Edo 2020 election: A layman’s post-mortem

By Sam Nwaoko

Regal Edo has a long winding past, a very tempestuous present and its intriguing future. But with the outcome of last Saturday’s governorship election, Edo State can breathe. The conclusion of the electoral contest has seemingly calmed the tempest and rather than remain in turbulence, it could be said that the present in Edo is back to its majestic past.

Yes, Edo is majestic, Edo is magnificent. Edo is about the only place in Nigeria where we have something in the semblance of monarchy. The Oba is Oba indeed, still imperial and bestrides the kingdom in true majesty. He speaks and the weight of his speech lands with enormous impact on the people. The government has tactfully castrated monarchies in Nigeria, but some are still of enormous influence and Edo monarch is surely one of them.

It was the exciting playwright, Ola Rotimi, who opened the eyes of some of us to what Edo was before British imperialists began a crude dilution of a people’s heritage. Through his Ovonramwen Nogbaisi, Professor Rotimi told a story of royalty, culture, power, loyalty, determination and enterprise. And this was as late as just the recent 19th century. Encyclopaedia Brittanica noted that Oba Ovonramwen, who died in January 1914, was “the last independent oba (king) of the 500-year-old kingdom of Benin (in present-day Nigeria).”

The encyclopaedia recorded, in metaphoric terms, the interpretation many Nigerians have given the last governorship election in the state. “Ovonramwen tried to maintain his independence in the face of increasing British pressure but was able to delay for only a few years the annexation of his kingdom by the colony of Nigeria.” This then gives verve to the aphorism which formed one of the pillars of the recent campaign: “Edo no be Lagos”, explained as a rejection of imposition of a governor by external forces and political godfathers.

Some indigenes of Edo State have that spirit of the Oba and have used their voice and votes to tell how much they want to remain that legendary, independent Edo. That, I believe, is why some of the people stood strong in the face of intense electioneering which outsiders like us, or better still, by-standers, felt was going to be an all-out electoral war. A jubilant supporter of Governor Obaseki’s reelection bid, Mr. Dennis Ifidon, said the people that are now found in two states of Edo and Delta were the first Nigerians to successfully demand for a referendum for which the Mid-West Region was created back then. It tells the story of a people with indomitable spirit and attitude, Ifidon contended while noting that the Army, Police, and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) “were very very professional.”

On August 8, I observed in this column that the antics of Comrade Adams Oshiomhole could negatively impact on the outcome of the election. The premise was that the renowned former labour leader, four years ago, totally destroyed the person of the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate in the election, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu. Oshiomhole achieved the unenviable feat when he campaigned for Governor Godwin Obaseki, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), before Ize-Iyamu and Obaseki swapped political parties for this year’s election.

Besides, I had also observed that Comrade Oshiomhole should have just lain low following his crash from the pinnacle as the APC national chairman. Instead, he went about to beg the people to forgive him for all the terrible things he gleefully and willfully said about Osagie Oze-Iyamu, and convert with him to his whims about Godwin Obaseki.

Some Nigerians also contended that in the buildup to the election, former Governor Oshiomhole and APC tried to fit themselves into one of the many explanations of the reverse psychology concept. This obviously doubtful and highly contestable contention about the polls, however, detracts from layman’s understanding of reverse psychology which says “people often use reverse psychology to mask their true expressions. So when they say one thing they can mean the exact opposite. This is so interesting and at the same time awkward because, going by what is attributed to Nancy Ruth Cope, “the reason reverse psychology works is because people do not like to be told what to do.” It’s that tumultuous, just like a dozen flips in one delicate space.

Well, Adams Oshiomhole was not the only factor in the election although he was the APC’s aggregator and rallying point. There are other numerous reasons the election turned out a massacre of the APC, including some historical ones as held by the likes of Ifidon. However, some say with 307,995 votes to 223,619 for PDP, and a five per cent drop in the turnout of voters compared to thirty per cent of 2016, it was nothing near a massacre. But whatever gladiators hold as their competent positions, a sure post-mortem is the demystification of Oshiomhole and, perhaps a lesson in how best to disentangle from a godfather.

To yet another school of thought, Mr. Philip Shaibu, the deputy governor of the state and Obaseki’s running mate in the election was one unsung hero in that war. He joined the people to stick with his boss and proved unyielding loyalty. Shaibu stood firm, having seen through the plot and remained resolute in his conviction that the electorate was with him and his boss. Shaibu, from the same Edo North district as Oshiomhole, did not agree with those whose only discernible aim and ambition was to “cut Obaseki to size”. He moved with Obaseki to the PDP and got a reward for his loyalty when Obaseki also insisted on Shaibu as his running mate, against some political forces.

Their being “pushed to the PDP” elicited halleluiah in the party and has completely changed the political landscape of the South South geo-political zone of the country. Now that the APC has no state in the region under its belt as things stand today, the 2023 political turf is being re-planted and differently nurtured while the political kitchen staff members are already being identified and groomed.

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