By Charles Kumolu
THE game of  brinkmanship that is part and parcel of South West polictics has largely seen Ondo State vascillating between three political parties in 15 years.

Indeed, the scenario of having more than one party steer its affairs within this period would have been substantially applauded if it had not resulted from personal ambition instead of the will of the people on each occasion.

President Buhari with R-L: Governor of Plateau State H.E. Simon Lalong, APC National Chairman John Odigie-Oyegun, Wife of Ondo APC Gubernatorial Candidate Mrs Abimbola Akeredolu, Senate President Dr Bukola Saraki, Ondo APC Gubernatorial Candidate Rotimi Akeredolu and APC National Organizing Secretary Senator Osita Izunaso during the APC Grand Finale Gubernatorial Campaign Rally in Akure on 19th Nov 2016

The ethnic underpinning of the leading political parties in Nigeria at the dawn of the Fourth Republic naturally placed Ondo in the hands of Alliance For Democracy,AD, a party, regarded then as the political platform of the Yoruba race.

It was, therefore, not surprising that the late Chief Adebayo Adefarati, a chieftain of National Democratic Coalition, NADECO, and Afenifere contested and won the governorship election in 1999. However, this later soured relationship between Adefarati and his core supporters like Chief Niyi Omodara, late Chief Rufus Giwa, incumbent governor, Dr Olusegun Mimiko, Dr. Akerele Adu, Dr. Olu Agunloye, Chief Yele Omogunwa, Senator Nimbe Farunkanmi and Dr. Awolowo Ajaka among others contributed to his defeat at the 2003 governorship poll by the late Chief Olusegun Agagu of the Peoples Democratic Party,PDP.

This disillusionment by aforementioned leaders in the state was said to have been hinged on allegations that Adeferati sidelined them in addition to discontent about the manner AD adopted the then sitting governor as its governorship candidate in 2003. As of then, the incumbent chief executive of the state was not also having a healthy relationship with prominent elders like Pa Reuben Fasoranti and Chief Olu Falae, a situation that negatively affected his party’s chances of winning the poll.

Though Adeferati, from Ondo North had commenced reaching out to the duo during the electioneering period, the move did little or nothing to prevent his defeat at the election by the PDP. Pointedly, the reported outwitting of Afenifere leaders and AD governors by former President Olusegun Obasanjo, substantially contributed in making PDP the ruling party in Ondo from 2003-2007. With Agagu’s victory, Ondo became a PDP state like four other South West states where the AD lost to the PDP.

That era was also not devoid of high-wire politics and acrimony with the biggest challenge coming from Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, who had earlier defected, firt from the AD, thence to the PDP and finally to Labour Party where he contested the 2007 governorship race against Agagu.

Nonetheless, Mimiko’s suit challenging the declaration of Agagu as the winner by the Independent National Electoral Commission,INEC, resulted in the former’s sack by a   five-man tribunal led by Justice Garba Nabaruma on Agust 25, 2008.

The subsequent ruling of the Court of Appeal on the matter paved the way for Mimiko’s emergence as governor   on February 23, 2009.

That, however, brought to an end the reign of the PDP and as well marked the beginning of LP’s era, which was subsequently marooned as Mimiko returned to the PDP, in a move that left no one surprised. Mimiko, from Ondo South Senatorial District was believed to have only used the LP as a special purpose vehicle to wrest power from Agagu. With these evemts, it becomes easy to understand that personal ambition rather than the will of the people,  as mainly instrumental to Ondo’s swinging across three parties in 15 years.