Why would Fayemi lose? he asked, and the soldier simply told him that even if Ekiti people voted from then till the next morning, PDP had already won, having pre-programmed the ballot papers
General Buhari and Professor Osinbajo are not by any means men without fault. But they are our men for the job in the presidency at this point of our national history. The Buhari-Osinbajo presidency will not be an accidental or a reluctant presidency. These are two individuals with convictions of great possibilities for the nation. These are two men of courage: courage to follow through with great ideas; courage to take sides with the poor and the vulnerable; courage to do the right thing in the interest of the nation. The Buhari-Osinbajo presidency might be the beginning of our true democratic experience -the era where government is beholden to the people’ -Gbemi Jaiyebo, New York.
The more popular Buhari gets, and he is catching on like wild fire, the more desperate to rig, PDP gets. Chief Olu Falae has not stopped bemoaning his 1999 loss to Obasanjo, claiming the election was rigged. Many were killed in 2003 as thugs ensured that election results were declared for the PDP. It was worst in the Southwest where, anxious to outdo Awo, Obasanjo completely outmaneuvered the AD governors, except in Lagos. Suffice for the 2007 election to say that the late President Yar’ Adua was scandalised enough to publicly confess that he was rigged into office. Unfortunately, such sense of shame has since departed the PDP; otherwise they would not be grandstanding, celebrating a non-existent transparency in the 2011 elections during which fake ballot papers, printed at an Abuja press named in General Buhari’s pleadings at the Presidential Election Tribunal, were flying all around. Ditto Ogun and Akwa Ibom, two PDP states. In more recent elections, Governor Adams Oshiomhole was close to tears describing to press men the shameless rigging and brigandage witnessed in an election in the Local Government Area of a top PDP chieftain in Edo State. Readers of this column are by now familiar with my take on the ’16:0 defeat’ of a sitting governor by now Governor Ayo Fayose of the PDP in Ekiti.
Circumstances surrounding the Ekiti election which Professor Wole Soyinka aptly described as a mystery, and the call by Professor Bolaji Akinyemi, for a Memorandum of Undertaking which would see Jonathan and Buhari order/direct their supporters to accept the result of the presidential election, willy nilly, irrespective of the integrity of the process, in order to avoid any post electoral crisis, are the very reasons for this article at a time we should still be singing ‘Silent night’.
Musliu Obanikoro, former, as well as, incoming State Minister for Defence, has been gloating and boasting concerning the 2015 election. The gentleman has been fouling the air around since he lost the governorship primary election to Mr Jimi Agbaje, believed by party leaders to have better electoral value. But having now successfully got back his ministerial position, which many believe was the reason for all the noise, he has headed to press interviews in celebration. In the interview, published in the Punch of Sunday, 28 December, 2015, Obanikoro declared assuredly:
“Ogunlewe said in his interview with Sunday Punch that he doesn’t know whether the PDP will win in the Southwest. He said it is not yet time for him to talk about that. But it is time for me to talk about it. I can tell you that we are going to win. The president is going to win BIG; WE ARE GOING TO CLEAR THE SOUTHWEST. YOU CAN MARK TODAY’S DATE AND QUOTE ME’. Obanikoro may be everything Bode George and Seye called him but, they cannot contest the fact that this man knows much more than they do about PDP’s behind the scene escapades. For instance, while it is doubtful if any of George or Seye knows anything about how the Ekiti election was won and lost, Obanikoro can beat his chest and claim he was one of the high priests of that strange election. It is for that reason that, like Wike in Rivers State, Obanikoro almost fought to the death to be the PDP candidate in Lagos State, in the sure knowledge that he will win BIG. For Obanikoro to successfully controvert any of these, he must explain to Nigerians what exactly he was doing in Ekiti during the election. This is somebody who is neither from Ekiti nor is he an official of INEC and he cannot claim to have been performing any official duties since the military high command had earlier warned him against politicising the military. While Jonathan’s goons were stopping and detaining governors right on the highway to Ado-Ekiti, and stopping planes from landing anywhere near Ekiti, Obanikoro not only flew into Akure with an evil luggage which was later ferried into Ekiti in a bullion van as was copiously reported by newspapers, he joined other non-Ekiti PDP busy bodies, among them a self-confessed Igbo serial election rigger, all of who then worked the magic of 21 June, 2014, that night when the police declared a totally unnecessary curfew. At this point, I must narrate a story told me by the very person to whom it happened. When one of the APC leaders detained before the election asked why they were being detained, he was told by the soldier guarding them that it was because they were the ones who could rouse people to riot after Fayemi had lost. Why would Fayemi lose? he asked, and the soldier simply told him that even if Ekiti people voted from then till the next morning, PDP had already won, having pre-programmed the ballot papers. He almost collapsed. The gentleman is alive and kicking.
Only a fool would claim not to know that Obanikoro and Adesiyan were deliberately planted ahead of the elections as junior ministers in the armour-bearing ministries of Defence and Police Affairs for the sole purpose of intimidating and pacifying Yoruba land. Obanikoro’s boasts, quoted above, are very reminiscent of Fayose’s boasts before the Ekiti election. Fayose told everybody at his campaigns stops that he had already won. He even said he would defeat Fayemi in his ward which he, however, failed to do. But so certain of victory was he that he said publicly that Fayemi should not bother painting the new state house because he doesn’t know his preferred colours. The Obanikoro boasts, also a replica of that of the president who has already sent ambassadors to their heads of state as to how seamless the 2015 election would be, are no phony boasts at all. Ekiti has more than shown that these people get serious when the business at hand concerns rigging and I just hope APC is not sleeping. INEC must be compelled to conduct the election strictly according to the provisions of the Electoral Law which, among other things, prescribes ONLY INDELIBLE INK. Rogue elements within INEC rigged the Ekiti election for PDP simply by supplying VANISHING INK in place of indelible ink. I have once written on these pages that when you see a seemingly powerful governor, as in Akwa Ibom, or a presidency- supported candidate like Wike , insisting on a particular candidate, or being the candidate himself, to the total chagrin of majority of party members, many of who are therefore defecting to other parties, and the PDP is unconcerned, it is because they are not depending on legitimate votes for victory.
The purpose of this article is to ask Nigerians to plead with the PDP – being the party with the history and the material capacity to rig on an industrial scale, to spare Nigeria the consequences of a probable post-election crisis. Unfortunately for the Southwest, most of those who traditionally perform this function – a check on governments – have already been sucked in by, and at, the National Conference and now love Jonathan more than an Asari Dokubo with books getting written and published in under two weeks and with Obasanjo getting serially thrashed by an amalgam of deliberately selected Yoruba National conferees. I cannot wonder enough as to where they will disappear to when Asari Dokubo levels their territory as he has promised, and, by the way, we are yet to hear these acclaimed Yoruba leaders comment on that threat by the President’s Ijaw compatriot. Luckily for Nigeria, there are still enough men of integrity to do the needful.
I wish my readers a happy and wonderful New Year.
