The battle of Edo State 2024: A review, By Reuben Abati

A battle on the electoral turf has just been won and lost in Edo state, Nigeria. Governor Godwin Obaseki was elected as Governor in 2016 on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in that state. By 2019, he had fallen out of favour with the godfather that brought him to power, former Nigerian Labour Congress President, and former governor of Edo State for eight years (2008–2016), now Senator Adams Oshiomhole. In due course, Oshiomhole left the PDP and pitched his tent with the APC where he would later rise to the position of the National Chairman of the Party. In 2020, Obaseki crossed over to the Peoples’ Democratic Party and successfully upstaged his Godfather to get a second term in office. His tenure in office ends on 11 November. Hence, there has been a lead up to gubernatorial elections in Edo State to mark the effective end of Obaseki’s tenure, the Nigerian Constitution providing for only two terms in office for Governors and the President. The gubernatorial election to see Obaseki out of office and to determine the next occupant of the Osadebey Government House in Benin was held on Saturday, 21 September, with 17 candidates and political parties on the ballot.

We were eventually confronted with a three horse-way race involving boardroom guru and lawyer, Asue Ighodalo of the PDP, Senator Monday Okpebholo of the APC and former Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) President, Olumide Akpata of the Labour Party (LP) as the leading contenders. The voting took place in 4,519 polling units, in the state’s three Senatorial districts, with 35,000 policemen in attendance along with 8,000 other security agents – military, EFCC and the Civil Defence Corps. Total number of registered voters in the election was 2,629,025. Total number of 2,249,780 voters’ cards were collected. It was a high stakes election as seen in the febrile drama that led to the election, with the incumbent Governor saying it was a do-or-die election in which the Federal Government was determined to rig in favour of the APC candidate, creating a Federal Might vs. The People’s might encounter. The PDP further alleged that the state police command and the state resident INEC commissioner were known associates of former Governor of Rivers State, now Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike. The Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun pledged that the police were impartial and unbiased. Wike did not help matters by boasting openly on live television that no Jupiter could change the police commissioner in Edo state and the INEC resident commissioner and that he, Wike would not endorse either Ighodalo or the PDP in Edo State. This is the same Wike who claims to be the political leader of the PDP in Rivers State, but he is currently an unabashed agent of the APC in deed and in words! No individual should be so brazen.

Instructively, Obaseki, the PDP and their candidate refused to sign the Peace Accord that had been brokered by the National Peace Committee, a respectable body of eminent men and women led by Nigeria’s former Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, Bishop Mathew Hassan Kukah and others. A governorship debate that was organised for the candidates was boycotted by the PDP and APC. Only the candidate of the LP showed up to complain bitterly about the effrontery of the APC that offered to send Senator Adams Oshiomhole who was clearly not the candidate to stand in for Okpebholo. Similarly, Akpata condemned Ighodalo. There were fears about the possible outbreak of violence and the breakdown of law and order. Poll watchers and analysts pointed to a number of factors that could determine the 21 September election as follows: climate of fear and voter apathy, which could affect voter turnout, manipulation of votes, violence and ballot snatching, vote buying or stomach infrastructure; voter suppression, current economic hardship, neutrality of otherwise of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the security agencies, the influence of key political actors especially Godfathers, Federal might and power of incumbency at both Federal and state levels.

When the battle was won and determined on 21 September, against the background of a slew of allegations and mixed reactions, INEC on 22 September, announced the results to the effect that Monday Okepbholo of the APC had been validly elected, with 291, 667 votes, winning in 11 Local Government Areas, Asue Ighodalo, the PDP candidate, with 247,274 votes with majority in seven LGAs, and Olumide Akpata, of the LP with 22,763 votes, without any majority in any LGA, not even in his own polling unit. APC leaders have been singing and dancing since then, claiming that God has blessed the words of their mouth, that the APC would triumph. The PDP leaders believe that they have been robbed. Governor Obaseki calls this “a travesty and a tragedy”, a display of brute force and a violation of the people’s right to choose. He has however asked that the aggrieved should be calm and seek redress by following due process in expressing their grievances. Asue Ighodalo, the PDP candidate alleges that the Edo Election 2024, might be the worst ever in the history of this country. Akpata says the votes went to the highest bidder. Mr Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the LP has said this was a case of “state capture”.

My quick observation is that whatever happens hereafter, perhaps at the election petition tribunal and the courts, both Ighodalo and Akpata have put up a gallant and spirited challenge and there are more people in and out of Edo State who consider them the better candidates in the race. If the beauty of television advertisements alone could win elections, the tally would have gone to Olumide Akpata. If the ability to speak English grammar and a person’s pedigree mattered for anything in Nigerian politics, Ighodalo would have won. What we have just been confronted with in Edo state is the reality of Nigerian politics – where ideas, pedigree, brilliance – in the context of a webbed transactional politics that compromise and overwhelm every single factor in the process, do not matter.

In 1999, shortly after the election that brought President Obasanjo and the PDP to power in Nigeria, election observers had reported that Nigerian politicians had devised many methods of election rigging, which some analysts identified in a well-publicised list. This led to talks about electoral reform and the need to clean up Nigeria’s elections to promote the common good. In 2003, and 2007, analysts had observed greater sophistication in the corrupt manipulation of election results across the country. It was so bad in 2007 that the Yar’Adua/Jonathan administration that came to power openly admitted that the elections were flawed, and insisted that the most urgent task before Nigeria was electoral reform. In 2015, Dr Goodluck Jonathan was a victim of his own insistence on the values of transparency, integrity and accountability in elections. The APC leaders who succeeded him could not care less. In 2021, it was a tough battle to get the amended Electoral Reform Bill of 2010 signed by President Buhari. In fact, it was not signed for flimsy reasons.

In 2022, the National Assembly finally managed to smuggle in an Electoral Act 2022, under which the 2023 general elections were conducted. But in real terms, nothing has changed since 1999. Civil society groups are still arguing for an Electoral Framework with the same old argument that the extant Electoral Act is defective. The first lesson of Edo Election 2024 is that nothing has changed in Nigerian politics. The political parties, the institutions, the politicians and the people have learnt nothing. The people quotient of Nigerian democracy is weak, poor, disconnected. Edo State has just confirmed our worst fears. There has been open, front-face evidence of vote-trading. On Saturday, 21 September, politicians and agents offered to buy votes, with the cost now as high as N20,000. It used to be cheaper to buy a vote, but we are made to understand that the high inflation in the land and economic hardship have both marked up asking prices. In Edo, they were selling votes as if they were trading bags of tomatoes. Ballots were snatched. Ballot papers were burnt. There were sporadic shootings if not an outright breakout of violence. YIAGA Africa, one of the many civil society observer groups that formed the Nigerian Situation Room observing the Edo election has reported that the biggest problem was the failure of integrity.

The stakes were high. Edo 2024 was a revenge operation among the Godfathers and the political actors. It has been said that the loser in the election is not Asue Ighodalo (PDP) but Godwin Obaseki, the incumbent Governor, seen to be the main supporter of Ighodalo, and who had acquired a very powerful team of former allies turned “enemies”. These enemies were determined to teach him a lesson for alienating them. Asue Ighodalo probably chose the wrong party for as we see, there was nothing he could have done to please the likes of Adams Oshiomhole, the Godfather whom Obaseki turned against and embarrassed thoroughly and Philip Shuaibu, the deputy governor whom Obaseki despised and humiliated. There were other anti-Obaseki political actors: Dan Orbih, Anselm Ojezua, Osagie Ize-Iyamu and Kabiru Adjoto. Obaseki was also considered unfriendly to the exalted throne of the Omo N’Oba. In Edo State, anyone considered rude to the palace loses favour, even among the people. The Oba once had cause to admonish Obaseki publicly to remember that one day he would no longer be governor and he should be guided accordingly. That moment has arrived! It is Ighodalo who has now paid the price of this undercurrent.

Philip Shuaibu was on television yesterday boasting that he won his polling unit, his ward and his LGA for Monday Okpebholo, the best record in Edo State. He boasted that Obaseki was a non-politician that was brought from Lagos and made a governor. Obaseki, in this last election, did not win his ward and LGA. He was outboxed, outthought, and bulldozed as Daniel Dubois did to Anthony Joshua at the IBF boxing match at the Wembley Stadium the very same day! In 2020, Obaseki boasted, while seeking a second term, that “Edo no be Lagos” in a subtle reference to Tinubu’s promise that he would return Edo State to the APC. Over the weekend, the point would seem to have been made that “Edo is now Lagos” and we saw the APC chieftains dancing. Shuaibu says Obaseki has to come and beg the victors. That may not be an idle threat.

The security agencies have been praised for overseeing a peaceful election in Edo State. But was it free and fair? Is the outcome fair to all parties concerned? It would have been scandalous for the security agencies to deploy a total of 43,000 men, who could have been put to better use to fight banditry and terrorism, to an off-cycle election and we would have a breakdown of law and order. The architects of violence in Edo State had to moderate their madness perhaps because the security presence was intimidating, and oppressive. Edo State was like a war zone. Two days earlier, Nigeria’s Chief of Defence Staff, General Christopher Musa was on the ground to address his troops and the people, noting that he had express instructions from the president, commander-in-chief to enforce peace in Edo State. Elections should not be held with the gun pointed at the people’s heads. It should be a peaceful, civil event where the people make informed choices freely and without fear and pressure. Not surprisingly, voter turnout in the Edo election was low, despite the people’s obvious enthusiasm. Election observers put the voter turnout rate at 22.4 per cent with a margin of error of +/- 1.6 per cent, much lower than the 27 per cent turnout in the 2020 Edo Gubernatorial election. If this is a case of apathy, then it means the people in Edo as elsewhere, are beginning to lose faith in Nigeria’s electoral process.

INEC, the electoral umpire has featured prominently in the various reports. The electoral umpire did well with BVAS and accreditation but voting processes did not start early. As at 8:30 a.m. only about 17 per cent of the voters had been accredited, by 11:51 a.m., about 64 per cent. For an off-cycle election in just one state, this was not good enough. There were inconsistencies in the officially announced results, on IREV, the INEC portal. At some point, the political parties and their agents felt obliged to take over the collation process. Governor Adamu Fintiri of Adamawa state who was in Benin, as Chairman of the PDP Campaign Council for the Edo election, had to do his own collation and advise INEC not to delay the announcement of results in outstanding three LGAs. Fintiri had to explain that he had not broken any law – he merely announced what he found on the IREV portal. Nonetheless, INEC is the only body empowered by law to announce any results. But Fintiri insists that the Edo election was a rape of democracy and that the PDP candidate won. He says he weeps for Nigeria because “democracy is under attack”. The desperation of the various political personae casts doubts on the effectiveness of INEC in the Edo election. There is no denying it: there is still the urgent need to strengthen electoral institutions and address the challenge of reforms. Obviously, no amount of law can transform Nigeria’s elections unless the people themselves agree to change and the institutions function differently.

The Edo Gubernatorial election 2024 has taken place against the background of the fact that many Nigerians have been complaining about poor governance and hunger in Nigeria. In August, this class of Nigerians openly expressed their anger and they are threatening to do so again in October. In other climes, when people face economic hardship in the hands of a sitting government, they express themselves through the polls when they have the opportunity to do so. Nigeria is a strange country where a political party’s performance in power does not really matter, and hence, politicians get rewarded, regardless of how the people think or feel. It is therefore not for nothing that an APC chieftain has remarked that the outcome of the Edo election is an affirmation of the people’s confidence in President Tinubu’s economic reforms.

It is possible in Nigerian politics to say anything when your party has won and has been declared winner. The standard rule in Nigerian politics is for you to work on your strategy so well, whether in a crooked manner or not, win and let the other party complain. Both PDP/Ighodalo and LP/Akpata may be talking to their lawyers right now but while they are spending more money paying lawyers, Monday Okpebholo would be sworn in on 11 November. With the Federal Might behind him, and powerful Godfathers like Adams Oshiomhole, Nyesom Wike, Philip Shuaibu and the APC demolition machinery involved, it would be difficult to upturn the results announced on 22 September. It is called realpolitik.

Reuben Abati, a former presidential spokesperson, writes from Lagos.