The APC governorship primary election in Ondo state may have come. But it appears it is not gone yet, and it may not go for years to come. It should have been an uncontroversial victory for the declared winner, incumbent Governor Lucky Orimisan Aiyedatiwa, had he and the party leaders handled the process differently. Instead of prosecuting it as a primary election, the Governor of Kogi State, Usman Ododo, who led the Primary Election Committee, allowed it to degenerate into a primary selection process, or perhaps that was his mandate. So did the co-aspirants and many voters across the state conclude.
These two theses, namely, how Aiyedatiwa was declared winner and the role of the Ododo-led Primary Election Committee, need further clarification. Aiyedatiwa was said to have won in 16 of 18 local governments. He lost only in Ilaje, his own local government, to Olusola Oke, SAN, who hails from there as well. There was no election in Ifedore local government as Aiyedatiwa’s thugs were said to have scared voters away.
At the end of the day, 48, 569 votes were allocated to Aiyedatiwa, while Samuel Akinfolarin was placed second with15,343 votes. Oke was said to have come third with 14,915 votes. It should be remembered that the same Akinfolarin had collapsed his support and organizational structure into Aiyedatiwa’s days before the election. The terms “allocated”, “was placed”, and “was said” signify the views of co-aspirants and voters, who alleged that there was no election, only concocted results.
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This leads to the second thesis. The Ododo-led Committee was said to have done a hatchet job: The guidelines set out by the committee were not followed. Voting materials were not distributed as promised. Officials to supervise the election did not show up, and the few who showed up did so very late. Voting did not take place in many places, either because there were no voting materials, or officials did not show up, or voters were scared away by thugs. In a rerun election scheduled for Sunday in Okitipupa, which other aspirants had boycotted, the counting process was a novel mathematical exercise. In a viral video of the counting process in Okitipupa, the figures for Aiyedatiwa moved quickly to over 600 in a line of less than 100 people! Only the Election Committee could explain why a rerun was scheduled for Okitipupa alone and not for other local governments, such as Ifedore, where no votes were recorded due to violence. Why the election was scheduled for Sunday, when Christians would still be in church, is another matter.
The truth is that the election need not have gone that way. On the one hand, Aiyedatiwa did not need all the fuss to win, because he was far ahead of the other contenders in many respects. One, he is the incumbent Governor in control of the states’ levers of power, from quid pro quo appointments to the state’s treasury. Two, he has more access to resources, including state resources. Over N30 billion had accrued to the state since he became Governor. Three, he has been running for Governor since he became Deputy Governor on February 25, 2021. Whether as part of his routine function as Governor or as part of his campaign, he has had opportunities to go round the state.
As the campaign peaked, he allegedly bought several endorsements and covert support from state elders and party leaders to prospective voters, including youths and women. Fourth, he was much more visible than any other candidate throughout the state through billboards and paid advertisements. On many occasions, his thugs destroyed opponents’ billboards in order to maintain high visibility.
On the other hand, the Election Committee did not help his case by bungling the process and depriving it of needed transparency. A situation in which aspirants had to pay the annual dues of members so they could participate in the primary election leaves much to be desired. While that happened even before the Committee was set up, the allocation of resources and votes by the committee further deepened suspicion as the gap between Aiyedatiwa and the rest of the field did not match the reality of the competition. Why Okitipupa Local Government with three aspirants, including Senator Jimoh Ibrahim, was deprived of personnel and material resources on the day of election was baffling. Even more inexplicable was the Committee’s decision to have a rerun election in Okitipupa and not in other LGAs, where voting did not take place. Worse still were election returns in places where voting did not take place at all.
There are many lessons from the Ondo primary election for the APC as a political party, for Ondo voters, and for our democracy. This is the second controversial governorship primary election in a row. Both of them could have been avoided had the party leaders followed due process and allowed for a transparent procedure. There is nothing wrong with a direct primary. However, in this age of vote-bying, voting by secret ballot should be better than standing to be counted without regard to accuracy of figures.
Democracy thrives on the ability of party leaders to ensure internal democracy and allow for a transparent process whereby party members go through a fair process of election or selection as a party nominee for elective office. Where a competition is allowed to take place, as in Edo and Ondo, the process should be fair, just, and credible, and be seen to be so.
Two recurrent killers of our democracy are two apparently contradictory factors, namely, greed and poverty. Those who have are never satisfied. They want more. Those who don’t have want something. And what better time to satisfy both groups than election time, when consent and support are bought rather than earned?
Fortunately, Ondo voters have moved beyond the provocation of a botched primary election as they await the governorship election in November. However, dissatisfaction festers among many contenders in the primary, some of whom are calling for the cancellation of the exercise. How the party handles their complaints may indicate whether or not Ondo state will join Ogun, Osun, and Oyo states, where the APC is riddled with factionalism. To be sure, their anger is directed more at the party than at Aiyedatiwa, the declared winner. Nevertheless, how Aiyedatiwa himself handles the victory allocated to him will be the beginning of his preparation for the November election. In this regard, he has lessons to learn from how the prostrating Ekiti State Governor, Abiodun Abayomi Oyebanji, turned a rancorous APC in Ekiti state into one amicable family.
