The much troubled off-season governorship election was finally held last weekend, on the originally scheduled day of September 21, 2024, in Edo, the ‘Heartbeat State’ of Nigeria.
It’s electioneering campaigns by political parties and their candidates were anachronistic, which political pundits had referred to as the most flammable electioneering in the history of the state, and perhaps of the country.
True to most predictions, the pendulum had oscillated, and rested on Senator Monday Okpebholo, the unassuming candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC). Emphasis, that the coveted governor’s crown had eluded Dr. Asue Ighodalo, the dazzling and eloquent candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), the ruling party in the Dennis Osadebey Avenue, as the Edo seat of governorship power is called. Also, Barrister Olumide Akpata, the energetic and youthful flag-bearer of the Labour Party (LP), had also lost out after an energy-sapping contest, which did not only consume huge monies, but also generated public animosity and needless fervour.
The threesome gladiators were the leading candidates in the titanic electioneering and polls, which was keenly contested, amidst tight security, and by several other political parties and their candidates, who most of the voting populace had earlier believed, will not reach the finishing line.
But, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the vested umpire of the elections, has declared the duo of Okpebholo and Idahosa, his running mate, as, winner with 291,667 total votes. Ighodalo and Osarodion Ogie of PDP and the LP’s Akpata and his deputy thus scored 247,274 and 22,763 votes, respectively.
Long before the election, independent public opinions had predicted, based on competing indices about the various parties and the candidates, as it had mostly related to the three major parties and their contestants, that Okpebholo, a sitting Senator, representing the Edo Central Senatorial District, also called ‘Esan Land’, was best placed to win.
It is on record that Ighodalo was the first to set out for the campaign, like the “early Birds with the short and weak beaks, that must reach the tree-base with edible fruits, long before those having longer and stronger beaks..
But giving credence to a successful conduct of the election by INEC, with the backing of the various bodies, the elections was hailed by the Centre for Credible Leadership and Citizens Awareness (CCLCA). In its post-election commentaries, the CCLCA, who monitored the exercise, with 51 various bodies of election monitors, that are duly recognized by INEC, had declared that the election was generally free, fair and credible, and that INEC and other supportive security bodies, had conformed with most of the standards.
Against the backdrops of a professed ‘successful election conduct’, Governor Obaseki, Candidate Ighodalo, the PDP and its supporters, have clamped down on the election exercise, calking it one that was rigged by INEC, as directed by the APC-led government of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Pointedly, their accusation was that APC and INEC had inflated figures at Edo North Senatorial District, Oredo and Egor LGAs of Edo South zone and in some other areas.
Mr. Akpata, LP’s candidate had wailed that the results of the elections were rigged by the various governors, particularly of the APC, who came into the state during the polls, alleging further that the governors had emptied the coffers of their various states to rig the election for APC. For a candidate, who was similarly alleged to have ‘dollarised’ a primary contest, in which he triumphed as LP’s flag-bearer, it would be imperative to ask whatever business was there when Mr. Peter Obi, the former LP presidential candidate and Governor Oti, the LP governor of Abia State, had to do in Benin City, when they also came to campaign for him and LP?
But, the writer of this article, being a longtime monitor of elections and democracy, had also envisaged Okpebholo as winner of the polls. And through an article published about a month ago, entitled “Issues and Prognosis of 2024 Edo Governorship Election”, he simply investigated and submitted that the situational pluses and odds on ground, were bound to favour Okpebholo and his APC. And he premised the planks of the election on “A Clash of Two Incumbency: where PDP as the ruling party in Edo State, would cross the lines of the APC vice versa, given that the party rules at the centre. .
This writer also cited the then ‘widely-held-believe- that Mr. Obaseki, the outgoing incumbent governor of the state, had dismally performed, in the terms of infrastructure and social service delivery. And that it was going to lead to the failure of Ighodalo, where the governor allegedly imposed him on the PDP. His said imposition, which had annoyed many PDP leaders, had caused them to decamp in drones to APC.
The Legacy, the dominant faction of the PDP, as shepherded by Chief Dan Orbih, PDP’s National Chairman for the South-South geo-political zone, was bound to spoil it for the governor and his candidate, as it is so glaring that both men had actually been caught by the iron traps set for them at the polling units
Governor Obaseki had naively created ‘powerful political enemies’ for himself, as that was earlier predicted to incur the wraths of big-wig politicians across APC, where he got the first ticket and in the PDP, that was magnanimous to give him a return ticket, when APC denied him of it. All through both parties, the governor had filed out a ‘raw deal’, with him seen as a promise breaker and one who dumps friends after using them.
It is also on record that Governor Obaseki is quarrelsome and possesses an uncanny nature for needless confrontation, where he fights all who are real and imagine ‘foes’. And it is upheld that the governor manufactures enemies when there are none to fight.
After a prolonged hateful fight with Adams Oshiomhole, the very man, who made him a governor, he went further to help plot his removal from the office of APC National Chair, before going for the jugulars of Prince Clem Agba, a husband of the governor’s half-sister, whom the governor deposed his traditional ruler. The governor, who has a weiry knack for persecuting his helpers, like he did to Agba and Oshiomhole, had decimated all who had twice assisted him to power.
He also unduly impeached Philip Shaibu, his deputy and a confidant, who had fought back to retain his number two position from the law court.
The governor’s disrespect for Edo traditional rulers, knows no bound. He had failed in his hazardous experiment to decrease the revered Ewuare II, the Oba of Benin. The governor had attempted but failed to wrest for himself and his cronies, the stolen artifacts being repatriated from overseas countries, to Benin in the name of Edo State government. Whereas, they were looted from the Oba Palace in 1897, when Obaseki’s immediate biological father was not yet born and Edo State, that he now governs, was not yet created, let alone the Nigeria entity..
He thereby disobeyed the decision of ex-President Muhammad Buhari, whose Federal Government, gazette the artifacts as bonafide property of the Benin Traditional Council, where the respected monarch holds sway. Further more, Obaseki had attempted, but failed to balkanize the Benin kingdom by goading some gullible Benin chiefs to rebel against the kingdom and create division within. Perhaps, the governor wanted to book a prized portion in the Guinness Book of Records, as the one, who had dismantled the world’s oldest kingdom.
And at the grassroots, whereupon his power derives, Obaseki needlessly punished his workers, such as the lecturers of Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, whose backlog of salaries remained unpaid.. Industrial disputes had been rampantly and full-blown at Ekiadolor College of Education, Igueben College of Education, College of Agriculture, Iguoriakhi etc. where he laid off their workers without salaries and and suddenly closed up the schools.
For years, he also left numerous pensioners unpaid and heeded not to their pleas and street protests
In another vein, he disbanded the Okaighele, the youth age-groups in the seven local government areas of Edo South senatorial zone
In more reckless decisions, which pitched hundreds of local communities against him and his government, Mr. Obaseki had grabbed vast forest reserves and family-owned lands, which belongs to local communities, for his business associates and fronts. These had dispossessed farmers, loggers, peasants and other land users, with attendant destruction to community lifestyles, thus worsening deforestation and environmental degradation. The local communities cut across ten LGAs of the state, who also waited this long to throw out Ighodalo, his anointed candidate
In the gruesome buildups to the polls, the Edo populace had perched on a delicate edge of uncertainty and lethal threats. For Governor Obaseki had evolved a violent electioneering campaign and proposed a bloody poll. Once at the University of Benin campus, Mr. Akpata, the LP candidate, had accused him and his government of masterminding some deadly attacks, within the campus, in which he (Akpata), was nearly lynched by some unruly students of the school.
Soon after, a police inspector, Onu Akor, was shot down by armed thugs, in Benin, while he was on duty as an orderly to Senator Okpebholo. Obaseki and his government were also alleged to have influenced the broad daylight attacks. And instead of empathizing with the slain police and his family, the governor and his aides were vexing that the eventual arrests of PDP supports, as suspects in the murder, will spark a violent disturbance, in Edo, which would spread around the country.
And his latest threats was that the election was ‘a do or die’ affair, added to his refusal to sign a peace deal, which other candidates and party had voluntarily signed. And his threat statements had brought in more security presence in the election, with the presence of the army, because they didn’t want to take to chances.
The governor, who had earlier condemned the huge presence of security and soldiers as undue militarisation, was the first to commend the army’s Chief of Defence Staff, as having done a commendable job
But, if not for the Obaseki’s vociferous calls for electoral violence, the intended presence of the security men, particularly the military in his Edo South zone, would not have instilled palpable fears into voters of Benin City, who mostly boycotted the election for the obvious reason.
Indeed, Governor Obaseki had attained power, twice, through the overwhelming support of the mass of Edo voters, some benevolent gestures, which he paid the people back with evil and cosmetic projects, that have no bearings with the public. And he had been held in circumspect by the same voters. Getting to vote Asue Ighodalo, Obaseki’s anointed candidate, who promised to continue with the governor’s obnoxious Legacy, is the same thing as Governor Obaseki having a third term in office. It is more so that Mr. Ighodalo, himself, being an Economic Advisor in the Governor Obaseki’s disastrous outing in the state, is the same thing as Obaseki’s enlongation in office.
Pointedly, it is not INEC nor APC that rigged the election, *but the dominant voters of Edo State, who chanted ‘Ofonee’, an Edo parlance for “It Is Over”!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tony Erha, a journalist, pro-democracy activist and election monitor, writes from Abuja
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