On Saturday, November 16, 2024, the people of Ondo State will go to the poll to elect a new governor. It is obviously a two-horse race between incumbent governor, Lucky Aiyedatiwa of the All Progressives Congress (APC), and Agboola Ajayi of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Coincidentally, both men were deputy to the late Rotimi Akeredolu. While Ajayi was deputy in the first tenure of Akeredolu and survived attempts to impeach him, Aiyedatiwa became deputy governor in the second tenure of the late former governor and President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA).
As it is the practice, all the candidates last Friday, committed themselves to signing the peace accord. They pledged to ensure a violence-free poll. Their assurance to work for a peaceful process is encouraging, but in the real sense, it doesn't guarantee that the poll will be hitch free. Previous elections, especially the last governorship election in Edo, have proven this assertion correctly.
The idea behind the peace accord was well conceived. It flowed from genuineness to have sanity in our electoral process. It was
capable of ensuring that unfeigned peace is maintained by all stakeholders before, during and after elections. But sadly, the exercise has become a mere pre-election jamboree because of the conduct of some politicians, security agents, and officials of the electoral umpire, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The desperation of these stakeholders make a mess of not only the peace accord ceremony but the entire electoral process. It ridicules our democracy and makes us a laughing stock among democratic nations. Yet it doesn't seem as though there will be any changes in the coming Ondo poll or even in next year's off-cycle gubernatorial election scheduled for Anambra State.
Two months ago, we saw what happened in Edo. An embarrassment to the tenets of democracy. The election was one of the worst conducted by INEC. Voters were compromised, and security agencies looked the other way while politicians brazenly undermined the process in favour of their preferred candidates. In the end, as it has become customary, the losers were urged to "go to court" to challenge the outcome.
One of the accredited observers of the Edo guber election, Yiaga Africa, discredited the election for lacking integrity. The group said there were widespread irregularities, including alteration of results by the collation officers, and particularly called out rogue officials of INEC for blame over alterations of figures.
The damning verdict by Yiaga and other independent observers was a consensus that the Edo election was nothing but a sham. We saw governors of other states, members of the National Assembly from other states, the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), all converging in Benin with heavy security to "help" their party to victory.
Now, the Ondo election is here, and there is every reason to believe that we will see a repeat of what transpired in Edo. INEC has not purged itself of the bad eggs within its fold. INEC's never-ending promise of a free and fair election is an established rhetoric. We doubt if the average Nigerian voter takes them seriously on account of their many shortcomings and repeated failures.
But they can prove Nigerians wrong by ensuring that Ondo is different and becomes a new chapter to show their redemption from years of "sin". It is not a difficult thing to do. To start with, let electoral materials get to the polling units on record time, let accreditation of voters and voting itself commence at the stipulated time. Let results be properly collated and let what is uploaded on the IREV match what was counted and duly announced at the various polling units.
INEC must also ensure that results entered correspond with the number of accredited voters in each polling unit. The electoral commission must also ensure that where there are genuine cases of complaints, it reviews the result there and takes an unbiased position of either making an outright cancelation or fresh election.
Other agencies of government must support INEC to achieve a successful election in Ondo. We all must learn from the civil nature of other countries during election. Non-state actors must not have a role to play in our electoral process. This has been a major challenge for Nigeria.
The recent election in the United States of America and Botswana where incumbent parties lost their grip on power in what was globally adjudged a free, fair, credible and transparent election should inspire us all to do the right thing. Please let Ondo votes count.
