By Bola BOLAWOLE
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The Edo State governorship election 2024 has come and gone but, as usual, its reverberations will remain with us for some time to come. As expected, the All Progressives Congress (APC) that was declared the winner of the election has not only judged the election credible but also praised the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the umpire, to high heavens. Conversely, the losers, led by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party (LP), have declared the election tainted, alleging rigging and other forms of manipulation by INEC and the APC. INEC, to them, has not lived up to expectations.
Had the shoe been on the other foot, the same PDP reaction is what we would have received from APC, the winners. To be sure, there is no election here that is not manipulated, and the manipulation is generally perpetrated by all the leading parties concerned; only that one succeeds better than the others for many reasons. These reasons include the popularity of the parties, how deep their pockets are, incumbency factor (at federal and state level), the internal cohesion of the parties, public perception of the parties and their candidates, and local politics, since every politics is local. All these were the factors that came into play to decide the winners of the Edo governorship election.
Was the election free and fair? Substantially, maybe; but absolutely, no way! And it couldn’t have been otherwise! Not with the hunger in the land! Reports have it that vote selling and vote buying were rampant before and during the election. I do not think any of the leading political parties can exonerate themselves from being a party to it. Even when day-to-day existential living was not as bad as it is now, vote selling and vote buying were rampant. The challenging economic situation should be expected to make matters worse.
Most times, the focus is on vote buying while we neglect the first leg of the problem, which is vote selling. If there are no willing sellers, there can be no willing buyers. While it is true that people are lured or enticed to sell their vote, they still technically reserve the right to say “No” if they have the political will. If we conduct a public poll, we are likely to find that the percentage of those forced to sell will not be as high as those who willingly agree or offer to sell. When, during the countdown to the election, I read that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) had flooded Edo with its operatives to discourage vote selling and vote buying, I laughed! How many operatives can the EFCC possibly deploy to the entire state? And what is the guarantee that the EFCC operatives themselves will operate above board? Yinka Odumakin’s book, “Hunting the Hunter”, and the many stories of recovered loots being re-looted again give no one any confidence that the outfits engaged in the fight against corruption do not harbour bad eggs in their own midst.
Why do voters sell their vote? Poverty and ignorance have been advanced as the two major reasons why this happens. This is a very powerful and dangerous combination. A saying of the elders is that when hunger enters a stomach, nothing else finds its way there. Even for those who understand that it is bad to sell votes, if they have hunger or lack to contend with, many are likely to choose the option of momentary gain to satisfy their present and urgent need, like biblical Esau sold his birthright for a mess of pottage (Genesis 25: 29 – 34). Esau trivialised the value or importance of his birthright, just as many voters trivialise the value and importance of their vote. By the time Esau realised what he had lost, it was too late for him to make amends (Hebrews 12: 16 – 17).
Pontifications about voter-power become lost to people whacked by poverty; and so also to the genuinely ignorant. According to some statistics, the illiteracy level in Nigeria is 31 percent, which is about 70 million of its touted population of 220 million. I am sure you understand that literacy, the ability to read and write, is not the same thing as sound and proper education. When we speak of the latter, the likelihood is that educated Nigerians may not be more than half of its population. Going a step further to talk of political education, sophistication and enlightenment, it is not likely that we can beat our chest for more than a quarter of the country’s population in that regard.
Poverty is a destroyer. Statistics state that 63 percent of Nigerians are multi-dimensionally poor; that is, close to 150 million Nigerians. What this means is that millions of literate Nigerians have also joined the ranks of the poor. What it also means is that education is no longer a force that lifts people out of poverty. One can be educated and yet be poor. The value the country is supposed to reap from its educated elements is thus lost to their being poor. With more and more Nigerians, poverty and illiteracy are merging in one and the same person. The fact that there is little or no difference between the person who went to school and the folks who did not has made education cease being an incentive for those who want to escape poverty.
This problem is further compounded by the way education is being priced beyond the reach of millions of our people. The tragedy of the situation is that as expensive as education is, ignorance is still by far more expensive. I once listened to an advertisement on the radio that said, if you think education is expensive, try ignorance! I think our leaders are taking that advice to heart with the way they are jerking up school fees and other appurtenances that go with education. The more ignorant and poor Nigerians become, the more willing tools they are in the hands of all manner of manipulators.
Why do leaders buy votes? They do when they have failed or have deliberately neglected to deliver the dividends of democracy to the people. They come into office promising heaven and earth but the moment they get what they want, they deviate and become unreachable to the same people that have voted them into office. They begin to pursue selfish interests, looting the resources that should have been leveraged to provide for the basic needs of the people. They salt money abroad. They buy properties in Dubai. They steal their state blind and leave the people more pauperised than they had met them. When election comes and they have nothing to showcase as their achievements in office, they resort to bribing voters and buying votes.
Because the people are desperately poor – and also because they have been brainwashed and rendered irredeemably helpless – they accept the peanuts they are offered because they reckon that head or tail, they lose! They resign to fate and the politrickcians, as they are called, have the whole field to themselves. The powerful outmuscles the weak. It makes no sense dying to support one politician against the other. They are six and half a dozen; the pot calling the kettle black; birds of a feather; and different fingers of the same leprous hand.
That said, the PDP lost in Edo for many reasons. One: Since the 2023 presidential elections, things have not been at ease with the party. Five of its governors, led by the then Gov. Nyesom Wike of Rivers State, broke ranks and refused to support Atiku Abubakar, the party’s presidential flagbearer. The party is yet to heal from that implosion. So, it went into the Edo governorship election limping. To make matters worse, it has the party at the Centre to contend with. Federal might as well as the combined force of APC governors became damn too much of a tsunami for the PDP to contend with.
If all politics is local, then, the outgoing Edo state governor, Godwin Obaseki, did not play his local politics well. Some reports say he has nothing to show as development strides in the state except the prompt payment of salaries. That allegation might have been exaggerated, as is characteristic of politicians. But what can we say of his inability to keep his deputy, Philip Shaibu, within the fold and also better manage his relationship with the influential Oba of Benin?
The tragedy of Adolf Hitler who opened up the Russian war front while yet to master western Europe teaches of the perils of fighting on many fronts at one and the same time. By squaring up to the octopus called the APC; fighting his one-time war commander Philip Shuaibu; and snubbing the revered Oba of Benin – and doing all of this without a solid, impregnable and impenetrable PDP behind him – Obaseki bit more than he could chew and got choked.
However, the PDP’s strong showing in the election is an indication they could have won but Obaseki’s bad politics robbed them of victory. But after the June 12, 1993 presidential election, when shall this country again celebrate another election that will be generally acclaimed nationally and internationally as free, fair, and credible?
Former Editor of PUNCH newspapers, Chairman of its Editorial Board and Deputy Editor-in-chief, BOLAWOLE was also Managing Director/ Editor-in-chief of The WESTERNER newsmagazine. He writes the ON THE LORD’S DAY column in the Sunday TRIBUNE and TREASURES column in NEW TELEGRAPH newspaper on Wednesdays. He is also a public affairs analyst on radio and television.