By Emmanuel Aziken

Last Thursday the man who has been famed as a turnaround expert with interests in several business concerns including Air Nigeria, Newswatch, National Mirror, NICON Insurance, among others made an unusual turnaround in the political landscape in Ondo State.

Jimoh Ibrahim, lawyer, politician, and businessman, even if momentarily, did what many politicians, some dead and many others alive, had vainly attempted when he supplanted the man famed as Iroko, that is Dr. Segun Mimiko, in the hierarchy of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP in Ondo State.

Jimoh’s emergence as the governorship candidate of the PDP could in business terms be described as a major acquisition. While many politicians achieve their political goals through the merger of strategies and camps, as the All Progressives Congress, APC founders did; Mr. Ibrahim’s emergence could have been termed a takeover; indeed, a hostile takeover.

Earlier in the week before INEC enlisted him as the official candidate of the PDP, senior INEC officials had fought off what they claimed as blackmail, supposedly by Ibrahim, when they denounced his allegation that a female official of the commission asked him for a $1 million bribe.

A senior INEC official who spoke to this correspondent had used strong language in renouncing Mr. Ibrahim describing him and his claim as ungodly.

However, any supposition that the allegation of the million dollar bribe would influence the commission to block Mr. Ibrahim from being enlisted as the PDP candidate was dismissed on Thursday night as INEC stuck to the court order in determining the PDP candidate.

That decision was no doubt influenced by what some have dubbed as the controversial order by Justice Okon Abang of the Federal High Court that paved the way for Mr. Ibrahim to be enlisted. Whether Justice Abang took note of the fact that the Ibadan, Oyo State primary that produced Ibrahim was not monitored by INEC as was the one that produced Eyitayo Jegede was apparently not considered by the judge.

Though many stakeholders in the mainstream PDP are wont to claim that Mr. Ibrahim is a stranger to their party, having allegedly not campaigned against the party in the 2015 election; and supposedly identified with Accord, that, however, does not make him a stranger to the political landscape.

Since 2003, the business mogul had been a sort of political fixture in the state, persistently being hammered by Dr. Mimiko. In 2003, he was on the wrong side as the governorship candidate of the All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP, in an election in which Mimiko in alliance with the late Dr. Segun Agagu helped to upstage the Alliance for Democracy.

Following the overwhelming defeat, Mr. Ibrahim resorted to his businesses amassing a fortune and showcasing himself on national television in lectures to staff on the rudiments on mergers and acquisition and such like.

How successful he was in his ventures in aviation, publishing, energy remains debatable. However, his success in political acquisition after forcefully taking over, even if momentarily, the PDP ticket nurtured by one of the most tested political masters in Ondo State is remarkable.

Has Ibrahim finished Dr. Mimiko? It is really arguable. What the emergence of Ibrahim means is that the political permutations in the state would have to be reviewed.

Assumptions that the prospects of Chief Rotimi Akeredolu as the All Progressives Congress, APC candidate would be mired by the internal conflicts in his party will now be reviewed as stakeholders consider the prospects of Mr. Ibrahim. Also under consideration would be the chances of Chief Olusola Oke, the candidate of the Alliance for Democracy, AD who left the PDP for the APC before leaving for AD.

Oke and Ibrahim are from the Southern Senatorial District and suggestions that the entry of the latter into the fray would harm Oke may be counterbalanced by the opportunities available to him in the Central Senatorial District given the probable absence of Jegede and Mimiko.

Well, all these remain in the realms of probability given the fact that in enlisting Jimoh, INEC affirmed that it acted upon a court order. As Mr. Ibrahim had repeatedly sounded off in his lectures to staff, a businessman who does not improve himself would sooner than later find himself out of the reckoning. It is doubtful if Ibrahim’s many political enemies would just watch him enjoy his latest acquisition!