Will Ondo Enjoy A Seamless Governorship Election?

 By Tonnie Iredia

It is the turn of the people of Ondo State, Southwest Nigeria, to pass through the ordeal of a governorship election in the country. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the body empowered to organize elections in Nigeria has since scheduled Saturday, November 16, 2024 as voting day for the contest. Indeed, as far back as May 25, 2024, INEC had published particulars of nominated candidates from 17 political parties.

But if what happened in nearby Edo State on Saturday October 21, 2024 is a good guide to the conduct of an election, Ondo people should be prepared to take whatever they see as an election. After all, politicians in the state cannot pretend to be unaware of the battered election process they have had in the last 8 years.

As of today, the pattern of the conduct of elections in Nigeria is now clearly broken into 3 segments namely: a) accreditation and voting, b) collation of votes and c) declaration of winners. The first segment which usually goes on till it formally closes, carries some semblance of a peaceful election.

In the second segment, the process follows a secret order in which election observers and journalists do not have access to the activities in the segment. In addition, the venue of the collation is never the location formally approved for it. In fact, the new trend now is that a break is announced during the collation in which some of the political parties, their candidates and agents are driven away. In the last segment, some compromised university officials announce unfamiliar result which they insist was what they were asked to announce.

Ondo politicians must by now be adjusting to fit into the 3 segments, because there is nothing to show that the situation would change. To start with, the same set of inexplicable controversies are already on ground to precede the contest. For example, a group of politicians led by Governor Seyi Makinde have clearly seen a ‘vision’ that free and fair elections will not happen if Toyin Babalola, the current Resident Electoral Commissioner in Ondo State is allowed to be in charge of the election. Makinde says Babalola is an indigene of the state, contrary to the legal position that an electoral commissioner cannot function in his/her state. INEC on its part refutes Makinde’s claim insisting that Babalola is not from Ondo State.

Those who know little of the nature of Nigerian elections, would describe the Makinde/INEC controversy as simplistic wondering how Babalola can hoodwink all election officials and party chieftains to change election results? However, INEC’s statement is not persuasive as it is embedded on double negatives. Why can’t INEC tell us where Babalola is from instead of where she is not from? As an umpire, Babalola, like Caesar’s wife is expected to be above aboard. If there is anything shady about her that makes some politicians unconformable with her presence, it is better to deploy her elsewhere rather than sustaining the lack of credibility which her presence tactlessly upholds.

Unfortunately, the ruling party appears to enjoy the appointment of several tainted electoral officials nationwide that different groups see as suspicious. There are many other avoidable issues in Nigeria’s political system. One does not have to be a soothsayer to see that as the Ondo governorship gets closer, there would be more than enough issues that would derogate largely from public faith in free and fair elections in the country. One of them is the absence of veracity about many statements of law in Nigeria. We are told for instance, that party primaries are the internal concerns of political parties and that no one should get involved in them. To prove the point beyond any iota of doubt, the nation watched two top senators who became candidates of their parties without first participating as aspirants in their party primaries.

The cases were upheld at the highest level of the judiciary to underscore the supremacy of political parties in their internal concerns. Yet, we see so many dictations to political parties by the courts. Indeed, the federal high court especially the ones in Abuja operate as if they were established to help run some specific political parties(may be as some type of Senior Prefects.) It is only the ruling party that they don’t interfere with so much. Smaller parties like Labour etc are told constantly what to do or not to do. According to media reports, a federal high court has since ordered INEC to accept the second primary election held by Labour Party which produced Olusola Nehemiah and Ezekiel Awude as party flagbearers. The court we are told says it is illegal for the Labour Party to disown the primary election.

Unlike the cases cited above where the highest court deferred to the decision of a political party, here it is the court that is in charge of the internal party primaries of the Labour Party concerning which party member will be part of Ondo 2024 or not. Let no one be misled into thinking that we have heard the last about Ondo election – a state which on its own has had perhaps the best example of how not to know or comprehend the real candidate in an election until after voting. The case of candidate Eyitayo Jegede remains indelible. Although it was Jegede who won the primaries of his party, the PDP in 2016, the courts strangely recognized another factional candidate. Here, two issues baffled everyone.

First, the primaries of the factional candidate did not take place in the relevant state – Ondo and second, they were not monitored by INEC. The case went on until Jegede was finally restored on the ballot some 24 hours before voting commenced. What most people understood then was that the courts were used to wear-out the opposition to make the ruling party win the election. It is getting more and more difficult to find sane persons who believe winners actually won or that losers were not programmed to lose every Nigerian election. Again, history helps us to identify a good example once more from Ondo State. Many will attest to the saying that Ondo is an APC state because both in 2016 and 2020, the party allegedly won the governorship elections.

But somewhere along the line, when no one is prepared to dispute the said victory, the truth suddenly comes out when some cracks affect the parties. The story in Ondo is that several years after elections, one of the leaders decided to engage in some confession. It was Sunday Abegunde who had served as the Secretary to the Ondo State Government that announced to the nation that the APC did not really win the elections. Abegunde, said some people in- cluding himself manipulated the results of the election in favour of the ruling party. In a country where nothing is ever done to the powerful, nothing was done about Abegunde’s confession.

Yet, the nation would want people to have faith in our electoral process where nothing is done about visible apprehensions of people before and during voting. Where there is low turnout in Nigerian elections, political parties and different interest groups join those who think something should be done about voter apathy rather than the cause of the apathy. Let’s mobilize voters more they will say! If people can manipulate an election process in which billions of naira were allegedly spent on some critical software that is supposed to make manipulation impossible, should we continue to do the same thing all over again while expecting a different result? It is the turn of Ondo State to witness some magic called election.

Only last month everything that happened in Imo, Bayelsa and Kogi States also happened in Edo State. Election materials and personnel arrived late at several voting centres including those closest to the INEC operational base. If votes were openly purchased at different locations in the presence of security operatives, some of whom benefitted from the crime, is it elections that we should look forward to save our democracy? It is obvious that something different needs to happen. 

First, INEC should be held accountable. It is the commission that should be made to explain discrepancies in the results within its framework instead of pampering her in an unending refusal to make her facilities available for inspection by parties. But for now, nothing is likely to stop Ondo state from taking its turn.

*Dr. Iredia is a commentator on public issues