Edo poll: Some preliminary notes – by Louis Odion

Louis Odion

"The people of Edo has (sic) let Nigerians down, though we know that Oshiomhole did fairly well, but (sic) we wanted a signal to Buhari at the centre."

The foregoing text was sent to yours sincerely by a subscriber on 08064532104 around 11A.M yesterday once it became clear the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Godwin Obaseki, had won the Edo 2016 governorship contest that had literally set the nation on the edge in the last three weeks.

His language may be a little difficult, the message intended by the aforementioned SMS was unambiguous and would seem a mere amplification of what had been whispered in enlightened circles all the while: the Edo election would be more of a referendum on the Buhari's presidency and governance model that is anything but inclusive.

For anyone wishing to cash the APC brand, their misfortune is no doubt compounded by the ongoing economic recession which has raised the misery index in the land.

These days in Edo State, as in other APC strongholds in the South, it is not uncommon to hear folks lament that they practically have little or nothing to show for all their contributions to Buhari's electoral victory by way of patronage. Outside the South-West, Edo was the only state in the South-South and South-East that gave Buhari 45 percent in the 2015 poll. Considering that Buhari's opponent, PDP's Goodluck Jonathan, hails from Niger Delta, Edo's showing was undoubtedly a supreme gesture in self-denial.

This cannot be the promise of change, they whine.

Trust the opposition. Tapping into this festering discontent, little wonder then that Edo PDP ingenuously invented the battle cry,  "Change the change" in its campaign message.

It is in this context that the outcome of the September 28 polls should therefore be situated. APC polled 319,483 votes against PDP's 253,173. In his re-election bid in 2012, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole polled a more emphatic 75 percent of the vote.

With the relatively impressive 45 percent Peoples Democratic Party garnered this time, the casual observer will likely be tempted to construe that as a gravitation of the Edo electorate towards the values the party of umbrella had embodied in the state between 1999 and 2008. But nothing can be more simplistic.

In the trying hour when the "change" incantation seemed to have grown impotent, Oshiomhole had to draw on personal charm to deliver APC on Wednesday in Edo. So titanic was the battle that the national chairman of APC, Odigie Oyegun, was shellacked right in his own polling unit. In the times ahead, he will have to endure the taunts and jeers of being an Iroko in Abuja without taproot at home.

The margin of APC's victory clearly underscores how sharply polarized the Edo citizenry have become along partisan lines. Never in recent memory have we witnessed an electioneering process this characterized by vile language. So, the governor-elect already has his job cut out for him. To actualize his promises, he surely requires uncommon wisdom to mobilize the majority behind a common purpose.

Other than that, the September poll also marks a watershed in conduct. Even the celestial forces seemed to have created their own incentive. Nowhere was rainfall reported throughout the length and breadth of the state that day even though the preceding days witnessed heavy downpour consistently.

Generally, it was also peaceful. Unlike in 2007 and 2012, no life was reported lost this time. Kudos to the security agencies who collectively gave a good account of themselves. Before the D-Day, there were accusations and counter-accusations between the ruling APC and opposition PDP on plots to "import" thugs and militants into the state to influence the electoral outcome.

Up till the zero hour, there were fears that the bogey of insecurity invariably created would result in voter apathy. But the reverse was the case on Wednesday. The turnout will go down as the highest in Edo's history.

Overall, the Wednesday exercise could be described as a consolidation of the "one man, one vote" advocacy popularized by Oshiomhole in the past eight years. Imperfect as it may appear in some aspects, the fact that there was even a bitter public debate and an open contest at all was already a monumental victory for the Edo people.

Once upon a time in that province, the notion of election of any kind was often not more than the ritual of the agents of the ruling party sitting in a secluded corner and capturing the dictate of the godfather on a forged score-sheet to be tendered by the compromised returning officer as the true reflection of the electoral wishes and aspirations of the people.

In a full-page advertisement he took out in some national dailies on Monday, Chief Tony Anenih strangely chose to sermonize on the imperatives of a free and fair election. Coming from a man who had earned his stripes as PDP's most decorated rigger – glamorized as "Mr. Fix It" – nothing could be more illustrative of the biblical Saul-to-Paul conversion on the road to Damascus. Now stripped of the exclusive federal rigging instruments, it is obvious that the wearied fox from Uromi, once the scourge of all that is noble in politics, has finally reconciled himself to being subordinated to the sanctity of the ballot on the eve of his compulsory retirement from the stage.

If nothing at all, Oshiomhole should accept this as a personal moral victory as he commences his glorious retreat to Iyamo after November 12.

Igbinedion:  The audacity of a lie

Those who know erstwhile Edo governor, Lucky Igbinedion, intimately will attest he is ordinarily a good-natured guy who deploys silence as his best armour, even in the face of personal insults. After all, didn't Mark Twain already forewarn that it is far more prudent to leave people guessing your gumption than open your mouth and remove all doubt?

For instance, when last year a bombastic advertorial against Governor Adams Oshiomhole emerged in Vanguard newspaper in Lucky's name following the eruption of hostilities between the Edo State Government and the Igbinedion family, the story was told of how the easy-going son of Esama promptly reached out to the current tenant at the Benin White House and disowned the publication in entirety, blaming it on the mischief of a known political disciple who, according to him, had elected to wail louder than the bereaved.

But asked to formally issue a disclaimer, the man with the enigmatic whisker reportedly pleaded doing so would only lend the controversy currency. In his own judgement, it was better to allow the matter fizzle out.

It, therefore, came as a rude shock to read Lucky uncharacteristically spitting fire last week.

With his political godson, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, bidding strongly for the gubernatorial crown in the September 28 contest, he probably only aimed to make a pitch for his own anointed. And coming on the heels of a torrent of panegyric in the media lately in form of commentaries (attributed to the usual dubious "public commentator/analyst" with fake address either in Benin, Lagos or Abuja) literally entombing Edo PDP in gold and gallons of Arabian perfume, it is obvious the hatchet men have been smiling to the bank in the past few days.

Let it however be said that whoever persuaded Lucky to shed his accustomed taciturnity in the interview syndicated in some newspapers on the eve of the rescheduled poll and so inelegantly contest facts of recent history, has inadvertently done him grave irreparable damage, beside unveiling him for public ridicule.

Indeed, given the hard facts already in the public domain, no true friend of Lucky would have succumbed to the bait – least of all, goad him – to literally enter the iconic King's Square naked and dance with reckless abandon as he did in that media outing.

The fly-by-night PR consultants should have counseled him that no amount of the rehabilitation of history today could possibly wipe the memory of the 2008 trial in Enugu involving the alleged theft of N25b of Edo funds. A national outrage would later greet Justice Abdul Tafarati's decision to fine the convict only N3.5m in a curious "plea bargain" with EFCC which saw the record 191 count charges being winnowed to just one.

Apart from the N3.5m fine, Lucky was also asked to forfeit a number of properties in atonement.

How pathetic therefore to now watch the erstwhile governor wrestling with weighty questions posed by the interviewer and the lame answers he gave.

One, he denied the label of inertia and graft often pinned on his 8-year reign. That is to be expected.

But asked to reconcile his latter-day denial of larceny and the plea bargain he entered with EFCC, this is Lucky's response: "It depends on what you mean by opting for plea bargain. You don't know who initiated the plea bargain, whether it was me or the EFCC (sic). I just felt I should move on with my life first and foremost. What happened had happened but I can tell you that I never stole Edo State money, I never mismanaged Edo State money. I was never charged for money laundering locally or internationally. As far (as) I am concerned, those talking are just talking out of ignorance or malice. Did we have the money to be stolen?"

Ha!

Such audacious claims will hardly enjoy the concurrence of any objective commentator as the bearer of the society's political and economic memories.

By the way, if Lucky's theory of innocence is to be entertained, then we might yet require further collaboration of psychologists to diagnose what precise mental condition could pre-dispose a man to willingly accept conviction for a felony he yet strongly believes he never committed. For now, let us not dabble in the restricted territory of psychiatry.

To begin with, it is obvious Lucky's publicists failed to prepare him on the notion and manifestation of graft. Otherwise, the former governor would have been more restrained in his own self-praise over his 8-year reign in view of the surfeit of exhibits now public knowledge. Let us even concede to Lucky that not even a single kobo got missing under his watch between 1999 and 2007.

But poor understanding is what is blissfully exhibited if you assume corruption is limited only to the incident of directly pilfering the public till (as illustrated by the original EFCC charge sheet on the missing N25b) or pocketing funds for contracts not executed but entered in the official books as delivered (as serially alleged by the succeeding Oshiomhole administration).

The demon surely manifests in several other dimensions. Each time public trust is betrayed in a way that gives you unfair advantage in any public transaction, graft is perpetrated.

We saw that happened in 2007 when over 100,000 hectares of government forest reserve was released and more than half of that was allocated to phantom companies linked to the governor's family under the guise of embarking on "mechanized farming". This is not speculation. (It is contained in a white paper released by the succeeding administration in 2012 and the claim was never contested.) The infamy was compounded when those allocations were in turn partly sub-let to poor subsistent Yoruba farmers in Ovia areas required to pay annual rent.

No less shameful is the story of how the state-owned Central Hospital and School of Nursing in Benin were put at the disposal of the Igbinedion University in Okada through an MOU consummated under Lucky's watch, while medical students of the state-owned Ambrose Ali University were left to travel to faraway University of Jos, Jos for their practical!

Meanwhile, until the arrangement was revoked in 2014, the Igbinedion family did not pay a single kobo to the coffers of Edo State government even though their medical students pay fantastic tuition. (Again, this is no speculation; it is contained in the official report by the Edo State Government.) Again, when Lucky's publicists seek to bamboozle us with claims of "massive industrialization" under his watch, they conveniently omit how the companies they say he created ended in the twilight of his government in 2007. It is on record that the "fruit juice company" in Ehor never delivered a single pint of juice before his tenure ended.

The much trumpeted "fertilizer company" in Edo North was built at the cost of a whopping N400m but sold for a paltry N50m through a curious "privatization exercise" rushed on the eve of Lucky's exit. As for the "cassavita company" in Esanland, independent valuation carried out after he left office put its worth as N60m even though the cost in Edo's book was N350m!

Against this sordid backcloth, it surely would have been better if Lucky had maintained his studied silence rather than embark on the futile image-laundering, which seems to have only succeeded in exposing him to more ridicule now.