*Adopt dirty tricks, blackmail in desperate move to win
With the violation of sections of the Electoral Act and Manual for the conduct of the 25thd February Presidential and National Assembly poll by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the nation’s political gladiators now see Saturday’s Governorship and State House of Assembly election as a “do-or-die affair”.
Consequently, political parties an ky,an d their candidates are deploying many tricks and even plotting to deploy mayhem and all forms of electoral malpractices to ensure they not only retain seats already won by their parties, but snatch results from their opponents at all costs.
For the major political parties and their candidates, tomorrow’s elections present good opportunities to make further political statements.
The hitherto not too strong political parties which made beautiful inroads in the last election, are equally building up their “arsenal” to wedge the “war” against the hegemonic political rulers they had described as “highly corrupt and incompetent”.
Following the general criticisms that greeted the presidential election, with all the political parties, except the ruling All Progressives Congress insisting that the presidential and National Assembly elections were not free, fair and credible and that the results declared by the INEC did not reflect the actual votes garnered by them.
The main opposition parties such as Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the Labour Party (LP) and the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) have condemned the outcome of the elections, especially the pronouncement of Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu as President-elect. While the PDP and the LP have already gone to court to challenge the outcome with each claiming to have won the election, the NNPP so far stopped at denouncing the election results.
The victorious All Progressive Congress (APC) has however dismissed the position of the other key opposition parties as bad losers. Even at that, there were pains inflicted on the APC as a ruling party and its presidential candidate, by the opposition insisting they rigged the election in liaison with the INEC, inspite of losing Lagos, Osun and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) to a relatively unknown LP.
Lagos and Osun states are considered traditional victorious states to Tinubu and his APC.
Tinubu ruled Lagos for eight years as a two-term Governor between 1999 and 2007 and his politocal allies have retained power in Lagos up till now.
It is believed in political circles that Tinubu’s victory on February 25 would be incomplete if APC loses Lagos state at tomorrow’s election.
Apart from being the richest state in Nigeria, it is strategic for Tinubu to maintain the firm grip he has held over Lagos politics and economy since 1999.
For the PDP and the LP, a resounding victory in tomorrow’s election would be the best evidence to present to the world that the last presidential election was manipulated; and who knows, it might be of great support to their legal battle to upturn the final verdict of the presidential election in their favour or have a re-run in some places considered too violent during the poll.
Meanwhile, reports from across Nigeria indicate that politicians and their parties were doing everything possible, including engaging in the absurd to win.
Their desperation was said to have been buoyed by the sad reality that whoever is declared winner in an election by INEC hardly gets removed by the election tribunals.
In Lagos, there have been loud cries that voters were allegedly being intimidated and beaten up to vote for the APC to ensure that Tinubu is not defeated again like in the presidential election.
In Enugu state where the LP’s “Obidient Movement” is the rave of the moment, other parties were devising means of tapping from the good will of the phrase “Obidients”.
A support group for the PDP governorship candidate, Mr. Peter Mba, has been laying claim to LP’s “Obidient Movement” already endorsing the candidate, insisting that LP’s candidate, Chijioke Edeoga, is on his own, having been abandoned by the “Obidient Movement”.
According to news reports, a new socio political pressure group in the South-East zone of the country, the “Obedient Family”, is being claimed as the back bone of all the political parties, seen as mechanism to define and determine the “character, competence and capacity” of each of the political actors, seeking to be entrusted with the mandate of the electorates in the next political dispensation.
The general feeling in the geo-political zone is that politicians with “character, capacity and competence” are the only ones required to hold any political office, as they lament lack of public, especially Federal infrastructure in the zone and cries of absolute marginalisation.
In Enugu Thursday, different politocal groups during their campaigns lay claim to Mr. Obi endorsing their candidate, even against LP candidates, which forced Mr. Obi himself to dismiss such claims in an interview on Channels Television Morning Show, saying he supports all LP candidates, because they emerged through credible, peaceful and verifiable primary.
“I am but only a member of the Labour Party. The party is bigger than me. I support all our candidates across the country and I urge Nigerians to vote for them.
“I however note that the Obidients are far more than me and any political party. They are people who are disenchanted with the criminality going on in the country in terms of leadership and who desperately desire a change so our country can move from consumption to production and thereby move our economy forward.
“They can decide to support any candidate they feel has capacity and character and in that regard there is nothing I can do,” Obi stated.
Leader of one of the Obidient groups, Prof. Mike Okwudili, said in Enugu that although they are non-political group, but found it worthy to canvass and convince the electorates not to vote along party line, but to vote for candidates based on their antecedents with proven record of integrity and competence.
He said that Peter Mbah, the PDP governorship candidate possesses the above defined features more than every other candidate in the Enugu state 2023 governorship election.
He explained that though the Obidients are the bullwalk behind Mr Peter Obi, the Labour party presidential candidate, but it did not end with the conduct of the Presidential and National elections.
In Lagos, Kano, Kaduna, Adamawa, Kano, Osun, Ekiti, Abia, Anambra, Rivers, Ebonyi, Cross-River, Katsina, Ekiti and Bayelsa States, tension have reached feverish crescendo, with political actors, plotting how to undo one another, rather than appeal to the electorates for votes.
In Lagos, Anambra and Rivers particularly, supporters of the opposition party candidates are being intimidated and harmed, by urchins sponsored by the ruling party in those states, to attack the strong hold of their opponents, and whisk away the electoral materials and officlas to unknown places.
Few days to the poll, evidence of such acts of brigandage have been witnessed in those states with attacks on the campaign train of political opponents.
These attacks are givem vent by the lethargy or collusion of security agencies in such despicable act.
According to Mr. Mike Igini, former Resident Electoral Commissioner in INEC, speaking on AIT Governorship/State Assembly Election: Issues and Analysis programme, Friday, “that we are aware that politicians plot to shoot their way to the polling stations, abduct poll officials and take away balloting materials and get to another place, destroy already thump printed ballot papers and thump print new ones, not above the already accredited by BVAS, and write results and ask their opponents to go to court.
“However, they will fail as there are already mechanisms put in place to frustrate that effort which I am not going to disclose now”.
Saturday’s election therefore promises to be a make or maar contest, which if the INEC fails to change their pattern and position, is likely to lead to political upheavals in the country.
Except the security agencies wake up to their responsibilities, the country is likely to descend to the political nadir, but analysists say, the successful arrest of some of the hoodlums and recovery of their arms, provides a scinctila of hope that the election would turn out to be free, fair and credible.
While INEC’s National Commissioner/Chairman, Voter Education and Publicity, Barr. Festus Okoye, states unequivocally that the commission is poised to deliver credible election, members of the public hardly believe him, saying the February 25th poll was a huge disappointment, making them to take INEC assurances with a punch of salt.
