Why Ex-Governor Ajimobi’s Son Idris Lost Oyo Assembly Election

Idris Ajimobi, the son of the Oyo state’s immediate past governor, lost his fight to the Oyo State House of Assembly to the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Honourable Oluwafemi Fowokanmi in the just concluded gubernatorial and state assembly elections held on Saturday.

According to Professor Kolawole Falade, INEC’s Returning Officer, Fowokanmi polled a total number of 16,328 votes to thwart Ajimobi, who racked up just 7,755 votes.

Despite the family name Ajimobi being a household regional acceptance, one can attribute his failure at his first electoral try to some factors.

The Makinde wave

As popular as the Oyo state governor, Seyi Makinde, most government arms, and functionaries working alongside him are not as popular.

But with the Omi tuntun 2.0 top-to-bottom wave, Idris Ajimobi and every other house of assembly candidate from other parties were overpowered. 

Ibadan South West state constituency 2 is one of the strategic political locations in Oyo state. Any party which will win the election has consistently won the zone because of its regional importance. 

The APC's collapse

Despite the predicted tight contest between the All progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Oyo State, the outcome of the election defied assumption.

Governor Seyi Makinde defeated Senator Teslim Folarin with almost double the latter’s total votes.

Many have said that Idris Ajimobi and others in the APC who was on the ballot with Teslim Folarin on March 18 lost because the APC’s internal crisis has remained unresolved.

Others said that the APC in Oyo state failed to heed to the pieces of advice Bola Tinubu gave Folarin and the leadership of the party when he visited the state during their party's running for the presidential ticket.

A chieftain of the party who insisted that his name should not be named in this report told AllNews Nigeria: "The APC and all their contestants were going to lose because they did not mend bridges with aggreived party members but were searching for unworthy endorsements across the state."

On the eve of the election, many leaders in the APC in Idris Ajimobi’s constituency dumped their party to endorse the PDP’s candidate.

The APC was scrambling for balance in the gubernatorial race and was handicapped to salvage Idris Ajimobi and others in the party contesting for the state assembly.

Ajimobi’s final days as governor were not pleasant 

Aside from the structural failures of the party and Seyi Makinde’s effect, former governor Abiola Ajimobi’s declining popularity among the people at the tail end of his administration played a major part in denying Idris Ajimobi the state assembly seat.

It will also take a lot of goodwill before many can forget how strict Ajimobi’s latter days in office were on the people.

The ripple effect was that the people dashed the hopes of Ajimobi of representing the people of Oyo south senatorial district at the red chamber four years ago.

Ajimobi lost to an “unpopular” candidate in 2019, Kola Balogun, who could neither secure his return ticket to the senate in both PDP (the party he ran under in 2019) and APC (where he joined when it was imminent that he would lose the ticket).

This is not to say that Abiola Ajimobi was a bad governor. He raised the bar of governance in the state.

But his nonpopularity is coming back to hurt his son, Idris Ajimobi’s legislative ambition.