Meet Amosun’s Hardcore Loyalists Who Have Made A Mess Of The Move To Make Akinlade Next Gov

Charles Oyelesi

Last Saturday’s presidential and National Assembly election was a huge opportunity for Governor Ibikunle Amosun to show the political strength of his alternate political party Allied People’s Movement.

The governor of Ogun state is intensely backing APM to produce his successor and holders of other elective offices in the state against the candidates of his own party, All Progressives Congress.

But the very vital first phase of Amosun’s plan failed in the recently held Presidential and National Assembly election.

APM lost out in the chance to show its political strength by losing out in all elective positions at stake, except in the stronghold of its gubernatorial candidate Adekunle Akinlade.

The party won a House of Representative seat in the minority area.

But in large votes area where Amosun’s strong men Mikail ‘’Mikky’’ Kazeem and Rotimi ‘’Arugbo’’ Rahama held sway, the party suffered heavy loss.

Interestingly the area Mikky Kazeem contested in overlapped into part of the one that produced Amosun as Senator-Elect on the platform of the APC.

The good showing expected from deep-pocket Biyi Ismail, the Director General of Bureau of Lands also failed to materialize.

Societynow.ng gathered the trio are actually the leading lights of APM’s campaign in different regions of Ogun state.

They were expected to put the party on a strong footing for the March 9 gubernatorial election but their defeat heavily set the party back.

What went wrong?

Societynow.ng’s investigation revealed that aside from the general angst against Amosun’s administrative style particularly concentration of development in his locality – Abeokuta – which all the APM point men face, their individual approach to issues enabled their defeat.

In the case of very close aide Rotimi Arugbo, rather than be a buffer for people’s anger against Amosun, the former council boss is said to have transformed self into a mini Amosun.

‘’He mirrored the ‘’it is what I want no matter whose ox is gored’’ attitude in his locality of Ota Ogun state. He sees who he wants to see whenever it pleases him and generally made himself unreachable.
He messed up the chance to become the new power in the politics of the large voting area’’ societynow.ng learned.

Societynow.ng gathered that the repercussion of the ‘’me against them’’ politics was his defeat.

Insiders disclosed it was the approach that did Arugbo in his locality that also didn’t allow him to maximize the opportunity Amosun gave him when entrusted with the responsibility of overseeing council chairmen in the state.

Mikky Kazeem reportedly failed woefully to live up to Amosun’s expectation because of over-reliance on street muscle.

‘’Rather than make endearing self to the populace with supports in times of need and community impacting projects the thrust of his campaign, Mikkey was more of street show of muscle that was why he was able to takeover MKO Abiola’s house with his posters in an intimidation tactics against Rinsola Abiola that contested against him’’ societynow.ng gathered.

”And the people showed him their might by rejecting him and his APM at the poll” a source quipped.

The further revelation available has it that Biyi Ismail would have made a good showing if he had embraced his latter-day strategy earlier.

The Director-General for the Bureau of lands reportedly opened his vault to woo voters to his side but by then it was too late to save his House of Representative’s ambition.

Before he embraced the desperate measure, Biyi was said to make people in his political base hunger for the good life without giving them a taste with the life of luxury exhibited by self, family and the few close associates always with him.

Societynow.ng gathered that Amosun – whose victory as Senator-Elect on the platform of APC is being attributed to support from ex-governor Segun Osoba and his men – go into the fierce battle to make APM’s Adekunle Akinlade with odds heavily stacked against him and clearing the political mess created by the men he heavily relied on to get the job done for him.