Boroffice
Gani Muhammed is the Director of Media and Publicity, Boroffice Campaign Organisation (BCO). He spoke with inner room Linda Bankole on virtues of the Senator representing Ondo North District and governorship aspirant in Ondo State, Senator Ajayi Boroffice and the reason behind his popularity. Excerpts
What motivated you to be one of the team players for governorship ambition of Sen. Ajayi Boroffice?
My primary motivation is the sourcing for a competent hand that can lead Ondo State out of its present parlous state. You will recall that Ondo State was at the verge of emerging as one of the few most prosperous states in Nigeria when this present regime of Governor Olusegun Mimiko came on board. We have since left our long term economic planning for the short-run socio-economic policies bothering on surge of pulse that services the intent of playing to the gallery. And I looked around from among the horde of aspirants in APC; Senator Ajayi Boroffice is standing taller from among those who fit the billings.
What kind of personality is the Asiwaju of Akokoland?
I came to know the Asiwaju of Akokoland for the first time about 25 years ago when Akoko youth leaders, drawn from all the 54 communities of Akokoland, compiled the names of the sons and daughters of the Land who had impacted Akokoland most and his name came up so prominently.
Two things stood him out from among our brothers and sisters who made the list; honesty and compassion. He takes more than passing interest in youth development and he is always ready to build carriers of the people he meets.
Remember, Akokoland made him Asiwaju for his supports for the land long before he joined politics. He had and he has continued to be of greater assistance to many people apart from people in Akokoland.
Recently, one of the aspirants, Mr. Rotimi Akeredolu (SAN), said Boroffice is not as popular as people were made to believe. What is your opinion on this?
It is quite unfortunate that Mr. Rotimi Akeredolu, a huge beneficiary of Boroffice’s popularity, would say such a thing. I think dirty politics should not be given this much space in the mind of a decent and responsible personality like Barrister Akeredolu. Our sense of appreciation as decent gentlemen should prevail over an ephemeral political ambition.
Just few years ago, precisely 2012, Akeredolu was a gubernatorial candidate of the defunct ACN in Ondo State and won election in three of the eighteen 18 local government areas of the state, and among the three local government areas won was the Sen. Boroffice’s own local government area.
It may interest you to know that Boroffice’s own local government area was the most challenging for Akeredolu’s ACN because Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, who was Akeredolu’s opponent in the said election, had a number of principal officers of his regime from the local government; Mimiko’s Deputy was from the local government, others from this single local government were, a ranking member of House of Representatives, two federal commissioners, an ambassador, the Deputy-Speaker of Ondo State House of Assembly, two cabinet commissioners with Dr. Mimiko, two members of Ondo State House of Assembly, numerous special assistants since the local government has the highest number of wards, 15. And the “unpopular” Boroffice won election for Akeredolu’s gubernatorial bid under ACN.
Earlier in 2011, Gov. Mimiko, the determiner of who got what ticket in his Labour Party (LP) had settled for Dr. Olu Agunloye to fly his party’s senatorial ticket in Ondo North. But unfortunately for Dr. Agunloye, this was at a time when Gov. Mimiko came under the intense pressure from both the royal fathers and the people of the senatorial district that their preferred Senator was Boroffice with a moderated threat that if Mimiko rejected their choice, they would have no option than to present Prof. Boroffice for the senate on the platform of another party.
Mimiko, who realised his quantum of popularity, succumbed to the reality which Boroffice represented.
The 2015 general elections in Nigeria were another set of latest political tests of popularity for Prof Ajayi Boroffice, where he did not only win his return ticket to the upper chamber of the National Assembly, but his youthful Personal Legislative Assistant was elected to the lower chamber of the same National Assembly and the three (3) out five (5) APC members in Ondo State House of Assembly were made by this “unpopular” Boroffice. Two of which are his own local government seats in the state Assembly.
With due respect to other leaders of Akeredolu’s own local government, he lost one of the two seats of the State Assembly in his local government.
What made him popular among other aspirants?
It is obvious from my narrative above that Boroffice is a true version of popularity. He has never lost any election in his political history; he has never presented a candidate and failed in his life and he left Labour Party, the controlling party in Ondo State, he did not go to the PDP that controlled the senate and the federal apparatus then. But he chose the least influential of all in Ondo state, the ACN, and still defeated a political institution in the image of Sen. Bode Olajumoke who had PDP tickets twice and consecutively. These could not have been accidents.
Let any of these aspirants with such records show it; I throw this as a challenge even to you the journalists operating in this state over years.
Do you believe Boroffice will emerge as the APC flag-bearer?
Yes, it is very obvious from the variables for winning primary elections.
What gives you this impression?
Like for instance, he is not a new comer to the gubernatorial contest in the progressive political family of Ondo State. He built his structures across the state in the build-up to the 2012 gubernatorial primary in ACN, but in the wisdom of the party leaders, he was not allowed to participate in the primary because there was no primary
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