Osun West: Why The APC Lost

The Osun West senatorial bye-election has been concluded and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has won the contest, but series of analysis that followed the contest have shown that the election was not won by the popularity and efforts of the party which was considered to lack the necessary structure to win the contest, rather through the combine effort of the aggrieved members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the senatorial district.

Lots of intrigues and surprises trailed the Saturday, July 8 bye-election held in 10 local government councils of the senatorial district, as the ruling party lost the councils known to be its stronghold to the PDP candidate, Ademola Adeleke to defeat his APC opponent, Mudashir Husain.

The outcome of the senatorial bye-election revealed that the opposition won in nine out of the ten local government councils, leaving the ruling party with just a local government from where the candidate, Husain; the State House of Assembly Speaker, Najeem Salam and the House of Representative member, Mojeed Alabi all hail from.

The PDP, under which the junior brother to the former occupier of the seat, Senator Isiaka Adetunji Adeleke defeated the ruling APC with a margin of 31,364 votes. Ademola Adeleke won with 97,480 votes, while Senator Husain of the APC scored 66,116.

However, while all indications from the onlookers before the bye-election showed that many members were not favourably disposed to the candidate of the APC candidate, the political calculation of the leadership of the party showed that the popularity of the ruling party, coupled with the disharmony in the PDP would give its candidate the edge.

It would be recalled that Husain’s clearance to participate in the election, was the beginning of the crisis having been disqualified by the screening committee as well as appeal committee set up by the national leadership of the party, before he was eventually cleared by the National Working Committee in Abuja.

Having fraternised with the PDP earlier, according to a source within the opposition party, it was easy for Ademola Adeleke, who is now the Senator-elect to defect to the PDP on the eve of its primary election and obtained the party ticket in a matter suggesting an already planned deal.

His defection however became a blessing for the opposition, as the factional groups used the opportunity to bury their differences and came together as a united force to tackle the ruling party. His coming to PDP resurrected the party from its grave, as no one ever thought that the party could be united again.

However, it was a general though that the performance of Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, particularly in the area of infrastructural development should be able to swing the pendulum of victory in favour of APC, but the thought was deflated and the election sprang surprise, which swung in favour of the PDP.

Findings revealed that in all the local government where the PDP won, majority of APC members, a source said, have issues with the government as well as the party leadership in the state with the way some executive members of the party treat members across the state.

A source close to the APC secretariat said, “The choice of the candidate for APC is another factor that could have been responsible for what could be described as protest vote. The party failed to take into cognisance the zoning arrangements in politics, even when family succession as in the case of Adeleke was also not tenable in political arrangement”.

Meanwhile, Governor Rauf Aregbesola has congratulated the PDP candidate, Dr. Ademola Adeleke saying with the result of the poll, “people