Edo 2024: First off-season election under Tinubu’s watch

On Saturday, September 21, 2024, Edo State voters will go to the polls to elect a brand new governor who will succeed outgoing Governor Godwin Obaseki, whose tenure of eight years will elapse by November.

The forthcoming Edo State election would be the very first off-season election under the watch of President Bola Tinubu as president of Nigeria.

Before he became the president of Nigeria, Tinubu was widely acclaimed rightly or wrongly as a Democrat whose democratic credentials dated way back to the Third Republic as a senator even before he became a governor of Lagos State in the current democratic dispensation.

Therefore, the Edo State election will present the ample opportunity to assess or reassess Tinubu’s so-called democratic credentials. Will he prove critics right or wrong? The choice is left for him.

However, Tinubu should be reminded of how off-season elections in different states of the federation had panned out under the watch of his predecessors, starting from President Olusegun Obasanjo.

Nigeria used to have all elections, particularly presidential and governorship elections, the same day until 2006, when Peter Obi changed the narrative by removing a usurper sitting governor through the election tribunal. That was the very first time the calendar of governorship elections began to change in some states. Of course, some other states like Edo, Ondo, Ekiti, and Osun followed suit. New states like Kogi, Imo, and Bayelsa were added much later owing to political disequilibrium.

Now, when Peter Obi was seeking a reelection as governor under the platform of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) in early 2010, President Goodluck

Jonathan was in power as even acting president. The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) was in power at the federal level. The PDP had a very competent governorship candidate in the person of Professor Charles Soludo, who just left office at the time as the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria. However, Jonathan, as the acting president, didn’t muscle out Peter Obi in the election because he belonged to a minority party like the APGA.

Still under Jonathan as president, off-season elections were conducted in these same Edo, Ondo, and Osun states, which his party (PDP) candidates lost. He didn’t muscle or rig out the candidates of other political parties just to favour his own party candidates. He allowed the will of the people to prevail. Even in Ekiti State, where PDP candidate Ayo Fayose won, it was obvious to everyone that he clearly defeated the then incumbent governor. The Labour Party won in Ontario.

Under President Muhammad Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC), the APGA won the election in Anambra. The PDP won elections in Osun and Edo states.

Therefore, President Tinubu is morally bound to allow free and fair elections to take place under his watch. He should demonstrate that in the forthcoming Edo election. If someone like Buhari, who toppled democracy in the second republic, could demonstrate reasonable attributes of civil and democratic credentials during his era by allowing the will of the people to prevail in some elections under his watch, it will be a shame if a pure civilian like Tinubu has the predilection to muzzle out the democratic rights of the people of Nigeria.

Finally, on the part of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the commission can start redeeming its soiled image through these off-season elections beginning with the Edo State election. Most importantly, the INEC chairman, Professor Mahmud Yakubu, whose non-renewable tenure will expire next year, has nothing to lose if he insists on doing the right thing, even if for the first time. He has started his usual rhetoric of assurance of free and fair elections, but a handful of Nigerians believe whatever he says now. Nigerians are suffering and bleeding under this government like never before in the history of the country. The INEC was complicit in the current hardship in the country. Going forward, INEC and its officials should atone for their sins and make peace with their creator unless they do not believe in eternity.

Maduako, writes from Owerri via [email protected] (08061562735)