The Special Adviser on Inter-Party Affairs, Senator Ben Obi, recently held a sensitisation workshop for political parties and stakeholders in the June 21 governorship election in Ekiti State. Sulaiman Salawudeen, in this piece, examines the danger of electoral violence in the state.
A thick cloud of uncertainty lovers on the June 21 governorship election in Ekiti State. There are widespread fear that the election may be marred by violence. This was the subject that dominated the recent one-day sensitisation and interactive forum for political parties and other stakeholders. At the sensitisation forum held at Adetiloye Hall, Fountain Hotel, Ado-Ekiti, the capital Speaker took turns to dispel the fears. They also to emphasised the importance of peaceful co-existence to the development of the state.
The forum, was organised by the Office of the Special Adviser (SA) on Inter-Party Affairs to President Goodluck Jonathan, in conjunction with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). A similar sensitisation forum had, according, Senator Ben Obi, preceded the recent elections in Edo, Ondo and Anambra states.
In his opening remarks, Obi said the essence of the forum was to urge parties to submit themselves to the rules of the game and to make it categorically clear that elections were not wars and that parties should not prepare for violent confrontations, by piling up ammunitions like guns, cutlasses, big sticks, axes, knives, stones and the like.
Apart from Obi, other dignitaries in attendance were General David Jemibewon, who chaired the event, Dr. Eddie Iroh, who gave the keynote address, and Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) boss, Professor Attahiru Jega, who was represented by the commissioner in charge of the Southwest, Professor Lai Olurode. Others are Guest speaker, Kunle Fagbemi and the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) candidate in the election, Mr. Peter Ayodele Fayose who arrived a few minutes to the end of the programme, which lasted about four hours.
The candidates of the All Progres-sives Congress (APC). But the Labour Party (LP) were absent, and Kunle Ajayi (Accord Party), Opeyemi Akinyemi (Action Alliance), Adeniji Philip (United Democratic Party), and Adekola Ayo (Social Democratic Party) were present.
However, despite efforts by the organisers to present themselves as unbiased proponents of peaceful elections, the impression that it was essentially “a programme of the PDP, by the PDP for the PDP” could not be avoided. One of the key stakeholders, Hon. Bimbo Daramola, the Director-General, of the Campaign Organi-sation of Dr. John Kayode Fayemi of the All Progressives Congress (APC), stormed out of the event midway, without being recognised by the organisers.
Daramola cracked a Yoruba proverb, which translates to: “Two people cannot miss out on the import of lying; if the person being lied to does not know he is being peddled with a lie, the person telling it would know he lying”. He added: “I have to leave because none among them has spoken the truth. They have been lying and scratching the facts on the surface”.
Daramola went further to state that he has nothing against Senator Ben Obi or his office, but “this whole efforts (the forum) reeks of deceit and an attempt to hoodwink the people into believing that efforts are being made to have free, fair and credible elections”.
In Daramola’s opinion, the event is a typical political charade, where holders of political positions pay lip service to the genuine and obvious needs of the people.
“Remember that two years ago,” Daramola said, “when I said President Jonathan was paying lip service to the issue of insecurity in the country, people said Daramola has come again. Today, Nigerians now know better”. He added: “I refer to the interview I granted two years ago, and I cited on TV that It is better to pluck and prune the branches of the Iroko tree in good time as failure to do that would make the people suffer consequences of their sturdy maturity. When I walked into that venue, I wanted to see a clarity of purpose and sincerity of intentions. But I regret to tell you that everything fell flat.
“The speech that Senator Obi read was full of platitudes. Nothing concrete could be held on to. It was full of ‘we expect that this election will be free, we hope the players will comport themselves’ and all sort of apologetic expressions. The last part of the speech alluded to the non-existent achievement recorded by President Goodluck Jonathan. I began to get worried when the second speaker came up and he turned out to be General David Jemibewon. I listened to him.
“When they introduced the third speaker in person of Kunle Fagbemi, I knew instantly it was a PDP affair and that a script was most possibly being acted. Eventually, none of them had a word for the Vice President Namadi Sambo who declared on national television that the election in Ekiti was going to be war. That was marching orders from the Vice President himself.. Given what the PDP came to orchestrate in Ekiti, I urge the people to be on their watch. But we are telling the Jonathans that we in Ekiti will not let stealing happen. A million army cannot defeat a people who have made up their mind where to go. One million and one army cannot break the will of Ekiti people. We will not be intimidated. Let nobody mock God.”
Speaking further, Obi said if the Edo, Ondo and Anambra elections were adjudged as free and credible by local and international observers, the efforts of his office, which promoted the interactive forums in the states, were not in vain and should be sustained and replicated in Ekiti. The SA who stated the Presidency was aware of the charged political atmosphere in Ekiti, noted that the workshop was to enable party associates and stakeholders exchange ideas on how to ensure crisis-free election in the state.
Jega noted the primacy of security to successful elections anywhere and that people would go out to vote in elections only if they have a feeling of assurance about their physical security. According to him, every stakeholder in the election must work to sustain security which he saw as saine qua non to free and fair poll.
Jega assured INEC would put in place measures to ensure the outcome of the June 21 exercise in Ekiti would not suffer common compromises. He urged the parties not to see the election as a do-or-die affair. He equally condemned the general intolerance and violence among partisan groups in the country, adding that recent by-elections to the lower legislative chambers in Kano and Ondo states witnessed high level violence.
He said security agencies have a role to ensure adequate security during the election in Ekiti. He added: “INEC on its part will not do anything that would negatively affect its integrity. INEC is going to be neutral. The mindset of politicians concerning elections must change. The candidates must not give the impression that they are coming to win irrespective of what voters think.”
Jemibewon urged the INEC to improve upon its performance in Anambra by ensuring perfect logistics, particularly the distribution of materials to designated polling centres. He added that the Ekiti exercise must be made to agree with the United Nations resolution that recognises governments as being responsible “for free and fair elections, free of intimidation, coercion and tampering with votes.”
The retired General said: “electoral marginalisation is almost becoming a norm and that fracas and public disturbances are equally becoming a permanent feature of elections in the country. The “INEC must therefore, live above board to ensure that people are given a chance to elect the candidate of their choice.”
Iroh, in his keynote address, placed the responsibility for “peaceful, free, credible, and successful” election in Ekiti squarely on the shoulders of politicians, noting that despite the seeming impossibility of achieving desirable election outcomes, parties and politicians needed only discipline and sacrifice.
According to Iroh, all the contending political parties in the elections must accept that others in the race are not ‘enemies’, saying this would enable them to accommode, tolerate and accept one another as brothers.
Jemibewon agrees with Iroh. His words: “In the real world or real politics, this calls for crossing the familiar lines of political rivalry. It calls for dispensing with old prejudices and bitterness. It calls for an uncommon and unusual sacrifice, the type that has always been elusive in Nigerian politics in more than 50 years of independence, but the one that can transform ordinary politicians, men and women to that extra-ordinary pantheon occupied by immortal statesmen”.
The guest speaker, Mr Kunle Fagbemi, who is also the Executive Director, Centre for Peace Building and Socio-Economic Resources Development (CePSERD), admitted that the political space in Ekiti was manifestly charged. He said politicians, the partisan groups and other interest bodies who have stakes in the approaching exercise must be practically committed to ensuring that the election was not marred by violence.
He said: “It is now very clear that unless as stakeholders, we all make concerted efforts towards peaceful conducts across board, that is by ensuring that peaceful conducts characterise electioneering campaigns during the remaining three critical weeks, the actual election day and post declaration of governorship election results, we may end up going back to the ‘wild-wild West days.”
Fayose and the Commissioner of Police, Mr. Felix Uyanna, engaged briefly in some verbal wars on who had been more liable for the unsettled political space in the state. While Fayose maintained that the police had been looking the other way while some politicians foisted violence on the citizenry, Uyanna countered that the three major parties – the APC, the PDP and the Labour Party (LP) have been part of the violence.
Fayose had said perpetrators of violence had been doing it because the police had not called them to order, adding “If the police can check armed robbers, then they can check politicians because politicians are not armed robbers”. He however urged the CP to summon a meeting with the major parties to find a way of ending the violence.
“There is suspicion in the air, thugs are being hired, and all the hotels have been booked in the towns and villages. INEC cannot be blamed, if the election fails because it should be the role of the security agencies to check the excesses of unruly politicians,” the PDP candidate said.
Uyanna however, disagreed. He said: “Party leaders are the cause of the violence. It is sad that some of them have not taken our advice to avoid violence. Leaders of the APC, the LP and the PDP have been involved in large-scale violence. So far, 70 persons across these political parties have been arrested.” The CP disclosed that steps are being taken to check excesses of politicians during the election, noting that about 13, 000 policemen would monitor the exercise. He added that each of the 2, 195 polling units in the state would be monitored by three policemen each, while the collation centres and other strategic places would equally be manned by high-ranking officers.
Uyanna, who noted that the police and other security agencies had been up and doing in, ahead of maintaining peace in the state the election, he said that ‘flashpoints’ of violence had been identified and strategies were already in place to police them.
