His name is Lucky and his luck in the last weekend’s primary election in Ondo State has continued to rankle many of his party men and women.
It would seem that Nigeria has now acquired the notoriety of organising elections that are regarded as charades by the right-thinking individuals in society.
At every level, elections in Nigeria are failing to meet the irreducible minimum of acceptable exercise. A few months ago, the primary election by the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Edo State, supervised by Governor Hope Uzodinma, was alleged to have lacked every atom of credibility. Uzodinma was shoved aside and Governor Bassey Otu of Cross River State conducted a fresh one.
The one of last Saturday in Ondo followed the same pattern; the only difference is that despite the “we no go gree; we no go gree” protest by many who felt hard-done-by, the last whistle that was blown by Usman Ododo, governor of Kogi and chairman of the primary election committee, has since been taken as final. The party’s apparatchiks in Abuja believe there is no need to visit the Video Assistant Referee (VAR)- as is in the game of football- to truly understand what really transpired at the polling units.
Contenders such as Olusola Oke, Wale Akinterinwa, Jimi Odimayo, Olugbenga Edema and a female contestant, Folakemi Omogoroye strongly believed that the outcome of the exercise was pre-determined and that Aiyedatiwa’s emergence was a fait accompli.
Some weeks before the primary election, Ade Adetimehin, state chairman of the APC, had given a false hope that the exercise was going to be free, fair and transparent.
Some party members are alleging that the distribution of sensitive materials was done in secrecy to the exclusion of agents of other contestants.
If the level of brigandage and sheer malfeasance that characterised the primary election could be allowed to feature at that level of intra-party exercise, one wonders the war that would be unleashed against agents of the opposition parties in the proper election.
It is so sad that Nigeria has descended to a level that even the international community no longer take elections held here as anything serious.
The credibility of Nigeria’s elections has gone, particularly, when politicians brazenly rig and tell their opponents to “go to court.”
