ON Saturday, the electorate of Osun State will go to the polls to elect a governor to lead the state for the next four years. The election, which is one of the off-season elections in the country, is coming barely a month after the Ekiti State governorship election. There are a few lessons to learn from the Ekiti State election by all stakeholders.
The Ekiti State election was peaceful and suffered no major hitch. As a result, it was concluded without a spillover to the following day. Poll officials and electoral materials arrived on time at the various polling stations. The Bi-Modal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) worked well in most polling units and in the few cases of malfunction, the problem was addressed in a timely manner. Accreditation and voting were therefore seamless in most polling stations. The results were effectively, efficiently and transparently transmitted electronically from the polling units to INEC’s result viewing portal. Nonetheless, the Ekiti election was marred by vote buying. It was characterised by large-scale monetary inducement of voters by politicians, such that it ended up being described as a bazaar, rather than a real and true election. Happily, some culprits were apprehended by security agencies. We hope that they will be prosecuted according to the law. The Osun State election is an opportunity to apply innovative ideas to address this menace as the country looks forward to the 2023 general election.
The Osun State gubernatorial election promises to be one of the most keenly contested off-season elections in recent times. In 2018, the initial election before the supplementary rerun election was won by Ademola Adeleke of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Mr Adeleke had led his All Progressives Congress (APC) rival with 353 votes at the end of the first round of ballots. However, the election was declared inconclusive by INEC because the total number of registered voters (3,498) in the seven polling units where elections were earlier cancelled due to incidents of over-voting and violence was higher than the difference (353) between the two leading candidates. A re-run was subsequently conducted, which led to Oyetola defeating Adeleke with 482 votes. That election was criticised by a broad section of observers as being fraught with malpractices and violence. Both candidates are poised to slug it out a second time in an election that promises to be both competitive and contentious. The coming gubernatorial election in Osun State therefore provides an avenue and an opportunity for INEC, the government and the people of Osun State to show that they have learnt from the inadequacies and inefficiencies of the 2018 election in Osun State and the flops in the recent Ekiti State election.
The electoral umpire, INEC, and other stakeholders like the security agencies therefore need to up their game to show the lessons learnt in the Osun State poll. We expect polling officials and materials to arrive early at the polling units to commence the voting process. We also look forward to the effective functioning of the BVAS and a seamless exercise on election day. The government, INEC and security agencies must work hard to prevent the hijack of the coming elections by moneybag politicians who are only interested in buying votes. The security agents must be professional and impartial in their dealings with candidates, voters and party agents. The agencies must network with synergy to be effective and successful. They must not look the other way while malpractices are being perpetrated, as was reported by observers during the 2018 rerun election. The people should be allowed to exercise their franchise in a free and fair environment.
We call on the candidates, political party members and party agents to obey the rules, show political maturity, and approach the electoral contest with decorum. Accredited observers must be allowed to carry out their assignments without let or hindrance. The media must report all events associated with the elections factually and objectively, without sensationalism. We call on citizens to eschew vote buying. Citizens must see election as a means of choosing leaders and holding government to account for better performance. They should keep the peace and uphold the integrity of the electoral process. These off-season elections will go a long way in determining the confidence of Nigerians in the credibility and integrity of the general election coming up next year.
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