The gubernatorial elections in Kogi and Bayelsa States last weekend have come and gone with the winners already known to all. While the winners are basking in the euphoria of victory, the losers are sulking bemoaning their fates in the contests which outcome political watchers are yet to agree on.
The orgy of violence and allegations of wide spread manipulation of the outcome of the polls are rife forcing a thinking in some quarters as to the kind of democracy we practice in the country. The number of needless deaths recorded in the course of electioneering and the actual polling in the two states tend to give the impression that elections are worth more than the lives of the citizen. From the accounts of election monitors and observers, the elections did not meet international best practices in electoral contests.
The post election killing in Kogi and the ignoble attempts by the security agencies whose responsibility it is to check crimes and criminalities to explain away the actual cause of the mayhem that led to the burning to death of a PDP Women leader by irate opposing youths live much to be desired. In the midst of the orgy of violence in Kogi, one is tempted to ask, how many lives of innocent Nigerians are equal to the ambition of a politician which in this case, Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State. The question is that are there no more limits to what a politician will do to achieve his ambition in the Nigerian political melee? Why should any body decide to kill his fellow man or woman just because he or she shared a different political idea and aspiration? Why is it that perpetrators of these violent crimes never get to be arrested and why are the authorities concerned less interested in bringing culprit of political violence to book?
Like some analysts have argued, the Bayelsa/Kogi elections were expected by Nigerians to be a model for future conduct of elections by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), but the outcome of the polls you will agree fell far below expectation. Incidences of ballot box snatching and outright destruction of voting materials in some polling centres and allegations of phantom votes recording were rife in both Kogi and Bayelsa fuelling calls on the National Assembly to hasten with the proposed amendments to the Electoral Act and the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to accommodate electronic voting procedures.
It has been argued that Nigerians do not need to entertain any fear of being hurt in the process of performing their civic duties if the envisaged electoral process would permit voters to vote in the comfort of their individual homes to choose candidates of their choice without let or hindrance.
Several factors have been adduced to the fall into opposition hands of Bayelsa State which for 20 years had been a Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) fortress. This is just the latest in a string of disasters that have befallen the erstwhile ruling party that once dreamt of a 60-year dominion over the Nigerian political space.
What transpired over the weekend goes deeper than one party prevailing and another losing power. Before our very eyes, the All Progressives Congress (APC), once considered anathema in the South-south and Southeast, is becoming an acceptable platform for getting to power in the South South zone.
Instead of its token presence in Edo State, its footprint is now planted firmly in Bayelsa with the prospect of further incursions into the rest of the South-south zone. This feat is coming despite its desperate bid to conquer Rivers State from incumbent Governor Nyesom Wike and its perennial but seaming bright chances in Delta which more often than not disappear like a mirage in the desert.
The Bayelsa election result is more about the personalities and pedigree of the candidates. It was also about how local party leaders foisted their preferred candidates on the party and the fallout their actions triggered.
Many have blamed Governor Seriake Dickson for ‘imposing’ Senator Douye Diri on the party ostensibly as part of a complex arrangement that would have cleared the way for him to run for the Senate seat presently occupied by Lawrence Ewhrujakpor – the Deputy Governorship candidate.
Their win in Bayelsa where Governor Seriake Dickson of the PDP against popular wish of other stake holders in the party imposed his choice candidate on the party forced aggrieved party members and followers to move out of the party into the APC. Even those who did not move out did not do much to promote the party’s fortune during the election.
The most formidable obstacle to Diri’s emergence was the presence in the race of the serial contestant, particularly, Timi Alaibe, who was clearly favoured by former President Goodluck Jonathan.
Dickson did what most governors have done over time by pulling out all stops to ensure his man got the ticket. But the upshot was that critical stakeholders whose collective contributions could have assured victory for the PDP were offended and nothing substantial was done to mitigate the offence before the polls on November 16.
The signs were there that all was not well given the gale of defections that persisted almost until Election Day. It was as if they were designed to exact the maximum political toll on Dickson’s goodwill as the departures happened in drip-drip fashion, on a weekly basis.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, the absence of former President Jonathan and neighbouring Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike, at the party’s grand rally leading to the polls sent out further signals of a divided house.
Like most governors Dickson was probably deceived by the sense that his office is so powerful, he could deliver victory on his own despite all the hemorrhaging of support.
But this episode has shown again that no matter how powerful he is, a governor can be outflanked when critical stakeholders band together. It happened in Lagos with former Governor Akinwumi Ambode. Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan also saw his bid to install a successor of his choice frustrated in 2015 by the coming together of disparate forces in the Delta State PDP.
Interestingly, while he claims he only asked to be declared the APC candidate, the court went a step further to void the entire primaries. If the Court of Appeal doesn’t strike down the ruling of the lower court, what happened in Zamfara State may well play out again like a horror movie no one wants to watch.
In the end, there were lots of people embittered by the outcome of the primaries on both sides and they didn’t disappear quietly. It all came down to how their deliberate actions ultimately impacted their party’s fortunes.
The spectre of disunity was equally present in APC. The party was dealt a deadly blow less than 48 hours to the election when the court ruled in the case filed by former Minister of State for Agriculture, Heineken Lokpobiri, that it had no gubernatorial candidate.
A brief judicial reprieve allowed the APC and its candidate David Lyon to remain on the ballot. But this legal complication may yet come back to bite the party if they fail to put their house in order.
Indeed, Lokpobiri and the other primaries contestant Preye Aganaba, never accepted the outcome of the exercise. That is the reason the former minister never withdrew his suit – insisting he was the rightful flagbearer.
Alaibe is still in court as is Lokpobiri who, nevertheless, asked Bayelsans to vote for APC in the hope that he would be the beneficiary somewhere down the line.
On the PDP side, the siddon look approach of certain individuals was glaring. But it would appear some went further with actions designed to frustrate the governor. The level of the party’s electoral collapse last Saturday lends credence to this belief.
On reflection, perhaps Dickson interest may have been better served by allowing the emergence of a consensus candidate – even if the individual wasn’t his preferred one. After all as we have seen in our recent history, the governor you install could well turn out to be your worst political nightmare.
Aside of the violence, the situation was a bit different in Kogi State where about 18 months ago, Governor Yahaya Bello was considered politically dead. He owed a huge backlog of salaries to civil servants and was battling foes on every side.
He even managed to alienate a deputy who he eventually hounded out of office in one of the most infamous episodes of crooked impeachment in Nigeria’s history.
But he realised a long while ago that he was in political trouble and began scurrying around to mend fences. For all his shortcomings, Bello deserves credit for ensuring he went into the elections with a united front. Come polling day, the likes of James Faleke, Smart Adeyemi and the Audus were in the same camp with him.
Now he has won a second term handily, not because he was deserving of the return ticket on the basis of performance or that the people have suddenly happy with his heavy-handed style, but because he quickly realized that he couldn’t prevail battling formidable opposition under the same roof.
It remains to be seen whether his stooping to conquer at the polls would translate into a more humble and humane style in his second term.
The success of the APC in Bayelsa does not indicate that the PDP in the state has been weakened but a show of a determination of the people to do away with a bad and ungrateful politician. All the things that made the ruling party unattractive have not evaporated. The reality is that not much separates the two main parties in terms of their politics and policies. That is why their members dart from one to another at the least provocation and without discomfiture.
It is important we know that we can not continue to travel on this wrong path and expect to reach our dreamed political Eldorado. We must begin to do things differently. Those thing that would portray our political system as a model in Africa and beyond should preoccupy our politicians. Elections shouldn’t be all about winning but about fine tuning the process that produce our leaders.
