Editorial
Three weeks after the Edo State governorship election, it is the turn of Ondo State in Southwest Nigeria at the ballot box. The ‘Sunshine State’ will take its turn in the spotlight tomorrow, as residents file out to elect their choice for next governorship tenure from among contenders bidding for the top office. Although there are 17 political parties listed by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as fielding torchbearers, the poll is widely seen as a three-way race between incumbent state governor, Mr. Oluwarotimi Akeredolu of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr. Eyitayo Jegede of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Mr. Agboola Ajayi of the Zenith Labour Party (ZLP).
Saturday’s election will be conducted by the electoral commission in 3,009 polling units across 204 registration areas in Ondo’s 18 local government areas. There are 1,822 346 voters on the electoral register, out of which INEC says 1,478,460 are eligible to vote, having picked up their Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs). With the governorship poll holding in the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic, the depth of public interest in the process will largely determine voter turnout tomorrow in a state where the trend historically had stayed below 50 percent of registered voter population. In the 2012 governorship, for instance, 38 percent of registered voters participated; in 2016, the turnout was 35 percent; while in the 2019 presidential election, voter turnout in Ondo was 32.4 percent.
Another factor that may influence voter turnout in this governorship poll is security, given that the build-up to the election was dogged by wildcat violence perpetuated by supporters of the political actors. This phenomenon warranted the signing of a peace accord midwifed by former Head of State Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar-led National Peace Committee, by all candidates and political parties taking part in the election. In an address at the event early this week, INEC Chairman Professor Mahmood Yakubu noted that the tense atmosphere posed formidable threat to conducting the election. He said inter alia: “Without peace, our deployment plans, new innovations in result management, the safety of personnel, security of materials and, above all, the credibility of elections will be undermined.” Also at the event, members of the peace committee, including Gen. Abubakar and Sultan of Sokoto Muhammadu Sa’ad Abubakar III stressed the imperative of peaceful conduct by political actors in ensuring success and credibility of the governorship poll.
For his part, the Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, reassured that the force, which had earlier said 33,783 of its personnel were on posting for the election, would leave nothing to chance in securing the process against breaches. Represented by Deputy Inspector-General Adeleye Oyebade at the event, the police boss said: “We are asking that the electorate should come out; we have enough personnel on (the) ground, (and) we have enough facility to ensure hitch-free election. We are going to improve on what we did in Edo State.”
We join the call for peaceful conduct by political actors because not much success can be achieved with the poll without decorous behaviour by players. The Edo governorship poll offers a model worthy of emulation by all stakeholders in the electoral process and a standard to aim at surpassing. For instance, INEC must be on top of its logistical processes because, besides that there are more polling units/registration areas to work with in Ondo than in Edo, the terrain of certain council areas in Ondo are more hazardous and would require customised approaches to efficiently conducting and securing elections there.
It is also important that the INEC Results Viewing (IRev) portal works as efficiently as in Edo, with its coverage including remote riverine areas of the state. Meanwhile, it is very helpful that the election security architecture already embraces inter-agency collaboration, because certain areas of Ondo are so riverine that the Navy might be more relevant in securing the poll in those places.
All in all, no effort should be spared by all concerned in ensuring that the Ondo governorship meets, if not surpass, the standard set with the Edo poll.
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