EXCLUSIVE: Ajimobi ‘very unhappy’ with Buhari’s choice of Shittu for ministerial appointment

Abiola Ajimobi, governor of Oyo state, is unhappy with President Muhammadu Buhari’s nomination of Abdur-Raheem Adebayo Shittu for ministerial appointment, TheCable has been told.

Shittu, a former attorney-general of the state,  former lawmaker in the Oyo state house of assembly in the second republic, and former governorship candidate of Buhari’s defunct party, the Congress for Progressive change (CPC), was exclusively reported by TheCable as one of the names on the list of ministerial nominees sent to the senate on Wednesday.

Following the report, Ajimobi and his loyalists in the All Progressives Congress (APC) have been meeting to consider whatever last-minute options are available towards scuttling Shittu’s emergence as minister, ahead of the senate’s unveiling of the nominees on Tuesday.

After discovering Buhari’s choice from oyo state, Ajimobi reportedly cancelled all his engagements for the day and convened an emergency meeting with his loyalists. At “one of the nocturnal meetings”, Akin Oke, state chairman of the party, was quoted to have said: “Shittu is not the choice of our party in this state.”

THE GENESIS

Shittu and Ajimobi have never truly been on the same side. In 2011, when Shittu was candidate of CPC, he contested against eventual winner, Ajimobi; and even though CPC fused with the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), and a faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) to form APC, the governor knew Shittu was still eyeing his post.

For this reason, Ajimobi ensured that Shittu never quite settled in APC. He reserved similar treatment for the leading lights of other parties involved in the merger. After series of fruitless meetings convened to resolve the “exclusion” of ‘other parties’ from APC’s governance of the state, aggrieved ANPP members, led by their chairman, Rasaq Folorunsho, defected from their new party, the APC, to Labour Party (LP). Not Shittu.

“As a member of the merger committee, I participated actively in bringing about the birth of APC. So, no one can chase me out of the party,” Shittu once told journalists at the peak of his frustration with his confinement to political obscurity in the state.

Rather than quit, he – after writing the APC national leadership without reply – instituted a law suit against the party, saying the party was treating Ajimobi as though he was “untouchable”.

THE TUSSLE

Determined to make a statement, ‎Shittu obtained the APC governorship nomination form and formed his campaign and mobilisation committee, ahead of the 2015 governorship election. It was a statement that he had not been exactly politically stifled by Ajimobi, and that he was willing to test his popularity against the incumbent’s.

On the date of primary election, Shittu, alleging conspiracies against his candidature, boycotted the election. This was the point where he went to court, although the suit was eventually abandoned for an out-of-court settlement.

On one occasion, Ajimobi met Shittu in Abuja before the presidential election and attempted to prevail on him to shelve his ambition, saying, according to a source privy to the meeting: “Alhaji, you know we are now in the same party. Let us leave all what has happened behind us and work as a team. If we win now, there would not be anybody than you for the ministerial job.”

According to the source, Shittu suspended his governorship ambition after Buhari told him to “wait for what God would do after the presidential election”.  Shittu’s supporters were surprised when he told them he was withdrawing his candidature and supporting the choice of Ajimobi “in the overall interest of the APC”.

THE ANGER

A source, who is very close to the governor but did not want to be named, told TheCable that Ajimobi’s sudden aversion to Shittu’s ministerial nomination was “annoying”, given that the governor himself had used the same ministerial slot in persuading his opponent from dropping his ambition, and given that the governor himself formed his cabinet after winning in 2011 without recourse to external influence.

“When Ajimobi won in 2011, he brought all sorts of people that we didn’t know, even people we were not totally sure were indigenes of this state. He brought them and said those were the people he wanted to work with, either as commissioners or at other levels of governance. Nobody opposed him,” he said.

“Now, Shittu has been nominated for a ministerial position and he and his people are running up and down to try to scuttle his emergence as minister.”

Ajimobi’s initial list of ministerial nominees to Buhari, it was discovered, included Iyiola Oladokun, a lawyer and deputy governor during late Lamidi Adesina’s governorship tenure. But when presidency sources confirmed to him that the president may not consider his nominee, he nominated Zaccheus Ade‎labu, Bimbo Kolade and Muyiwa Gbaadegesin, all former commissioners, due to their “perceived closeness” to Bola Tinubu, national leader of the party.

Irked by Ajimobi’s alleged moves against Shittu, an APC chieftain from Ibadan, said: “Ajimobi should thread cautiously. If I were him, I would have called to congratulate him. He should be magnanimous in victory.

“Was it by his power that he broke the second-term jinx in Oyo state? Did we complain in 2011 when he brought unknown people under the pretext of ‘technocrats’ ‎and foisted them on us as commissioners and special advisers.

“If he doesn’t want to polarise the party further, he should just make friends with Shittu. I know for sure that many party faithful would be happy. At least, the domineering tendency of the governor will be cautioned.”

RESOLUTION?

TheCable contacted Oyo state APC to ascertain the veracity of the party’s and the governor’s alleged opposition to Shittu’s nomination. Wale Sadare, the party’s public relations officer, simply said: “It is being resolved. thanks.”