Governor Godwin Obaseki’s remarkable victory over the duo of Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu and the diminutive Adams Oshiomole is good news for Nigeria’s floundering democracy. It demonstrates the capability of INEC, the much-maligned electoral umpire, to conduct a free and fair election and the ability of a people to reject imposition and take their destiny into their own hands.
Here are some takeaways:
1. The diminutive Adams Oshiomole has been a disaster for the APC. The former trade unionist and immediate past Edo State governor has been a gift to the opposition PDP. His cantankerous nature and loquaciousness has led to so much bickering and strife in the APC, which has cost the party dearly. His odious, unconscionable promotion of the candidature and credentials of someone he so maligned and ridiculed just four years ago is the height of arrogance and insensitivity. Edo Decides 2020 will likely be his nunc dimittis.
2. Your performance can enable you to successfully retire your godfather. Godwin Obaseki rode on the back of the diminutive Adams Oshiomole to become governor. But once in power, he went about creating his own personality and legacy. He was successful at this because when the godfather kicked him out of the ruling party and tried to retrieve power from him, his accomplishments were enough to provide a formidable bulwark.
3. You can’t fool the people all the time. You brought a man as your successor. And warned them that his opponent was so morally incapacitated that he would be a disaster for the state. They accepted. Four years later, you come back to to tell them that the man you imposed on them is now a collosal mistake and the other one you so maligned has transmogrified to a messiah. And you want them to trust in your self-confessed flawed judgment? Come on, Adams.
4. The APC may implode after Buhari. The ruling party has always been seen as an association of pseudo-progressives and disgruntled PDP members who capitalised on Nigeria’s ethnic fault lines and Buhari’s insane popularity in the northern part of the country to acquire political power. Just as the PDP has proven to be an ineffective opposition party, the APC has not been an effective ruling party.
How can a serious political party allow Oshiomole to chase away Obaseki from the party, thereby losing power of incumbency, and impose Ize-Iyamu, the candidate of the opposition party in the previous election? How did the party allow Kano State Governor, Gunduje of the Gandolllar fame, a man caught red-handed performing the ritual of Kickback Corruption, to be the leader of the APC Campaign Committee in Edo State with Hope Uzodinma, a man willfully imposed on Imo Street by a dubious Supreme Court judgment as the lead supporting cast? Who advised Tinubu, a man loathed by many over his stranglehold on the leadership and resources of Lagos State, to broadcast to the people of Edo and pontificate to them on who to chose as their governor?
5. Give INEC some credit. The electoral umpire has been the battering ram of losers in the Nigerian political amphitheater. The Nigerian political arena is such that no matter the good intentions of the umpire, Nigerian politicians would always find a way to manipulate the electoral process. There are those who would always scream ‘democracy is in danger’ anytime their candidates lose an election and those who will always see no evil even in the face of widespread intimidation by law enforcement agencies and blatant manipulation of the electoral process. The present INEC leadership has some shortcomings but our politicians bear most of the blame for our fractious and inefficient electoral processes.
U. Philip Igbinadolor
