Tag: Mohammed abubakar

Other things being equal, the governorship election in Ondo State must have come and gone by the time you are reading this piece. But the kind of security arrangements that were put in place by the police and other security outfits for the election is mind-boggling. Barely 72 hours to the D-Day, the Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar, said roads leading to Ondo State would be closed from last Thursday (October 18) preparatory to the election. Not only that, 20 armoured patrol security personnel and marine police patrol men would be provided at the riverine areas. “There will be no fishing on that day. Whatever fish you have on that day, stay at home and eat it…” Abubakar said, among other things.

Even soldiers are not left out of the security arrangement. The General Officer Commanding (GOC) Nigeria Army 2 Division, Major-General Mohammed Abubakar gave a shoot-on-sight order against hoodlums who may want to rig election or foment trouble to disrupt the polls. In addition to the no-fishing order by the inspector-general of police, the GOC also said that there won’t even be any hunting on Election Day (yesterday). So, people who might want to carry arms under the pretext of going to hunt must have been effectively checkmated. Also, soldiers drafted for the election would get a dress code to differentiate them from fake ones that some politicians might have recruited. Again, soldiers would mount check points on major roads even as the INEC office has been heavily protected against bombing and other criminal activities.

Now, do we blame the security agents for relying on ‘war and chariot’, as it were, to give us free and fair election? Yes and no. I will explain.” Experience”, they say, “is the best teacher”. The fact of the matter is that our politicians have not imbibed seeing election as any other contest in which there is bound to be a winner and a loser. In other words, they are bad losers. Long before former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s coinage of ‘do-or-die battle’ to describe election, elections in the country have become another kingdom of God that suffereth violence and only the violent taketh it by force.

I agree that is not good enough, but the point is that in its 13 years of governing the country since the return to civil rule in 1999, the PDP has not taught us much lesson concerning corruption, particularly political corruption. And there is a limit to how far it can go in the matter because it is a major actor in and beneficiary of election rigging. But I plead with the army to take things easy by not killing innocent voters in the process of killing hoodlums.

Again, the point must be made that all these security arrangements would amount to naught if they are for superficial purposes. We will only have result if the security agents were posted on election duty for genuine reasons. The point must be made too that it would be tragic if all these security arrangements are to feather the nest of any of the contending parties, particularly the federal ruling party. It would be tragic because of the peculiar history of the Ondo people who cannot tolerate their votes being tampered with.

All said, it is important to point out that Ondo election and even the last governorship election in Edo State that returned Adams Oshiomhole, the Action Congress of Nigeria’s (ACN) candidate to office are now assuming the nature of serious business that elections should assume, that is minus the violence aspect. In spite of the fact that Oshiomhole ought to have been returned ‘unopposed’ based on his track record, he still had to fight the battle of his life to ward off the rampaging PDP that wanted to rattle him out of the seat.

We saw the same thing in Ondo State. The three leading contenders for Mimiko’s job, Mimiko himself, of the Labour Party (LP), Rotimi Akeredolu (SAN), the candidate of the ACN, and Olusola Oke of the PDP; and particularly the first two, had been selling themselves to the people in the last few weeks. They had traversed the state in their individual attempt to woo the voters. The incumbent must have fought a battle of his life too. This is the way it should be; votes need not come cheap because when they do, they are hardly appreciated. What you do not labour for, you do not value. As they say, “no pain, no gain”. If we continue in this hard work tradition for elections, one day, the voter would be the king that he should be.