As the 2020 gubernatorial poll draws near, the people of Ondo State have recently been inundated with series of stories of the deputy governor, Agboola Ajayi running against his boss, Governor Akeredolu in a bid to oust him. But a clear linguistic and media analysis of these publications and attendant rebuttals have shown to be of common source.

In many of these sponsored articles, the deputy governor, was described as "a grassroots politician from the south district", "a rallying point against Akeredolu in 2020", amongst many other qualities, who will run under the PDP, basically to portray a tough status to awe the governor into submission.

The truth is that, based on mountain loads of allegations against the deputy governor which bother on his call to bar, perjury, examination malpractices etc, the governor and those in Ondo APC are already considering not to field him again as Akeredolu's deputy. Hence the recent media upperground and underground swimming to appraise himself, accuse the governor, put up threatening status and at the same time supply rebuttals upon rebuttals to all these which have been emanating from him.

To drive home more intimidation, the plot suggests he is being sponsored by Sokoto State governor, Aminu Tambuwal, considering Hon Adedayo Omolafe as his deputy and "enjoying the supports" of former commissioners like Taofiq Abdulsalam and Solagbade Amodeni, who were recently sacked by the governor.

But only to turn around and apologised to only Governor Tambuwal, for what he called "public embarrassment" and left out others whose names featured in the plot. The questions are, why apologising if you are not the originator of the scam? Why apologise to only Tambuwal and not others?

The plot also has it as a mandate to make it look the stories of the deputy governor’s 2020 plan is directed at what they called "incriminating him and thereby push him out of Governor Rotimi Akeredolu’s second term bid", but obviously a gimmick geared towards seeking a chance of Governor Akeredolu changing his mind to run with him again. But again, this is part of the plot not carefully charted. Will the deputy governor come out openly to denounce this same plan which they even went ahead to threaten would be "a serious crack in Akeredolu’s political block"?

Did the deputy governor publicly apologise to the governor as did to Governor Tambuwal in his rebuttals, for allegations credited to an anonymous within the governor’s cabinet which the plot said stated that he, "Ajayi’s growing popularity and influence may be a reason for the political cold wars" between him and the governor which they said is making "every effort to ensure Ajayi’s political strength is drastically reduced"?

Did the deputy governor in any of his rebuttals, ever apologise to the governor for the reportage purporting that he, Akeredolu took "prompt measures to cut the political influence of his deputy to size", touting the "PDP background" of the deputy governor?

In audience ecosystem, the needs of a population in relation to the content they engage with the most, always determine the migration pattern of such population. That is what is happening if one carefully study the pattern of these publications and attendant rebuttals from the deputy governor. Someone has noticed the migration pattern of Ondo discussants both political and otherwise is no more favouring his continuous stay in office and that of his guber ambition; and has decided to bombard his principal and entire Ondo people with hand of Esau, voice of Jacob game to awe them into submission with fake grassroot acceptability status.

If the deputy governor who is now apologising to only his friend Governor Tambuwal, is that popular as the people are made to believe, how come PDP won his constituency and the southern senatorial district? Is it that the popularity was used against his party, APC and for PDP or the popularity is a concocted one?

Let us call a spade a spade, all the media bliss and the rebuttals on the matter point to one fact, and that is the linguistic fingerprints emanate from the same source. And your guess is as good as mine.

Zebulon is League Coordinator, Ondo Unity League.

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