Reminiscing on the 2019 general elections, Hon Isaac Kekemeke, National Vice Chairman, South-West of the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) has given an insight into why the party lost the presidential election in two of the six southwestern states.
APC lost the presidential election in Oyo and Ondo States having polled 365,229 and 241,769, respectively to PDP whose candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar scored 366,690 and 275,901 votes.
Kekemeke hinged the party’s loss in the two state on disunity among its members as he added that the opposition parties were only lucky to have gotten accidental victories.
His words: “The success of the PDP in the two states was accidental victories which should not be used to predict the 2023 presidential election results “because the APC had waxed stronger ever after.
“The PDP should know that it was a one chance victory because in the 2020 governorship election in Ondo state, we beat them in almost all the local government areas of the state.
“We had an unprecedented outstanding governorship victory in 2020 because the factors that militated against our success in those states in 2019 were no longer in place.
“So if they talk about 2019, good sense of simple arithmetics should make them to remember Ondo 2020. They are holding on to 2019 but have forgotten the 2020 elections.
“The 2020 governorship election victory of the party shows that factors that responsible for the accidental victory of the PDP in 2019 have been settled.
He added that “the 2020 victory of the APC at the gubernatorial election in Ondo state would be child’s play compared to the landslide victory that the party would record in the entire South-West in 2023 “because all the odds are now against the PDP.
“We are not divided. Our wall is not broken, so no lizard can enter like they did in 2019 when there was a crack.
“They were like lizards that came to play on the opening but that opening is now closed. It was not just closed today but in 2020 and they saw the result in Ondo.
“Even their recent victory in Osun is not a yardstick to measure the PDP’s popularity in the state.
“We have an ongoing case at the Election Petitions Tribunal, and we are confident of reclaiming our mandate very soon,” the APC stalwart said.
Giving his opinion on the chances of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu; the foremost presidential candidate the country and national leader of the party, Kekemeke expressed his positivity that Tinubu will record a resounding victory in the South-West region.
“The APC-controlled state governments across the South-West ate delivering dividends of democracy within the limit of available resources while infrastructural revolution was taking place as we can see roads are being built everywhere”.
“The case of the PDP is further worsened by the fact that Tinubu, who is flying the presidential flag of the APC, is well accepted as the political father of all notable politicians in the South-West.
‘Aside from the fact that Tinubu is from the South-West geo-political zone, he is the most competent of all the candidates jostling for the office of the nation’s president.
“Nigerians believe that the presidency should be rotated between the North and the South every eight years. So, it is now the turn of the South. And Tinubu has a good antecedent that we can talk about from now till tomorrow.
“So the PDP is in trouble. When their candidate was here a couple of weeks ago to flag off their campaign in this region, only few people were around but when our candidate only came to pay a personal visit, the whole state went agog.
“By the time we bring our campaign here, they will see the difference. We are confident of winning. A 60 per cent win is no winning to us. We are going to beat them big,”
The former Ondo State commissioner went on to passionately appeal to people of the region to support Tinubu, who is their son, and consider his pedigree and antecedent.
“Apart from common sense and logic, it is also about sentiment. Our son’s waist deserves the beads and it will be foolhardy of us to adorn the waist of other people’s children with the beads.
Kekemeke added that “Tinubu’s waist deserves that bead and it is the turn of the South. Our son has pedigree. He sets the pace and others follow
