At was interesting how President Goodluck Jonathan and his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) flexed their muscles on the hustings at Osogbo, on August 2: the sheriff is in town; opposition, dive for cover!
Sure, the president was all sanctimonious about security agencies enforcing free and fair elections. But if the Ekiti model is anything to go by, hardly anyone is fooled.
Still, it is instructive: the eerie parallel between the build-up to August 9 and the 14 April 2007 Osun governorship election; which the PDP stole and was only retrieved after three long years of fierce legal battle.
A few days to that 2007 election, under President Olusegun Obasanjo’s do-or-die electoral charter, soldiers staged an intimidating drill, on Gbongan road in Osogbo. Viewed from the then Action Congress (AC) Candidate Rauf Aregbesola’s four-storey Oranmiyan House campaign headquarters, the drill snaked for no less than one mile, a swash-buckling manoeuvre clearly designed to shock and awe.
A few days to August 9, under President Goodluck Jonathan’s electoral militarisation diktat, men of the Department of State Security (DSS) have staged a similar drill, some of them hooded, firing into the air to scare people.
Are men bearing legal arms allowed under the law to wear hoods? Then, the wanton shooting — is it allowed, and under what circumstances?
Just as well, even with cracking gunshots, some partisans still trooped out, shouting party slogans and waving party symbols — in clear defiance of a perceived federal pacification force.
Back in 2007, no less than 12 lost their lives in election-related violence, in perhaps the most egregiously rigged election in Nigerian history. Back then, the federal fist of mail could not stop — but merely looked away from — the vote robbers, in their widespread criminality on election day.
Still, the PDP lost the election. It would take three long years to prove it: and in those years, mandate thieves unleashed a reign of terror: the hideous rape of an Ilesa secondary school girl; the murder, at an Ilesa fuel station, of a local industrialist; the military occupation and pacification of Ilesa and Osogbo, for daring to protest brazen electoral robbery; and the routine trotting, into the Ilesa gaol house, of opposition leaders on trumped up charges, for the simple reason they were the teeth of the legal challenge to the electoral steal.
Another parallel: after that electoral heist, Ebenezer Babatope, the famed Ebino Topsy and PDP chieftain, claimed that while AC won in urban centres, PDP won in rural areas, in a crass revisionism of the electoral trend of the Obafemi Awolowo days. The snag was: Osun is a state of big towns, the largest conglomeration of urban centres in the whole of Yorubaland.
Of course, the same Ebino is already talking of Mr. Omisore “surprising” Governor Aregbesola on August 9.
But on what basis might he do that: superior articulation of electoral manifesto? Superior record of meritorious public service than the governor’s? A PDP superior record of performance, both in Osun or at the federal level? Or just a hoped-for federal might’s guarantee to fiddle the vote?
Still, no crime: everyone has a democratic licence to choose their heroes!
Mr. Omisore, the PDP candidate allegedly boasted to rural folks during his campaign that non-Yoruba but uniformed goons would flood Osun during the election to aid his cause, suggesting such goons would be part of his federal armada.
For all you know, that could well be empty bluff and bluster. Still, it is worrisome that the DSS shooting ensemble involved some hooded folks. Is this a sinister confirmation of Mr. Omisore’s alleged boast?
Besides, DSS raided TSN/RSM office in Lagos. A few days later, the marketing research firm released figures of a study that suggests Governor Aregbesola would win by 73% and Mr. Omisore would trail with 19% of the votes.
Between these two events, the Omisore camp had, through text messages and other means, circulated a claim that a USAID poll had given Mr. Omisore the lead with 58%, with Governor Aregbe credited with 30%.
This claim, however, is a bare-faced lie, as USAID has disowned the purported poll. “No USAID poll was taken in Osun,” Premium Times quoted Rhonda Watson, acting public affairs officer of the US Consulate in Lagos, as saying. Brainless lying, yet again, from the Omisore camp!
Now, why would DSS invade the premises of a private marketing research firm doing legitimate business? Some intelligence suggesting subversion? Conducting polls is now a crime? Or just part of the Omisore-threatened federal bully tactics?
The federal authorities should provide answers and fast. Otherwise, they face legitimate charge of trying to rig the election.
Still, mum is it from the camp of Prof. Attahiru Jega, the INEC chairman. Prof. Jega had defended the security over-kill in Ekiti, blissfully forgetting soldiers’ harassment of Rivers Governor Rotimi Amaechi and other APC partisans, while other PDP partisans had unimpeded passage, even if two, Jelili Adesiyan, Police Affairs minister and Musiliu Obanikoro, Defence minister of state, had clear motives to put the state organs under their charge to partisan uses.
Even if voting appears “free” on election day, it couldn’t pass as fair — and ultimately free — if the process leading to it was crooked. That is the point INEC should address, and make itself heard in the run-up to August 9, instead of clinging to the sophistry of soldiers not impeding physical voting, even if they were complicit in mass arrest of opposing leaders, as they did in Ekiti; and as Mr. Omisore is allegedly threatening they would do in Osun.
Between Aregbesola and Omisore, the choice for Ripples is very simple. Every politician claims popularity; but right-thinking members of society know, between the two, who is popular and who is well and truly notorious.
But if the Omisore camp can lie that USAID conducted a poll that never was, have a straight face to insist on that blatant lie even after USAID had dismissed that claim, and thereafter go ahead to try, sour-grape wise, to discredit the TNS/RMS poll which suggested Mr. Omisore would be guillotined, you could clearly see the manifest villainy of the Omisore ticket. But that is left for the Osun voters to decide.
Still, it is well and truly tragic that post-Awolowo Yorubaland would suffer gladly the foolery of an Omisore candidature, even as a local government councillor! Yet, Ayo Fayose (Ekiti) and Iyiola Omisore (Osun) are Goodluck Jonathan’s model Yoruba leaders! Indeed, only the deep can call to the deep!
Beyond candidate preferences, however, a free and fair Osun poll, both on the day as well as regarding processes leading to it, is a vote for Osun, a vote for democracy and a vote for Nigeria.
Nigeria badly miscarried when its earliest rulers killed democracy; and the succeeding soldier-politicians also slaughtered, on the altar of political poison, the military as a credible and respected national institution.
A further smashing of democracy, ala a brazen steal at Osun, may well complete Nigeria’s unravelling process. That would be tragic, indeed.
