Since stepping in the saddle in November 2008 as governor of Edo State through the Court of Appeal judgment, which terminated the tenancy of Professor Oserhiemen Osunbor of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Comrade Adams Aliu Oshiomhole has tried to ensconce himself in the consciousness of Edo people as an electoral puritan, one who is committed to the sanctity of the electoral box.
He has smartly come across to the vast majority of the people of the state as a politician with capacity to deliver free, fair and transparent election. The labour unionist-turned politician began a process of strategically demonizing the PDP and stigmatizing its leaders as duplicitous manipulators and election riggers who should not be trusted with the mandate of the people.
In his exertion to supplant and render them as electoral liabilities, he preoccupied himself with propagating the ‘one-man-one-vote’ mantra. He rationalized it as being a potent force to stop ballot box stuffing and snatching as well as other forms of election rigging. But it turned out that it was a mantra of deception carefully orchestrated and choreographed to conceal his political guile.
He was able to, in most of the series of elections that preceded the 2012 governorship election in the state, deploy subterfuge to ensure the defeat of the PDP. The PDP was programmed to collapse in the Edo North and Edo South Senatorial zones through the instrumentality of shadiness at the polls. The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) turned All Progressive Congress (APC) has continued to win in all levels of elections in two zones.
It was only in Edo Central Senatorial Zone (populated by the Ishans) that Oshiomhole has not had a smooth ride. The agenda to take over the zone has met with strong resistance from the Iyasele of Esanland and current Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the PDP, Chief Anthony Anenih. Anenih’s political machinery had ensured that the PDP won the only senate seat, the two House of Representatives seats and five out of the six State House of Assembly seats in the 2011 general elections.
That was in spite of Oshiomhole’s deployment of government machinery to dismantle Anenih’s structure in the zone. Having failed, attention had shifted to the 2012 governorship election, in which internal and external forces conspired to massively manipulate the election against the PDP such that the party, according to the results announced by the electoral body, lost in Uromi, the home town of Anenih.
The local government elections were to follow on the heels of the governorship election in April, this year. Oshiomhole and his party men, acting in cahoots with the Edo State Independent Electoral Commission (EDSIEC), devised strategies to return their candidates as winners of the eighteen local government councils. The outcomes of the polls aligned with their predetermination. The EDSIEC returned ACN (now APC) as winner of the polls in seventeen local government areas.
Citing alleged violence, the Solomon Ogoh-led EDSIEC had cancelled the election in Esan North-East Local Government, which is Anenih’s base. The Works Minister, Architect Mike Onolememen, is also from the area. The cancellation was understandable: election results from the eleven wards in the local government had shown that they were all won by the PDP including the chairmanship election which was won by a former Chairman of the Local Government, Hon. John Yakubu, whose performance while in office, is still adjudged as the best in the annals of the council area.
The people decided to, once more, entrust their mandate in Yakubu with 11,543 to defeat ACN’s candidate, Sam Oboh, who scored 6, 173 votes. The same pattern was reflected in the councillorship elections where PDP candidates won all the eleven wards with a cumulative total of 11,333 to ACN’s 7,977. But the ACN administration which was determined to “score,” in its own words, “eighteen over eighteen local government areas,” decided to short-circuit Yakubu from taking custody of his mandate. The eleven PDP councilors were also frustrated from assuming office on the strength of the election outcomes.
Officials of EDSIEC who were supposed to announce the results abandoned their duty posts and fled when it became apparent that the PDP candidates had won. After tarrying for six months, the state government gave the go-ahead to EDSIEC to conduct a rerun election in the local government area. In fact, the same scenario that happened in the Thursday, April 25, 2013 cancelled election was re-enacted in the rescheduled election on Tuesday, October 22, 2013.
Both parties had mobilized for the election in which four parties, namely Accord, APC, Labour Party and PDP, fully participated. But this time round, the ward returning officers announced the councillorship election results all of which were won by the PDP candidates in the eleven wards and were issued certificates of return. Neither the APC nor the other two parties that contested against the PDP have disputed the report that all PDP councilors won the elections in the eleven wards. The sore point of the election was the chairmanship slot.
In the chairmanship election, the result sheet available to all electoral officers showed that PDP’s Yakubu scored 11,332 votes while APC’s Oboh scored 6143 votes. Accord candidate scored 10 votes while the Labour Party candidate scored 12 votes. The chairmanship election results from the wards were said to be ready for collation by the Local Government Returning Officer who fled on discovering that the PDP candidate had won. The EDSIEC Chairman, Solomon Ogoh, apparently acting under instruction, announced, far away in Benin, the APC candidate winner, who according to him, polled 12,672 votes to defeat PDP candidate who polled 3,314 even when voting in some wards and collation were yet to be concluded.
But the EDSIEC as of the time of writing this piece had not given ward-by-ward breakdown of how the APC garnered that figure; whereas the PDP in, a paid advertorial, two days after the election, displayed the results of the councillorship and chairmanship elections. The APC is yet to contradict the figures published by the PDP. Indeed what was of utmost significance and urgency to Oshiomhole, in the circumstance of the exercise, was the swearing in of Oboh, who was said to have been roundly defeated by Yakubu.
Electoral impunity has no name other than this. The ‘one-man-one-vote’ mantra chanting comrade governor surpassed himself in the brazen electoral manipulation for which he has over the years accused the PDP. This is also chicanery. But Oshiomhole would appear not to care that he has, by his odious conduct, exposed his hypocrisy.
In any case, it is not that he was a real puritan before now. The point is that he had all the while succeeded in disguising as a patron saint in matters of transparent electoral process; he seizes every opportunity to sing and dance to the mantra of credible election; whereas, he had been the drum major of electoral manipulation of the subtle and deceptive kind.
A question that propped up, as an aside, is: why was he desperate to wrest Esan North East Local Government Council Chairmanship from the PDP, which won it fair and square, beyond the rhetoric of 18 over 18 Local Government Council Areas? The governor has abridged people’s right to free choice and alternatives; otherwise he should not have foisted on them a candidate that they did not give their majority votes to.
Unfortunately, the governor has not shown any remorse at the electoral perfidy that he blatantly committed in Esan North-East Local Government Chairmanship election. Rather, he has been justifying and defending the lurid and the ridiculous. Oshiomhole has obviously redefined, nay abandoned his mantra and dropped his garb of pretence of being a democrat and electoral reformer. He has now turned full cycle in election manipulation. How shameful! This is, indeed, tragic!
Momodu contributed this piece from Benin City via johnsonmomodu@yahoo.com
