Ondo gov election: Let the votes count

ALL eyes are on the electorate, the umpire, and the security agencies as the off-cycle governorship election occurs throughout Ondo State on Saturday. Not surprisingly, the air is pregnant with tension and expectations of a new beginning among the voters and the candidates approved by the Independent National Electoral Commission. The onus is on INEC to deliver a credible, transparent, and fair election in collaboration with the security agencies, especially the police.

The election must be peaceful. The security agencies must superintend this, giving a resemblance of elections elsewhere.

Eighteen candidates are vying for the top office in the state, which has a four-year tenure. The incumbent, Lucky Aiyedatiwa of the All Progressives Congress, and a former deputy governor, Agboola Ajayi of the Peoples Democratic Party, are considered the frontrunners. Aiyedatiwa assumed office on December 7 following the death of Governor Rotimi Akeredolu.

Ajayi was the deputy during Akeredolu’s first term (2016-2020) before their bitter row separated them. Other notable candidates are Abbas Mimiko of the Zenith Labour Party, Nehemiah Ebiseni of the Labour Party and Bamidele Akingboye of the Social Democratic Party.

This is a contest for Ondo’s soul. Like other states, it is crying out for development. Rich in resources like bitumen, oil and gas and cash crops, Ondo is a field of dreams for a good leader. It has been governed by the Alliance for Democracy, PDP, LP and APC.

It etched itself into political history during the 1983 general elections when the ruling National Party of Nigeria rigged the polls to displace the Unity Party of Nigeria in the governorship polls. After the bloodshed, the courts returned the UPN as the winner. INEC should learn from this violent reaction to rigging.

INEC Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, has a massive task, considering that elections in Nigeria mimic war and usually end in divisive litigation. Indeed, Czech-born British playwright Tom Stoppard said, “It’s not the voting that’s democracy; it’s the counting.” For INEC, this rings true. In Nigeria, elections are especially compromised at the collation centres.

In fairness, the umpire has introduced measures to counter degenerate politicians and the judiciary. Recent pronouncements from the APC officials are reckless and ominous. The avowed intention of APC apparatchiks is to ‘capture’ the remaining states in Nigeria from the opposition. This is not democracy.

INEC introduced the permanent voter card and the bimodal voter accreditation system to accredit voters to deter the desperate political class. Its INEC Result Viewing portal, where transmitted results are to be viewed in real-time, is another innovation worthy of note.

Yet, these innovations are questioned after each election. In Ondo, a political tinderbox, INEC should banish these problems once and for all. The state comprises 18 local government areas; the state capital is in Akure.

Its officials should be courageous on the field and at the collation centres. It should overcome the perennial logistics issues and delays in distributing voting materials and ensure the BVAS works seamlessly. INEC should focus more on getting the voting materials to the riverine areas of the state early.

To secure the polls, the Inspector-General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, deployed 22,239 officers to the state. Egbetokun banned the Amotekun and approved only federal security agents. The Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps is supplying 6,000 officers. The military, the self-styled Department of State Services and other paramilitary agencies will be on the ground. Experience shows that deploying police and other security agents does not guarantee credible or peaceful elections in Nigeria.

In Nigeria, elections are militarised as the IG also restricted vehicular movement in the state on Saturday. This is a crude part of elections in Nigeria. There was free movement in the November 6 elections in the United States. Nigeria needs to attain this ideal in its elections.

In Nigeria, democracy is fast losing its appeal, primarily because it works only for the political class while the rest of society is wallowing in misery. One of the pointers is voter apathy. Faced with acute hardship, most voters are turning their back on elections at the federal and state levels.

While 27 per cent of registered voters elected Bola Tinubu as President in 2023, voter turnout in the 2020 presidential election in the US hit 67 per cent. In the November 5 election won by Donald Trump, turnout was projected at 65 per cent.

In Ondo, this dispiriting reality is obvious. In the 2012 governorship election, voter turnout was 38 per cent. This crashed to 35 per cent four years later. Voter turnout dropped to 31.6 per cent in 2020. This could be traced in part to the climate of violence and the COVID-19 pandemic. In neighbouring Edo State, voter turnout in the 2020 off-cycle poll was 27.5 per cent. So, the challenge in Ondo is to revive voter participation because participation in elections is integral in measuring the health of a democracy.

In the run-up to the polls, the ugly trend of vote-buying became topical again. In the last election in October 2020, vote-buying was rife. Party agents made a brazen mockery of democracy by openly inducing voters with as little as N4,000 or as high as N7,000. A week before D-Day, Ondo residents complained that politicians had mopped up cash from the bank vaults in anticipation of inducing voters.

The implications are dire. Politicians enter office with the background knowledge that they bought their way in and as such, they are not accountable to the electorate. Thus, performance suffers.

According to INEC, 2.05 million were registered for the ballot. However, only 1.75 million or 85.6 per cent collected their PVCs. Only those who have PVCs are eligible to vote in Nigeria. This is a high collection rate.

For it to count, the voters should not turn their back on polling. It is their abounding right to vote. They should take this civic responsibility with enthusiasm, no matter the impediments. Voters should appropriate the words of Abraham Lincoln, who said, “Elections belong to the people. It’s their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.”

Ultimately, the election process will work when politicians go into elections with a mind to serve, not to capture public resources.

INEC should collaborate with security agencies to prosecute electoral offenders. The results should be available on iReV to enhance credibility.