The Battle Of Edo State 2024: A Review

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-Progressive 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 November 11, 2024. 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, September 21, 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 organized 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 September 21 election as follows: climate of fear and voter apathy, which could affect voter turn-out, 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 September 21, against the background of a slew of allegations and mixed reactions, INEC on September 22, 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 7 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. Gov. 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-publicized 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, September 21, 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 turn-out in the Edo election was low, despite the people’s obvious enthusiasm. Election observers put the voter turn-out rate at 22.4% with a margin of error of +/- 1.6%, much lower than the 27% turn-out 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 am only about 17% of the voters had been accredited, by 11:51 am, about 64%. 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 November 11, 2024. 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 September 22.  It is called realpolitik.

Guest Columnist

Opeyemi Bamidele

This Time Too Shall Pass Away

Let me most sincerely welcome all my colleagues back from our annual recess, a period we, as a tradition, suspend plenaries for dispassionate field engagements. It was no doubt a period of wider consultations in preparation for the tasks ahead. It was also a period of intense engagement with critical stakeholders nationwide with a view to getting feedback from our constituents; identifying issues of public interests and presenting the feedback for policy consideration in the 2025 fiscal year.

A lot of events indeed happened between the period we went on annual recess and now. The events obviously ranged from the nationwide protests to the return of long queues to our filling stations; festering instability in the foreign exchange market and flood disaster that escalated humanitarian crises in some states of the federation. Each of these public concerns, again, reminded us about the complexity of our socio-economic challenges; people’s desperation for multi-pronged antidotes and the crucial tasks of transforming Nigeria to a federation we shall all be proud of someday.

At the National Assembly, we clearly understand all these public concerns and the rights of the people to demand explanations, especially at the time of national crises. We also understand that governments at all levels are under obligation to listen to public grievances and work out strategies to address them. But are these challenges peculiar to us as a people? Is Nigeria the only country facing hard times worldwide?

Of course, countries – developed, emerging and underdeveloped – are going through turbulent times, economically and politically, across the globe. For example, Ghana and Kenya in East Africa, Argentina and Venezuela in South America, Japan and Pakistan in the Pacific, Iran and Saudi Arabia in the Middle East as well as Greece and Spain, among others, are all neck-deep either into intractable crises that their governments are working hard to reverse or considerably address.

These countries are, like Nigeria, methodically and painstakingly responding to their challenges not just to meet public expectations, but also to create enabling environments for real growth and sustainable development. This is not, in any way, to make an excuse for the governments. Rather, it is to show that the world has entered into another era of turbulence, first started with the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020; followed by the escalation of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in 2022 and compounded by the renewed hostility between Israel and Palestine in 2023. 

Each of these geo-political dynamics has grave implications for import-dependent economies like Nigeria and their internal stability. As we are all aware, the escalation of the Russia-Ukraine conflict disrupted the importation of grains to Africa. Consequently, it triggered chronic food inflation in most African economies because most of them sourced 50% of their grain needs and 70% of their wheat requirements from Russia and Ukraine. They could not because the war disrupted grain shipment.

Nigeria was not exempted from this grain supply distortion. Her grain supply constraint was compounded by internal instability that further decapitated her food production capacity long before the current administration office.That explained why food inflation was as high as 40.87% in June 2024 before it dropped to 39.53% in July 2024 and further to 37.52% in August 2024. What does this decline truly suggest? It simply suggests that the multi-pronged responses of all government arms have started yielding positive outcomes. This time shall surely pass away.

These geo-political dynamics, likewise, escalated the prices of crude oil in the international market. For us, as one of the world’s oil producers, this increase should ordinarily be a blessing rather than a headache. Again, the failure to significantly and strategically invest in the development of the midstream petroleum infrastructure  turned us to a victim of the geo-political conflicts. And we were faced with the realities of either returning to a vicious subsidy regime or bracing up for the escalating fuel pump prices that eventually constrained people’s living standard. We are now gradually navigating through this thorny path that our fear to decisively act constricted us. 

This was the indisputable geo-political context that an import-dependent Nigeria found herself, even before the inauguration of the 10th National Assembly. These challenges became more excruciating and grievous within the first year of our four-year tenure. These are the grim and disturbing realities from which we cannot run away. As public servants, we took up the gauntlets and began addressing our heinous national challenges from the very foundation.

Fellow countrymen, we have been responding to these challenges, considering creative and innovative parliamentary initiatives. As legislators, we firmly share a conviction that the initiatives will, in no small measure, add value to the lives of over 133 millions, whom the World Bank Group classified to be multidimensionally poor. And we are committed to this vital national mission for which we were elected to undertake.

But Nigerians must trust us with the power they had already entrusted to us. This is not the time to play politics with all these issues of national significance, all in the name of strategising to win the 2027 contest. We must remember that there must be 2025 before 2026  and 2026 before 2027. What Nigerians are demanding from us is the demonstration of patriotic spirit and not the display of parochial political agenda that will never improve the lives of our people, whether in the North or South. We must not miss this period of national challenge. It is the best time to act collectively, decisively and reasonably.

How has the National Assembly been responding to all these national challenges? This is a vital question that deserves a detailed response. But I will point out a few areas that we have, independently or interdependently, addressing all these challenges. First, we have a clear understanding with all federal agencies we are oversighting that we will not tax citizens, who are multidimensionally poor. We are committed to this promise because we are in government for the people and not against the people.

This truly explains why we introduced windfall tax under the 2023 Finance Act. This legislation, specifically, imposes a one-year tax on the realised foreign exchange profits derived by commercial banks in the 2023 fiscal year. This practice is not peculiar to Nigeria alone. Countries going through turbulent economic times have  embraced it in Europe and beyond, though with the sole purpose of resolving their fiscal challenges. In 2022, for instance, the Parliament of the United Kingdom introduced a 25% Energy Profits Levy, which it imposed on its oil multinationals.

The levy was increased to 35% in 2023 when the UK effectively slid into another meltdown. Within this time, this tax was introduced in 25 member-states of the European Union. In Greece, it was as high as 60%; 70% in Slovakia; 75% in Ireland; 90% in France; 90% in Austria and 100% in Belgium, each of which purely targeted electricity and oil giants that made super profits. If these countries could go this far, why can we not do the same in the national interest? It is a progressive tax aimed at taking from the wealthy to fund pro-people projects and programmes.

Consistent with our mandate under Section 59 of the 1999 Constitution, we also reviewed highly fundamental sections of the 2024 Appropriation Act to address thorny issues that could have created funding gaps and further compound our socio-economic challenges. This review enabled the Parliament to mandate the Executive to significantly scale up its social support to the poorest of the poor due to acute food inflation that the nation witnessed for 12 consecutive months. In addition, the Executive further suspended import duty on food products, also with a view to making food more accessible, available and affordable.

At the time of the national labour dispute, also, the Parliament meaningfully engaged the leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC). The engagement was designed and structured to assure the labour leaders of our unflinching support; promise them our unbiased interventions and persuade them from shutting the economy that we are all working together to strengthen. Even when they did not, in entirety, trust our resolve, we proved them wrong; honoured their agreement with the Executive and sped up the enactment of the 2024 National Minimum Wage Act.

We truly committed our energy, intellect and time to make all these initiatives happen. Our drive is nothing, but mirrors our allegiance to all our constituents nationwide and undying passion to ease vicious fiscal challenges under which our nation is reeling. We made critical interventions in the interest of all our countrymen regardless of their socio-economic status. We are still committed to more creative legislative interventions that will positively impact our economy and polity in future.

As we return fully to the parliamentary sessions, the National Assembly will, without ambiguity, revisit its decision to decisively address challenges in the petroleum industry. The industry is not optimal in its performance. This may not be unconnected to crude oil theft, endless turn around maintenance of public refineries, importation of substandard petroleum products and disruption of fuel supply, among others. Before we went on annual recess, the President of the Senate, His Excellency, Senator Godswill Akpabio, GCON, constituted an ad-hoc committee to beam searchlights on all these issues. The Senate later expanded the scope of the committee to deal with diverse allegations of economic sabotage in the petroleum industry.

Contrary to some media reports, the Senate never suspended its Ad-hoc Committee to Investigate Alleged Economic Sabotage in the Nigerian Petroleum Industry, but postponed its public hearing due to the need to address issues that border on the Rules of the National Assembly. Today, both chambers of the National Assembly will resolve the issues and possibly constitute a joint committee that will continue with the investigation from where the ad-hoc committee stopped. We are committed to unearthing the roots of economic sabotage in the petroleum industry in the national interest and developing institutional mechanisms that will make the industry more efficient and functional.  

We are expecting a new medium term expenditure framework (MTEF) from the Executive. MTEF is an integral part of our budget culture that emphasises a multi-year public expenditure planning exercise; sets out the future budget requirements for existing services and assess the resource implications of future policy changes. The consideration of MTEF occupies a prime place on the rung of our legislative agenda. This is simply because MTEF must be ready before the 2025 Appropriation Bill can be laid before the National Assembly.

We are equally preoccupied with the review of the 1999 Constitution. In the Senate, the Constitution Review Committee is chaired by Deputy President of the Senate, Senator Barau I. Jibrin, CON. In the coming weeks, the Committee will hold retreats and strategy sessions; call for memoranda and organise zonal meetings on some sections of our grundnorm that should be amended. Given the pedigrees of all its members, this exercise no doubt promises a truly federative approach that will redefine and reinvent public governance in this country.

We have all these legislative initiatives before the Parliament for consideration in coming weeks. Each of the initiatives is designed to develop an efficient and functional political system that works for all and not for the few. We therefore plead for more cooperation and understanding to act in the best interest of all Nigerians. As a people, we must all share the conviction that the task of nation-building is not individualistic or unilateral in nature. But it must be collectively driven at building one indivisible, resilient and united nation. We must rise above parochialism and sectionalism to reposition Nigeria for a global role for this time too shall soon pass away.

•Senator Opeyemi Bamidele, CON, Leader of the 10th Senate, writes from Abuja