The vibrations ahead of the September 19 gubernatorial election in Edo State are suggestive of a war in the offing. They point to something more than mere selection of a governor. It appears a battle is being set in array. Ordinarily, it should be a matter that purely concerns the people of Edo State, but it appears that people from other states and geopolitical zones are gearing to make the state a battle ground of sort. In the end, it is the poor folks in the state that will bear the brunt, as usual.
Since the emergence of the standard bearers of the two major parties- the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) – there has been a welter of slanging match by the political practitioners of the opposing associations.
Whereas the APC wants to show it controls the state and has permanently ended the reign of the PDP in Edo, the umbrella group on the other hand wants to show that Godwin Obaseki’s claim of sterling performance is not unfounded.
The PDP, which inherited Obaseki through the political turmoil that arose in the APC, would want to reclaim the state it governed for nine years from 1999 to 2008.
Edo is the home state of the late Tony Anenih, who was everything in the PDP. He was so powerful in government that he was nicknamed, “Mr. Fix It”. It is also the state of Tom Ikimi, a former Foreign Affairs minister, who became many things in Nigeria under the PDP. He loomed large in the party. His sarcastic announcement of the result of the party’s presidential primary between Olusegun Obasanjo and the late Alex Ekwueme in 2003 further etched his name in the annals of Nigeria’s political lexicon.
Getting Edo back to PDP is a sweet dream that the party would cherish so much and celebrate. Conversely, the APC getting the state back with all the recent developments will help Oshiomhole regain his receding political influence and worth, not only in the state but also in the country.
From the altercation already going on between Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje of Kano State and his Rivers State counterpart over their astuteness or otherwise in leading their individual parties to the “capture Edo” war, it shows there are many bullets to be fired before the D-Day, and the Election Day may be very dangerous.
Ganduje, who is the chairman of the APC National Campaign Council for the Edo election, promised to dismantle alleged PDP’s rigging machine and send the Chairman of its campaign council, Wike to the isolation centre.
He was recently reported to have said: “We know the opposition is planning to rig the election; we know their tactics; we know their methodology and we shall dismantle all their tactics to ensure that we win this election.”
Asked if the committee has a soft spot for Obaseki who was their colleague until a few months ago, Ganduje said there was none.
He added: “There is no soft spot for anything like that. The issue is that first of all, we know PDP made Governor Nyesom Wike their chairman; I assure you, we will isolate Wike in an isolation centre and before he recovers, the election is over.
“The PDP decided to accommodate our former governor in Edo State not because they have anything in common; not because they share some ideological feelings, but simply because he is managing the treasury of Edo State and they want him to use that treasury in order to win the election.
“But I assure you, the people of Edo State are watching they know that somebody who was assisted in 2016 to win an election, somebody who was given every cooperation to succeed in the governance of Edo State without doing much for the people, at the end of it, he has taken the treasury and now handed it over to PDP in order to win the election.”
In his response to Kano governor, Wike said he cannot influence the election with his “dollars”. He referred to viral videos in 2018, where Ganduje was pocketing a stash of dollars he allegedly received as a bribe from a contractor.
“Yesterday, I was told and today I read on the pages of newspapers that one Governor Ganduje said that he is going to isolate me until the election is over,” Wike said.
“If Nigeria is supposed to be a country, who is supposed to be isolated? A man who pockets dollars in ‘babanriga’ from contractors is not isolated and you say that I should be isolated. In this country, where are we heading to?
“Let me tell you why they (APC) made Ganduje the chairman of the campaign council – it is because of the dollars they saw.
“What he doesn’t understand is that we are from the Niger Delta; we shall chop his dollar and we will chop him to a coma. So, Ganduje, your dollar will not work in Edo State, we have integrity in our party.”
The slanging match should serve as an early warning sign to the security agencies, particularly the Nigeria Police that they should ensure that Edo State is not turned into a battle field on the Election Day. Nigeria cannot afford a repeat of the wanton shed of blood that happened in Kogi in November last year in the name of election.
As it now, the voters are getting apprehensive over the possibility of a violence-free exercise. People must be allowed to take their destiny in their own hands by allowing them to freely exercise their franchise on September 19.
