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Some of the lessons the conduct of Ekiti State Governorship Election is expected to teach the entire people of Nigeria include: a demonstration as to whether the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), under Prof. Joash Ojo Amupitan, SAN, is set and able to conduct free and fair elections in 2027 and to announce the true winners of the elections, including the presidential election.
Today, the Ekiti State Governorship Election has been conducted and INEC has promptly announced the result.
The official figures released by INEC, which make up the result, show that Governor Oyebanji of APC scored 319,224 votes to beat all his opponents.
The official INEC result added that in the second position was the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) Oluwole Oluyede, who got 40,543 votes, while Dare Bejide of the African Democratic Congress, who polled 12,872 votes, came third.
This official result would have marked the end of the Ekiti Governorship Election projections, if not that some key stakeholders have joined some angry common people and observers to allege large-scale electoral abuses under the watchful eyes of both the police and INEC during the election.
As a result of the allegations, some stakeholders today doubt the genuineness of the elections.
The shocking revelations, or is it just allegations, being levelled against INEC and the police are so unsettling that fear of the ability of the Amupitan-led INEC to conduct free and fair elections in 2027 has again been revived.
While patting himself on the back for winning the Ekiti State Governorship Election, Governor Biodun Oyebanji had said his re-election is “an attestation to the popularity” of his policies.
He, therefore, promised the good people of the South West state that in the next four years, he will continue to do for them what he had been doing for them in his current tenure.
On the face of it, this is how it should be. This is how democracy should work. That is, if an elected Governor or President governed his people right, they will feel obligated to freely re-elect him to continue what he had been doing for the people. But, if he failed to govern them well, the people will be expected to vote him out of the plum seat.
What this means in the Ekiti scenario is that if APC’s Governor Oyebanji is truly and freely re-elected by the good people of Ekiti State, the implication is that they actually love his party’s policies and the way the Governor governed them.
This also means that if the governor had failed his people, he would not have been voted by the people for a second term. If this was the case and a compromised INEC announced otherwise, the governor may face the people’s hatred and resistance.
This shows that the main culprits in our democratic journey, who have continually denied Nigerian electorates of good governance are INEC officials and security officials trusted to ensure free and fair elections who, instead, bury the people’s voices. When these critical agents of the state chose to be compromised, the democratic system is mortally injured.
This is where the problems begin in Nigeria and in her democratic process. It appears sometimes that some officials given very sensitive assignments like supervision of or protection of election exercises know very little about the potential effect their actions or inactions may have on the country and on the people.
Also, when officials openly misbehave or try to subvert the system, Nigerian people sometimes keep quiet as if it is an outsider that would come to right the wrongs threatening to drown Nigerian democracy and her people.
Narrowing these to the just concluded Ekiti State Governorship Election, it means that if the people accept INEC’s claim that Ekiti State people freely re-elected their Governor, then it follows that the Governor can logically claim that the policies he has pursued so far are good and should be continued during his second term.
Oyebanji has said that much.
So we must note that, if INEC and the security agencies are actually compromised, have declared wrong result and if the people have accepted these, then it follows that wrong policies and a wrong governor would be forced on the people, moving forward.
Also, if the result INEC declared after the election is the true result of free and fair elections, it means that Governor Oyebanji, who is declared re-elected, is the right Governor for the people of the state and the policies he is poised to implement are the right policies for the good of the people.
It is in this light that we must view the enormous task the electoral umpire and the security agencies are assigned to in our polity and in the determination of the future of the country and of our people.
This means that if INEC and security agencies that served in Ekiti State and came up with the result were actually compromised, the damage their actions would cost Nigeria and the good people of Ekiti State would, needless to say, be more than the officials would seem to contemplate. At least, the negative effect will certainly last more than the four years the new government is expected to steer the ship of state after inauguration.
It is in view of these that one is worried over reports of vote-buying and other electoral malpractices that allegedly marred the Ekiti State Governorship Election.
For example, one of the key stakeholders, the candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the election, Peter Obafemi, has alleged that Ekiti State Governorship Election was marred by “intimidation and vote-buying.”
He made these grave allegations in an interview on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics.
Asked to assess the election, the SDP flag-bearer said: “I think it was full of intimidation.”
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“Well, I will put it like this: in my own polling unit, I went to cast my vote; coming out, I was shocked. I saw someone with bagloads of money,” alleged Obafemi who added that the politician with the bagloads of money, who bought votes in his polling booth, “was protected by the police.”
“I am not alleging. I saw it in my own polling unit,” he said, accusing the police and the Independent National Electoral Commission of being “very compromised” in the conduct of the governorship poll.
Obafemi also alleged that some of his “campaign banners were pulled down in the lead-up to the 2026 governorship election.”
These are ugly actions Nigerians do not wish to witness during the 2027 general election.
If you ask most of the bitter critics of the current Bola Ahmed Tinubu-led Federal Government of Nigeria, they will confirm that their distrust and anger can be traced to their belief that the election result that brought in the government in 2023’was false.
Supporters of President Tinubu may swear today that the assumption is not true. But can their denial change anything?
I think it was most unwise to have allowed the impression, either jokingly or seriously, which suggested that the Presidency was actually grabbed and ran away with.
Point is that you can’t give this kind of ugly impression and expect the people to still trust you merit to lead a great country like Nigeria.
So, one of the great lessons we must learn from the way and manner Nigeria’s 2023 Presidential Election was managed is that any leader who wants to govern his people as a democratic leader must not joke with the process that led to his emergence.
He must realize that if the process of his election and emergence is flawed or rendered doubtful, he may spend the rest of his tenure seeking legitimacy without success.
Sometimes, I feel for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, considering the difficult time he eventually emerged Nigerian President and some of the poor handling of the 2023 Election campaigns that he had to be blamed for. But given his large image before going to Aso Rock, it is expected that he would have known the socio-economic complexities of our time.
So, his major challenge could hardly be understanding of the global economic realities or Nigerian peculiar challenges. It seems his major challenges are the doubt and distrust that he allowed to usher him into Aso Rock.
The resultant division in the land, the name calling, etc., are, to say the least, unfortunate and very costly to Nigeria and to Tinubu Presidency.
As the 2027 Election approaches, I advice Mr. President, who is seeking re-election, to ensure the election is seen by majority of Nigerians and other observers as credible, free and fair.
Taking cognizance of all that have gone wrong, I think it is only by organizing credible, free and fair 2027 General Elections that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu can truly win his ultimate political battle, whether or not he wins the 2027 Presidential Election.
He and Prof Amupitan should be worried over the allegations arising from the conduct of Ekiti State Governorship Election.
Instead of boosting their rating in eyes of Nigeria, these complaints diminish or damage their images. They must not be ignored.
But if Amupitan’s INEC or it’s officials and the security agencies on duty actually believe the alleged electoral malpractices of 2023 Elections and of the Ekiti State Governorship Elections can be repeated, re-enacted or condoned in 2027 General Elections, without them facing the wrath of the suffering masses, they should think twice for even a rat when pursued to the wall will turn around and face the pursuer.
I am therefore of the opinion that for President Tinubu, state governors and all the other elected officials seeking re-election, the only way they can possibly retain the leadership of Nigeria in 2027 is to win in what majority of the people will clearly see as and agree to be victory in credible, free and fair elections.
Only this will remove doubt, build trust, earn support, and awaken the great potentials in the unique people that occupy the Giant of Africa.
When the sleeping Giant awakes, the dormant forest will receive new impetus.
Now a warning: Any impression, careless utterance or political strategy that suggests our leaders want to emerge winners in 2027 without the electorates’ votes will only deepen the people’s hatred, bitterness, distrust and then likely unleash the beast in them.
That is not the right way to go.
• Samuel Hezekiah Egburonu Esq, lawyer, veteran journalist and literary scholar, is a current affairs analyst.
