An Eggregious Experiment in Edo State, by Ike Willie-Nwobu

The 2024 Governorship election in Edo State has come and gone with the All Progressives Congress and its candidate, Monday Okpebholo, wildly celebrating a dubious victory.
The state which distinguished itself as a slippery slope for the APC during the 2023 general elections was always going to be tightly contested. The buildup to the election showed that the prediction was well on course.

As soon as results started trickling in, the ruling People’s Democratic Party in the state which had been circulated dubious results even before the counting was concluded was rattled. Seeing that it had been outmaneuvered in the game of electoral brigandage by the APC, the party resorted to crying foul while Godwin Obaseki, the incumbent governor, paid a hastily arranged visit to the office of the Independent National Electoral Commission in what was an ultimately futile attempt to save the day.

Adams Oshiomole, a serving senator who was a former governor of the state and chairman of the APC has led the celebrations for the APC. At 73, it has been painful to watch the fall from grace of Oshiomole who danced and drank as he was serenaded as ‘governorship maker’ shortly after the results was announced. Many Nigerians can no longer recognize the man who immovably stood on their side as president of the Nigeria Labour Congress, but who now appears to have bartered his soul for the political gratification that many find so irresistible in Nigeria.

As for Godwin Obaseki whose costly political cowardice and conceit have now contrived to foist the retrogressive darkness that is the APC on the progressive people of the Edo State, now that the heedless fly has followed the corpse to the grave, it is hoped that his newly minted political obscurity will be long and oppressive.
Here is a man who was rinsed out of the muck of political obscurity and decorated with the robe of governor by Adams Oshiomole who later did all he could to ensure he did not get a second term. Obaseki was only saved by the goodwill of Edo people who have always been allergic to oppression of any kind.

Yet, immediately Philip Shaibu, the deputy governor, and the alleged mastermind behind the electoral victories of Obaseki, indicated interest in becoming governor, the same Obaseki threw everything but the kitchen sink to foil Shaibu’s ambition including forcing the malleable Edo State House of Assembly to impeach him as deputy governor, which effectively banished him to the APC. The chickens have now come home to roost.

Nigeria’s difficult dalliance with elections which is the hallmark of democracy was foregrounded by the annulment of the 1993 elections won by M.K.O Abiola. The long and lengthening shadows cast by that injustice has ensured that every election conducted in Nigeria since has been greeted by grating cries. It may be the theater of sore losers but to reduce it to that would be to extend an undeserved mercy to the Independent National Electoral Commission.

The commission, which is yet to recover from the disastrous outing it posted in the 2023 general elections—and there are real doubts over whether it would ever recover—is again at the center of the storm with many accusing it of colluding with the ruling APC to rig the elections. While INEC’s complicity can never find conclusiveness given the convoluted nature of Nigerian elections, one thing that the commission can take to the bank is that it will take a very long time and radical changes for it to regain the trust of Nigerians. Given the antecedents of the commission and those who lead and use it, these changes are surely beyond it.

Now that the head of Edo State has been served on a plate to the shameless strip dancers of Nigerian politics, there is no telling where this macabre dance festival will debut in next.

Meanwhile, hunger continues to gnaw at the entrails of Nigerians with frightening ferocity. Meanwhile, insecurity continues to catch many Nigerians off guard, prematurely sending many on a journey of no return.

To say that the Tinubu administration and the APC have not lived up to expectations is an understatement. To say that the APC which is the ruling party in many states has failed yet again is to put it mildly. However, the fact that the PDP and other political parties who are maintaining a death grip on several states have not fared much better points unerringly to the leadership crisis that continues to convulse Nigeria, igniting a conflagration fated to incinerate the future of Nigerian children.

Under the watch of the APC which has been in power for the past nine years, Nigeria has remained on life support, waiting for the death rattle to end it all. Despite the urgency of the situation, those who strut its corridors of power continue to do their stuff, unperturbed by the fact that the foundations of the house they sit in is creaking.

Democracy thrives on free and fair elections. It is only through free and fair elections that people replicate the delicate system which sustains democracy, revitalizes it and protects it from abuse and misuse. Given how much elections have lost their essence in Nigeria, it is a wonder that democracy has survived for so long.

The elections in Edo State have yanked open a window into what awaits Nigerians in 2027. The onus is on Nigerians to survive until that time and mount an unyielding defense of their priceless democracy.

Ike Willie-Nwobu,
Ikewilly9@gmail.com