As the main gladiators take stock after the September 21 Edo State governorship election, with the attendant ripples, ‘SUYI AYODELE gives an insight into some untold details on the buildup, conduct of the election and the outcome.
The outcome of the September 21 governorship election in Edo State has confirmed that the poll was nothing but the test of superiority between a political godson and his estranged godfather. The pattern of winnings and losses, cum the balance of dominance in areas considered hitherto to be strongholds of one political party or lord, all combined to confirm that what played out in the election had nothing to do with the popularity, brilliance competence and acceptability of the two major candidates in the dog-fight election, but the influence of the godfather and the godson, and how financially buoyant they were and how ‘generously’ the gladiators opened up their purses.
The long and short of it all is that the immediate past governor of the Heartbeat state, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, and the incumbent and outgoing governor, Governor Godwin Obaseki, used the election to test the strength of their muscles and established their political dominance over the state.
The battle line was drawn between Oshiomole and Obaseki as the campaign for the 2020 gubernatorial race kicked off. What charged the atmosphere and made the battle to be a battle of no return for the duo was the fact that Obaseki’s challenger in the 2020 election was no other person than Oshiomhole’s arch enemy and Obaseki’s opponent in his first term bid in 2016, a clergy man-turned politician, Osagie Ize-Iyamu. Obaseki won in all the five local governments in Edo Central, the homestead of the late politician, Chief Tony Anenih, and took the battle to Oshiomhole in his den by winning Owan East Local Government Area of Edo North. In the remaining five council areas of the district, Obaseki gave Oshiomhole a run for his popularity by reducing the margins of winning to intangible numbers. At the count of the ballot, Oshiomhole, who is hailed as “Osho Wonder” by his associates, was reduced to a sectional leader as he only managed to win the three councils in his Etsako enclave, one in Owan and the Kukuruku council of Akoko Edo. Obaseki coasted home to victory in the remaining 11 local government areas.
With that victory, and a secured second term, Obaseki began to consolidate his hold on the political firmament of the state. That was where the problem began. The initial obstacle was the integration of the APC members who followed the governor to the PDP when he was denied a second term ticket. The now suspended National Vice Chairman of PDP, Dan Orbih, was in full control of the party. Obaseki’s proposal was that the executive councils of the party be dissolved from the wards to the state levels so that positions could be shared between the ‘aboriginal’ PDP and the new members from the APC.
That proposal was rejected. Obaseki waited. When the time to constitute his cabinet came, he went for a payback. He concentrated appointments in the new PDP members. The party became polarised. Orbih, ably supported by Wike, who had fallen out with Obaseki, formed a dissident group, the Legacy Group, within the PDP. Recruitment into the group was easy as many, especially those who felt that the governor’s welfarist approach was too tight-fisted, easily joined the group. Again, some other trusted allies of the governor, mostly those who broke their relationships with Oshiomhole, but who now felt shortchanged by Obaseki, also joined the group. The governor was fighting two enemy camps with his new political family, the PDP.
It was while that division was becoming irreconcilable, that Obaseki’s deputy governor, Philip Shaibu, began his own agitation. Shaibu, right from his university days in the University of Jos till he became deputy governor, was an ally, nay, a ‘son’ of Oshiomhole. But when the relationship between Obaseki and Oshiomhole broke down, Shaibu pitched his tent with Obaseki. In return, when the PDP proposed that Obaseki must drop Shaibu as running mate if he would get the ticket to run under the umbrella, the symbol of PDP, Obaseki, in clear tines, was said to have told the negotiators that he would rather not get the ticket than to betray Shaibu, whom he called “My younger brother”, then. But hardly had they settled down for the second term when a crisis broke out between them.
Nigerian Tribune gathered that as part of his concessions while desperately seeking his second term, Obaseki promised the people of Edo Central that at the end of his second term, he would ensure that an Esan man took over from him. That promise, it was said, he made in the presence of Shaibu. So, when Shaibu indicated that he wanted to contest the governorship, Obaseki was said to have reminded him of the solemn pledge he made to Edo Central. He, it was gathered, tried to lecture Shaibu on the need to show fairness to Edo Central, which, since the beginning of the current dispensation, has not produced the governor nor the deputy governor.
Shaibu’s insistence on running and Obaseki’s determination to keep faith with his promise to Edo Central made the two to fall apart. The crisis between them came to a head shortly after the 2023 House of Assembly election, when Shaibu was said to have approached the legislators-elect from the APC to team up with five members-elect from the PDP loyal to him to form an alliance that could give them the speakership of the 24-member assembly. That information, Nigerian Tribune gathered, was leaked to Obaseki by one of the foremost APC leaders in the state.
The loss of trust and other political realignments led to the April 2024 impeachment of Shaibu by the House of Assembly, an action which has been reversed by an Abuja Federal High Court. With the development, Shaibu, like the Biblical prodigal son, retraced his steps back ‘home’, where he openly knelt to beg Oshiomhole, who, in the heat of the 2020 debacles, he called “a man with mental problem,” with a promise that “we will go home and heal him.” With Shaibu back in the APC, coupled with the camp of the dissident PDP Orbih-led group, the camp of the Obaseki enemies grew.
But he did not relent. As part of his strategies, the governor moved to Akoko Edo and found a replacement for Shaibu in the person of Godwins Omobayo. In picking the PDP candidate for the election, Obaseki stayed faithful to his promise by supporting Asue Ighodalo, a technocrat from Edo Central. For Ighodalo’s running mate, the governor supported Osarodion Ogie, his Secretary to the State Government (SSG), and two-term Commissioner for Works under Oshiomhole. Many political watchers believed that with Ogie as running mate, politicians in the APC would find it difficult to work against his interest because his personality cuts across all political divides in the state.
It was in this note that the PDP and the APC entered the race led by two gladiators, who were determined, and probably, still determined, to quench each other’s political flame. The electioneering by both parties was not devoid of the acrimony between the two personalities. The way and manner, Oshiomhole, for instance, championed the APC campaign, one could see that the outcome of the election would be a matter of do or die for either him or his friend-now-turned arch enemy, Obaseki. The pattern of the results also indicated that.
For instance, in all the local governments where the APC won in Oshiomhole’s Edo North, the margin was always wide. The analyses of these voting patterns are expected to be the engagements of political pundits in weeks to come
There have been many plausible and implausible explanations about why the APC led with wide margins where it won and the PDP with inconsequential margins in areas where it emerged winner. The PDP, which has since rejected the results alongside all other parties which participated in the election, had told whoever cared to listen that the results so declared were not the true reflections of what transpired on the field and not in tandem with the results posted on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) election results portal. The party equally blamed what he termed the “flawed” results ion the abandonment of the electronic conduct of the election via the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) to manual accreditation and computation. Of course, the APC has dismissed such claims as the ranting of a bad loser. The number one man of APC in the country., resident Bola Tinubu, had, while savouring the victory of the party, counselled the PDP to go to court. The president gave the advice at Monday’s Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting held at the Prudential Vila, Aso rock.
While one cannot totally rule out the roles of disgruntled PDP members in sinking the boat of the party at the poll, one other factor that might have worked against the PDP is the outright intimidation, harassment and arrest of its members while the electioneering lasted. The perceived war of attrition by state actors such as the Police, the military and the Department of State Security waged against the PDP and its members before and during the collation of the results, could not have passed without its impacts on the outcome of the poll.
But as it stands, Edo, by the instrumentality of the September 21 election, has a governor-elect in the person of senator Monday Okpebholo, from Edo Central. So, while the people of that district savour the joy of having their kinsman as the next governor, the fact that Obaseki’s insistence in having a PDP governorship candidate from that zone forced the APC to look in their direction cannot be wished away. The next few days, as the PDP and other parties review their outings at the polls, will determine what next political battle the state will witness.
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