The gubernatorial election of Saturday August 9 in Osun was a significant event in many ways. It was one of the most peaceful in the history of elections in Nigeria. It witnessed massive voter turnout and palpable good conduct on the part of the electorate and the competing politicians, particularly those in the camp of the incumbent Governor, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola.
After putting the nation on edge in what is the longest wait for result declaration, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), announced Aregbesola as the winner. This was followed by a gale of congratulatory messages, including, surprisingly, from President Goodluck Jonathan whose message has the sinister inference of self-congratulations for allowing the opposition to win. However, the circumstances surrounding the conduct of the polls clearly suggest that, contrary to the false self-congratulations, nothing so good can be said of the role of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) controlled federal government, whose duty it is, thanks to our warped federal system, to provide security and all other logistics for the poll.
Under the guise of carrying out its security obligations, the government at the centre placed the state under siege. Nobody, whether residents in or visitors to Osun, during the period, would be able to dismiss the thought of being in a war zone.
The situation was that of a complete lockdown in which the state was crawling with security personnel of different hue and ilk – DSS, police, civil defence corps, soldiers and others, all armed to the teeth. There were at least 5,000 DSS agents alone deployed to the state during the election period.
Thus, as the polls came to a peaceful conclusion, the federal government immediately went to the media to take a devious advantage of the situation. It quickly congratulated the incumbent and winner of the election and expectedly went on to congratulate itself as the unbiased umpire in the electoral game.
But a more careful and diligent dissection of the facts of the situation would give a different picture. Contrary to what obtains in the advanced democracies, there is no institution of state in Nigeria that is capable of asserting any institutional independence from the Presidency.
It is common knowledge that our institutions are simply appendages of and tools in the hands of the federal government which happens to be a partisan in the Osun election.
Hence, we must differentiate fact from appearance for the sake of clarity. There is a qualitative difference between providing security and imposing a state of siege. The requirement of security at elections is to assure voters of their safety and democratic freedom. It is thereby meant to enhance their participation in the process.
On the other hand, placing the electorate under siege betrays a badly disguised intent to intimidate and bully them in order to make them shy away from exercising their franchise, which was the case in Osun.
When we put this together with other facts in the election, it gives a clearly different indication of the real motive of the Jonathan-led administration. How, for instance, does the federal government explain the harassment and arrests of several All Progressives Congress (APC) members by its security agents on the nights before the election, including members of the incumbent governor’s cabinet?
At least, 200 of the APC bigwigs were arrested without any charges whatsoever on the night preceding the poll, only to be released without any reasons or explanations.
What plausible reason can the Jonathan-government give to rationalise the embedding of Niger Delta militants in the ranks of the DSS agents deployed to Osun – they were distinctly wearing balaclavas to cover their faces while most of their colleagues were going about their business, and mingling with people, without any face coverings.
How does the President explain the presence of Asari Dokubo in Ilesa or that of Tompolo in Osogbo, the state capital, during the election? Were they in Osun as tourists at a time when the state was in a security lockdown by the Jonathan government? Or is it the case that they came as part of the team to carry out the ulterior and dastardly plan of their paymaster?
What about the deliberate bombardment of the Osun government with false intelligence regarding ballot paper stealing and thump-printing by PDP members throughout the night prior to the election day? The false information is a tale that accords with widespread expectation that the PDP candidate is incapable of winning in any free and fair manner.
However, the real purpose of the intelligence is to tempt the opposition into taking precipitate action which would then be used as an excuse to use the security agents for the real objective of their deployment – pacification.
It would then have paved the way for the PDP candidate to emerge victorious from the orchestrated chaos. The sitting governor and his party would have been blamed for bringing about disorder and for losing the election.
But thankfully, it all failed. Reason and restraint prevailed in the opposition camp; they refused to take the dangerous bait of the powers that be. The PDP candidate lost massively and incontrovertibly.
Consequently, the claim by the federal government to the effect that President Jonathan is a benevolent democrat would certainly ring hollow. We have all read The Prince. We are very familiar with that tactic. It is classic Machiavelli: make yourself appear very generous and magnanimous while harbouring grievously evil intention.
The Osun election is not a tribute to President Jonathan’s magnanimity. Far from it! It is a victory to the good people of Osun who defied all the bully and show of force to come out and exercise their democratic right and freedom.
They refused to be intimidated or browbeaten by the gunpoint magnanimity of President Jonathan. They trooped out on election day; they conducted themselves in a most orderly and peaceful manner; and they exercised their inalienable rights to freely choose their own leader.
The people of Osun refused to have a leader foisted on them. They taught us all a useful lesson in democracy: that, with their power to wield the ballot paper, they can trump the power of the federal government to wield the guns.
