the 2015 governorship election in Lagos State.
Taofik is enamoured by the modest success his party recorded in the past local government election in the state. He says that shows the party can win the governorship election in the state. “We did it in the local government election, where we drove them away. We did all that to let us win the number of local governments we won. If we have done that, won election conducted by their LASIEC (Lagos State Independent Electoral Commission), be rest assured that in 2015 we will win the governorship election.
The PDP has got its compass to take us to Alausa come 2015,” Gani enthused. Igbokwe says the ACN is used to such boasts from its rival. “They said it in 2007.They boasted they will do it. We were going round the polling booths, thinking that we had people that will challenge us, only for us to get to the polling booth, we didn’t see anybody. Where ACN is getting 200 votes, you see PDP getting five votes.  In 2011, they brought Dosunmu and made all the noise because they had to make noise so that Abuja will think that they were working. But at the end of the day, Fashola won.  Lagosians cannot trust them.