Osun election: Matters arising
By Ikechukwu Amaechi
Nigerians are an excitable lot. It is, therefore, not surprising that the outcome of the August 15 off-cycle Osun governorship election is generating so much buzz. To be sure, the outcome calls for celebration because for the first time in a long while, the will of the people prevailed in an election. And it prevailed not because attempts were not made by the powers-that-be to replicate the September 21, 2024 Edo State governorship election heist. Till date, the beneficiary of that abracadabra, an open sesame of sorts, sits comfortably on the purloined mandate while the winner is languishing in political purgatory.
It almost happened in Osun last Saturday but for the determination of the longsuffering people of the State who, individually and collectively, vowed like the biblical Queen Esther that: “If I perish, I perish,” rather than allow political vampires have their way.
And their unflinching resolve paid off handsomely. Officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) behaved themselves. Security operatives respected their calling. Sensing that they may not live to tell tales of their violent exploits, political thugs mobilised from far and near to cause mayhem played safe. By 2 am on Sunday, the game was over. President Bola Tinubu, the leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC) called to congratulate Governor Ademola Adeleke, and APC chieftains who had invaded the state to do what they know how best – manipulation of election results – scurried out of town with their tails between their legs: in deep shame, humiliation and utter defeat.
Unlike what happened in Edo two years ago when a deafening silence enveloped the State after INEC announced the dubious result, Osun erupted in celebrations when the INEC Returning Officer, Prof Joshua Ogunwole, announced the final result early Sunday morning declaring Adeleke, the Accord Party candidate, winner with 511,067 votes and victory in 19 of the State’s 30 local governments. The APC candidate Bola Oyebamiji polled 444,815 votes and secured victory in 11 councils, while the African Democratic Congress (ADC) candidate, Najeem Salaam, received a paltry 17,180 votes.
According to the electoral umpire, a total of 1,010,684 voters were accredited. The election recorded 985,079 valid votes, 207 rejected ballots and 1,005,800 total votes cast. With the last of the 15 candidates, Saliu Oyelami of the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP), garnering only 83 votes, Adeleke’s 511,067 votes was more than the votes of the 14 other candidates put together. He earned the political epaulet on his shoulder.
But I am not ululating despite my excitement that Osun people made the APC and its conceited leaders kiss the dust. Why? Because the Osun governorship election has demonstrated, once again, how jaded Nigeria’s so-called democracy is.
On the eve of the election, several APC governors, federal lawmakers, including Senate President Godswill Akpabio, and high-ranking party leaders with their retinue of aides and heavily-armed, ferocious-looking security details invaded Osun with sacks of money taken, no doubt, from the public till without authorisation. Their goal? To compromise the ballot by subverting the electoral will of the people.
That was crass irresponsibility. Granted, political parties have the constitutional right to campaign, mobilise supporters and deploy legitimate party structures in prosecuting electoral battles, but the motive of those who exported their nuisance value to Osun on Election Day when campaign had ended could have been anything but altruistic. What business, for instance, had Akpabio in Osun on August 15 when he is neither an indigene nor INEC official?
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Former President Goodluck Jonathan made that point succinctly on Tuesday when he warned that: “There is a point at which political mobilisation, particularly when it involves the overwhelming presence of serving governors, senior public officials and powerful political actors from across the country on Election Day, can create an atmosphere of apprehension, intimidation, bullying and undue pressure.”
Such egregious political conducts are antithetical to the spirit of free and fair democratic competition and hardly happens in other democratic climes. But I doubt if any anyone is surprised. In a country where the president says “all is fair in politics,” political contests easily become wars of attrition.
I am happy that the APC was worsted but not celebrating because Adeleke’s victory came at a very high cost. A Pre-Election Security Risk Assessment (ESRA) by the Kimpact Development Initiative (KDI) recorded no fewer than 73 election-related violent incidents which resulted in 29 deaths.
The report lamented the strategic deployment of political, criminal, operational, social, coercive and information pressures to intimidate voters, suppress turnout and influence electoral outcomes. The huge presence of APC governors, lawmakers and party officials who had no business in Osun on August 15 was in furtherance of that devious plot.
Nigeria, the democracy outlier
I am not celebrating because truth be told, democracy is retreating, not blossoming, in Nigeria particularly under Tinubu’s pugnacious watch. And the continued militarisation of the electioneering process is a proof. In most countries, even in Africa, election days don’t take unnecessary toll on citizens.
Nigeria is an outlier to that precept as Osun proved most conclusively. The State was totally shut down last Saturday, with the police deploying 15,000 personnel that included 30 Commissioners – one for each of the 30 local governments – and a Deputy Inspector-General. The deployment started three weeks prior to the election, together with helicopters and drone units for aerial surveillance. Two Mobile Police Force (MPF) units, each comprising over 60 personnel, were deployed to the INEC headquarters in Osogbo, and each local government area had a unit to boot; Deputy Commissioner of Police in each local government, as well as a Mobile Police Commander and a PMF commander with the rank of Assistant Commissioner of Police. All these are beside the over 10,000 personnel from other paramilitary agencies like the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC).
To complete the lockdown, the Army was brought in to cordon off all the border roads leading into Osun. Now, consider the fact that all these deployments were for a standalone election in one of the smallest states in the country by landmass. Osun ranks as the 9th smallest state by total land area, covering approximately 9,251 square kilometres.
INEC is not left out. The Commission deployed 16 Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) from different states of the federation as “helping hands” to the Osun State REC making them 17 for the election that took place in just 3,700 polling units? So, what will happen in 2027 when elections will hold in all the 36 states simultaneously?
Adeleke’s misplaced appreciation
Though contestation for power in every clime is a serious matter, it is basically a contest of ideas. So, when Senator Francis Fadahunsi, who represents Osun East Senatorial District, recklessly makes an incendiary statement that promotes political killings, one cannot help but shudder.
“From now on, whenever you see Accord members, kill them. I authorise you to kill them. They have wives and children too. This is a Federal Government election. On election day, even if they come with voter cards, we won’t allow them to vote,” he told his thugs on the eve of the poll.
Many Nigerians are appalled that anyone could make such a call. But what can one realistically expect from a member of a political party whose leader claims that all is fair in politics? All being fair in politics, in Fadahunsi’s understanding, includes murdering opposition members.
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has called for his suspension from the Senate and immediate arrest. But I wager a bet: Nothing will happen. He is one of Tinubu’s disciples.
And that is the reason why Adeleke’s praise for the president is grossly misplaced. Tinubu and his political party threw the kitchen sink at him. There was nothing that the APC did to subvert the electoral will of the people and upstage Adeleke that didn’t have his buy-in.
Nothing! So, what was the praise singing for?
The Tinubu-led administration withheld statutory allocations to Osun local governments running into billions of Naira. There was an attempt to use the courts to deregister Accord Party in order to forestall Adeleke’s candidacy. When that failed, federal agencies, including the Nigerian police, became unashamedly biased and selective in their enforcement actions in the state. The First Lady, Remi Tinubu, humiliated him in Osogbo by snatching the microphone from him at a public event. All these are calculated political gimmicks aimed at diminishing his standing with the people and eroding his electoral appeal.
Then on August 5, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), imposed a Post-No-Debit (PND) restriction on three of the state’s accounts in order to starve his administration financially before the election. It only took an “embarrassed” and the ever-benevolent godfather, Tinubu, to order the EFCC to back off. Another deceit from the trick bag of a man to whom all is fair in politics. Gullible Nigerians praised the president for his magnanimity. But anyone who believes the EFCC chairman, Ola Olukoyede, unilaterally took that decision may well believe anything. But that is not how this system works.
That is why Adeleke’s praise for Tinubu’s illusory role in ensuring that democracy ‘lives on’ rankles. A position that now feeds into the harebrained claim of FCT Minister Nyesom Wike that he won the elction because Tinubu allowed free and fair poll.
That is a lie from the pit of hell. Adeleke won because the good people of Osun staked their all for him. He won in spite of the machinations of Tinubu and the APC, not because “agreement is agreement.” But the very idea that it takes the magnanimity of Tinubu to guarantee a free and fair election should be a cautionary note to Nigerians as 2027 inches closer.
