Nobody really thought that the electoral revolution that took
place in Ekiti State was going to take place and shape – and honestly, I
didn’t. In fact, before that election, there had been several outcries that the
election was not going to be free and fair, and that votes were not going to
count. So many of the members of the
opposition, whose perception of opposition unfortunately is in the art and
science of hurling insults at government and at deploying irresponsible
sobriquets at it, travelled to Anambra. Most of us watching from the sidelines
did not really understand what an El-Rufai was going to do in Anambra State on
the very eve of the elections. Was he a grassroots campaigner or was he going
there as an accredited election monitor? If El-Rufai had been in Anambra state
at least three to six months before that election in Anambra, nobody would be
raising eyebrows that he was there in the thick of the campaigns and that the
SSS were unnecessary being malicious in locking him up in his room when they
did – and to protect him from the angry Anambrarians who felt piqued at his
taking them for granted by his highly provocative visit. I often like to quote
my oga at the top, Mr. Sam Kargbo, who writes for the Daily Independent Newspaper. His article titled, ‘Revisiting
Fashola’s politics and development’, published on Thursday 21st 2014
eloquently captures what the so-called political elite should have done and be
doing instead of running political opponents down. Hear him: ‘Democracy has its
challenges, but the greatest challenge we are facing is the challenge of
building a political class capable of managing resources for the benefit of the
people. In this respect, the elite must
join the political arena and participate actively in campaigns, elections and
all aspects of politics including the molding and creation of a critical mass
of voters capable of putting into elective offices, people of proven integrity
and competence.
This was the agenda that the opposition did not set for
itself against the backdrop of the Ekiti election – Ekiti then suddenly became
a mecca for politicians who had never set foot on Ekiti soil either as visitors
or campaigners for their party. Now please do not get me wrong here – there is
nothing in the books that says that politicians cannot go to a state to
campaign but if it would have been downright irresponsible if the government
had folded its arms and legs, albeit in the spirit of political tolerance, to allow
certain people to go Ekiti to ‘campaign’ just twenty four hours before the
elections proper. Twenty four hours before the elections, Ekiti suddenly began
to teem and swarm with politicians with fat wallets, ready to rock the state.
They were not allowed in, and the result of that election is comfortably
nestled somewhere in history as the local equivalent of the Arab Spring and of
the June 12 presidential election – nothing else in the annals of our political
experience could explain how that election happened the way it happened unless
the government took proactive steps.
But some Nigerians are indeed terrible sports and such sore
losers. Even with the Ekiti Arab Spring where a defeated governor conceded
defeat and congratulated his opponent, the opposition still went on to allege
that the elections were rigged in favour of the PDP because the government did
the needful by deploying a sizable proportion of security men and women and
patriots determined to forestall the mayhem and pandemonium that the opposition
had arranged. The opposition did not
stop at that. Incredibly, they have
listened to some practitioners of the law seeking to benefit from the electoral
process and they have gone to court to challenge our Arab Spring of an election
in Ekiti State.
For me, what compounds the credibility ratio and index
unfavourable to the opposition is that in the build up to the elections in
Osun, they began to play mind games with everyone. They alleged that the PDP
was going to rig the elections. That allegation was hinged on the theory that
since the PDP won the elections in Ekiti state with a huge draft of security
men and women to Osun, it was going to win the Osun election as well.
Therefore, having boxed everyone in a corner with their rhetoric, the APC
resorted to issuing threats, the most serious one of them being that it was
going to form a parallel government in the event that it did not win the
elections.
The Osun elections have come and gone, and the APC won by a
very slim margin in a keenly contested election, and under a playing field
adjudged by us all as level. Many people have said that the PDP lost because
its candidate was a hard sell. I do not know about this. What I am sure of is
that Nigerian politicians are like the lawyers: they win a case and they
proceed to the rooftops to let the world know that the judicial system that
gave them victory is the best in the world; if they lose the case, they proceed
to the rooftops as well and tell you the judge erred in law, principle and
fact, and that the judgement is a travesty of the judicial system. For us to develop as a nation seeking to get
it right, politicians must learn to be mature and magisterial in their scope
and outlook concerning the political process.
