When the ballot begins to smell of blood

There is a sacred covenant between a people and their government: while citizens surrender certain freedoms to the state, the state, in return, guarantees the sanctity of life and the security of property, which is fundamental. Once that covenant begins to crack, democracy loses its fragrance, and governance becomes a mere shadow of its constitutional promise.

Today, Osun stands at such a delicate moment; as the electioneering continues to gather momentum.

The approaching governorship election, which should ordinarily be a festival of ideas, has gradually assumed the colour of a battlefield. Instead of hearing the music of democracy, we are beginning to hear the echoes of fear. Instead of competing with policies, some appear content to compete with intimidation. Instead of persuading minds, violence seeks to silence voices.

What an irony! An election is merely an event; life is an inheritance. An election occupies a day on the calendar; death leaves an empty chair at the family table forever.

No ballot paper has ever been woven from human flesh. No governorship seat has ever been worth a mother’s tears. No political victory has ever justified a father’s grief. History has never celebrated those who climbed to power on staircases stained with blood.

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Democracy should produce leaders, not widows. It should produce hope, not orphans. It should produce development, not funerals.

Recent reports of politically motivated violence, attacks, and killings have cast a long shadow over our dear state. Whether one relies on the figures released by security agencies or those documented by civil society organisations, the conclusion remains painfully the same: too many lives have already been endangered because politics has forgotten its humanity.

Just yesterday, unusually loud sounds pierced the afternoon air. Whether they were gunshots or something else may never be conclusively known. Yet the greater tragedy was not the sound itself but our instinctive conclusion. We immediately imagined violence because our collective psychology has been wounded by recurring reports of bloodshed. Fear has become so familiar that it now interprets ordinary sounds before reason has the opportunity to speak.

Adesina Abiodun Muheebulahi is a lecturer from the Department of Mass Communication, Fountain University, Osogbo.