EDO GOVERNORSHIP POLL: REJOICE NOT OSHIOMHOLE
The much-talked about July 14, 2012 governorship election in Edo State has come and gone but contending issues around the conduct and outcome of the poll will continue to ricochet in the polity until they are resolved. This is why the beneficiary of the poll, incumbent Governor Adams Oshiomhole, who contested on the platform of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), should be well advised not to rejoice yet or not to even rejoice at all because of the irregularities that typified the process that threw him up.
The totality of the theatrical outburst by Oshiomhole which characterized the accreditation of voters and the conduct of the election by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has exposed the underbelly of the governor’s stratagem: to incite the people (just in case the election did not favour him) by raising the alarm that the electoral body was working in cahoots with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Edo to rig the election in Edo South Senatorial District of the State.
But I was not deceived by the diversionary tactics employed by the comrade governor. Reflecting on his allegation and condemnation of INEC and its Chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega, while the accreditation was still in progress on the Election Day, it is now apparent that Oshiomhole pulled a fast one on the main opposition party (PDP) which was conned into believing that the governor’s rigging plan had been frustrated by the INEC whereas the plan was working out perfectly.
Oshiomhole had said: “if accreditation is to stop by 12pm and by 11 am (it is after 11 am now), there are no materials in some polling booths, it then means Prof. Atahiru Jega and INEC have no plans to conduct election. The whole idea is to frustrate the people so that they will not be able to vote, and they will declare a fake result. Prof Jega and INEC have been an embarrassment to the nation. I am in shock with all the arrangements they have made sensitizing the people; and, I told them, INEC needed to be sensitized. INEC is the weakest link in the Nigerian democratic chain. I have no faith in what INEC is doing in Benin City.
“This is designed for where majority of the people are denied the right to vote and this time around, I have told them this country either decides on whether to move on or move back; I see sponsored editorials saying whatever happens we will go to court, but today we have to sort out the issues once and for all.” In fact, a statement by his Chief Press secretary, Peter Okhiria, wherein the governor’s condemnation was contained, further quoted Oshiomhole to have said he held Jega responsible for the failure of the election and for disenfranchising the people as INEC had connived with the PDP to involve in scientific rigging.
According to Oshiomhole, “They planned it and executed it this way. It is a shame that they have programmed this to embarrass the Nigeria nation. If INEC do not allow the people to vote and they pronounce the winner there will be trouble…. Fifty five percent of voters are in Edo South and forty percent in Benin City, and they think they can deprive the people the opportunity to vote. Prof. Jega has failed us because I wrote a petition that they are buying voters card. We will all go to court before God. They know that if it is two people remaining they will not vote for them.”
These were the intimidation, blackmail and high drama that Oshiomhole introduced into the process, thus making an objective assessment by political watchers extremely difficult. He played the mind game and succeeded in demonizing the INEC and the PDP in the minds of Nigerians as entities who were out to rig the election in Edo State and particularly in Edo South Senatorial District. With this, attention was diverted from the ACN and the totality of its rigging plan, which was then clinically executed.
The outcome of the poll in which the PDP did not win a single local government area raises a critical question against the backdrop of the huge mobilization and campaign by the party? Is the ACN claiming that its government has built infrastructure in every nook and cranny to deserve widespread support; such that it would win the entire Esanland and even the home base of the PDP candidate, whereas, Oshiomhole himself admitted during the governorship debate that his government had built about twenty percent of the infrastructure and that he would continue to do more. So, it is clear that it was not about development in the neglected rural areas. If it was not, then what happened? How did the ACN do it? Time will tell.
But curiously, at the end of the day, Oshiomhole ended up being the beneficiary of an election which he claimed was fraught with irregularities. Trust Oshiomhole’s incredible capacity to approbate and reprobate on the same issue. He had quickly turned round to rationalize the alarm he raised and the allegation he made. And the whole world is probably no longer amused about his repulsive disposition and antics.
Well, the ball is in the court of Edo PDP to explore post-election options that it deems appropriate. If it decides to go to court, then Oshiomhole should be well advised not to rejoice yet. Besides, there are feelers that there is a question mark on the education qualifications Oshiomhole filled in his INEC form. The PDP had published an advertorial signed by its State Publicity Secretary, Mr. Matthew Uroghide, in some newspapers on July 12, 2012, in which it drew the attention of Edo people to the issue. This may present a serious ground for litigation, except the PDP does not want to pursue that option for reasons that may be best known to it. And even if the PDP chooses not to go to court, Oshiomhole should not rejoice because ill-gotten victory will not endure.
But the PDP’s reaction to ACN’s post-election euphoria has been that the election was fraught with irregularities. Even if that line is not pursued in court by the party, the message has been clearly delivered. According to the party, in a statement issued by its Chairman, Dan Orbih, “Just before the close of polls of the July 14, 2012 Governorship Election in Edo State, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, in a reaction before the media, strongly indicted and accused Professor Attahiru Jega and Edo State INEC of colluding with Edo PDP to compromise the integrity of the election. This accusation which arose from the governor’s observations on the conduct of the election is also published in the national newspapers of July 15, 2012 and especially on the front pages of the Sunday Vanguard and Tribune newspapers. In the accusation, Governor Oshiomhole said he will ‘...fight this [INEC] debauchery’.
“Edo PDP agrees totally with Governor Oshiomhole that the election was fraught with high and pervasive irregularities. In addition to the governor’s observed ‘high and pervasive irregularities’, Edo PDP wishes to record the following facts and to make them public: that Edo PDP had, before the election, opposed the use of currently serving NYSC members in Edo State to conduct the elections. Facts abound everywhere that NYSC members used as INEC officiating staff became agents of the ACN, served its purpose and subverted the voting process.
“That in several units, voters were deliberately prevented from voting through non provision of authentic voters’ registers. This action disenfranchised a lot of the voting public in those units; that party agents of the NCP, SDMP, LP and CPC at the polling units became agents of the ACN in order to compromise the process. Some of these agents are known ACN members; and that the released results show a pattern of figures being prearranged. There are infallible reasons to believe that figures had been allocated to the various voting units in the eighteen local government areas long before the election took place.
“That, INEC officials at polling units illegally permitted the use of photocopied and cloned voters’ cards to vote at the centres. This gave rise to multiple voting from people who were not qualified to vote at those centres. It also made it possible for vote figures to be bloated and falsified. You will recall that Governor Oshiomhole at the stakeholders meeting of July 6, 2012 in Benin City tendered some of these cards to INEC Chairman Professor Attahiru Jega as exhibits; and that of the over one million, two hundred registered voters for the election, only a little over six hundred were accredited, a development that was deliberately orchestrated to deregister a larger percentage of voters and deprive them of their right to vote.”
Well, against the backdrop of the above, it will be the height of criminal arrogance for the ACN and its candidate to continue to present to the world the saintly mien simply because they have not been exposed for what they are: scientific riggers. After all, the opposition raised the alarm before the election but the world was deceived by their “one man, one vote” mantra, which the PDP seemed to be genuinely committed to, but which to the ACN was a façade to garb its rigging plan from public perception.
Written By Callistus Omoregie