EITHER END: Osun Gubernatorial Election: Free and Fair?

YUSUFF, UTHMAN ADEKOLA

Not free. Never fair.

The caged parrot sings,

Painting its new house with lyrical colours,

Chitchatting in the friendly furnace of frowning freedom.

But I will not say that the parrot is not uncaged! —Y.U.A.

I remember some years back when a hip-hop musician, a rapper, released a society-conscious song. The song was not just a hit back to back, but it also dealt an hammering hit on Nigeria’s political and societal rots. The musician grabbed Nigeria’s cancerous democracy, performed a surgery of correction on it and left it to be refined. He also gripped the throat of bribery and corruption, gave it some slicing rhymes and expected it to die off. The rapper-musician had said: “Shey democracy leleyi, abi crazy demo? Oluwa, s’anu wa; jo, ma ma je k’a je’go.(is this a democracy or a crazy demo? O God, help us; please let us not be doomed)”. The rapper also sang, with angry rhymes and rhythm, about police brutality and bribery. Ladies and gentlemen, this rapper was no one but Dagrin and the song was none but “Democracy”.

Years to this present day, fellow Nigerians, we all know that the country’s democracy has remained blotted by numerous problems. It does not ever seem to improve, except for some charade of merely superficial improvements. Elections are still being rigged, although through less observable means. The buying and selling of votes during elections has seized the air. One might even be right to propound “votism” or “electionism” as another economic system complementing the already established ones like capitalism, communism and the likes.

To hit the nail right on the head, we need not really bother contemplating on whether the Osun State recent governorship election was free and fair. This is Nigeria. This place remains Nigeria. We know very well, “how we living now”. Since electoral entrepreneurship is now making waves and vote-buying is fast becoming a norm, where is freeness or fairness? The vote-buying business activity during elections is one conspicuous point that forthrightly counters any thought at all that the election was free or fair. INEC as well as its officials cannot pretend they did not know about the case of vote-buying. The security personnel can also not give a negative response to that. Yet the illegal trade bloomed and even continues growing as a culture.

Well, perhaps we can still partially accept my co-scribe’s claim that the recent Osun State gubernatorial election was free and fair. However, he should be ready to enjoy himself in a fool’s paradise. Glaringly, to say that that election was free, is to say that Nigeria is truly independent. It is a clearly observable reality that Nigeria is in a neo-colonial era of independence. No true freedom; the nation is either been selfishly controlled by our own native neo-colonial political leaders or by means of external interference from America or Britain. This is the same case of the Osun state election amongst other already conducted or about-to-be-conducted elections.

The election might really seem free and fair on the surface, but the influence of the government and other political moneybags remain subtly evident. There actually is a video revealing an INEC official who was caught tearing the results of a particular polling unit in Osun State. In the video, the man was being questioned by a journalist. And the INEC official responded that he had been instructed by a female boss of his, to do so. Ladies and gentlemen, if this is not a clear pointer to the fact that the election was no way free or fair, what then is?

Much more pathetic and contravening the claim that the election was free and fair is the case of the rerun election. The first election was declared inconclusive on the basis that the number of nulled votes was more than the margin between the total number of votes got by APC’s candidate and the initially victorious PDP’s. It is quite understandable that this is in line with INEC’s regulations. However, the fact that the rerun election was not declared inconclusive too, poses a towering doubt to the fairness or freeness of the election. The rerun election was characterised by foul electoral practices much more blatantly than was the case with the first election. Cases of voters who were illegally disenfranchised was reported.

In addition, there were, in fact, a number of unreported cases but some cases were mentioned by some aggrieved voters. As seen in a Facebook comment in response to the rerun election, a user posted: “You can’t imagine on which platform did the rerun election here in orolu local government went. You’re eligible to vote on dat day if only you were APC member or else you’re disenfranchised.” Likewise, various observers (both local and international) who monitored the main election and the rerun condemned the state’s election on the basis that it was fraught with electoral irregularities. According to a report by The Cable, an international observer was quoted to have said: “We witnessed what appeared to be incidents of interference and intimidation of voters and have reports of harassment of party monitors, journalists and domestic observers.”

Based on all that has been mentioned above, ladies and gentlemen, has it not become quite unnecessary to ask whether the Osun State governorship election was free and fair? Indeed, the only seeming freeness and fairness we can point at is that of the television broadcast of INEC’s collation of the votes, which is hardly a true reflection of fairness. If any alteration had been made, would anyone have known, especially since the videoing was not done in a close-up view? It is therefore conclusively clear that the Osun State gubernatorial election was not free; neither was it fair. I REST MY PEN!

MOJOYINOLA ABD’AFEEZ
Yes. Free and fair.

The referee whistled for the match to commence. There were many players on the field but three stood out: Omisore, Oyetola and Adeleke. At the end, Omisore was knocked out for his goals were low compared to others’. The match ended with an extra time. Oyetola and Adeleke came into fierce battle of who would kick the ball inside the government house. Oyetola kicked the ball in and he went straight to the government house. But some spectators keep saying the match was rigged, that it was not free and fair. 

Dear reader, it is good to announce that I am a doctor today, neither a writer nor a lawyer. I’m here to cure many of my patients who are being dejected and depressed about the state of the Nation. I ask why they are depressed. They answered, because of many things, especially the recent Osun State Gubernatorial Election. They said their eyes saw many horrible things: snatching of ballot boxes, beating of voters by the thugs, maiming of journalists cum the announcement of the supposedly rigged results by the INEC  officials. They said this country was doomed and would never get out of election rigging, that free and fair election was long gone. 

Before I give out the treatments, I must admit that this is worth depression and dejection if the election was not free and fair as my patients had said. But was that the case of Osun Election? Did INEC rob people off their mandate? No. No. And no. These are the whys. Thanks to the innovation brought to our election: the e-collation of results that transmit the results from the poling units to the central body that collate all the results; the card reader and the permanent voters’ card. Unlike then when the election would not be counted efore the electorate, when you lined up with the person you wanted to vote for, the election now is open for everybody to see and watch and secret enough for anybody not to see whom you have voted for. These innovations were implemented in the just concluded Osun State Election and thus allowed free and fair election. 

First off, prior to starting the election, the INEC officials controlling the polling unit announced to the electorate the procedure for voting: taking accreditation and afterwards the electorate went to the polling boot to cast their votes for whomever they wished. No one followed them to the polling booth except they needed  any help, and those who could help in that regards are INEC Officials and security personnel. This gave room for no one to force the electorate to vote for anyone. It made them choose whom they wanted to vote for. This brought fairness into the election. For the electorate were allowed to cast their votes for whomever they wanted. 

Also, when the voting finished, the counting of the votes began. This was done before the electorate. It made them to challenge any anomaly in the collation of the results before it proceeded to the Central Collating Body. This allowed the electorate to know the results of their polling unit on the spot. Then, after the results had been passed to the Central  Collating Body, the agents of each party went there. This was aired for every Nigerian to watch on television. And thus allowed people to judge the process. This showed the objectivity in the election. And thus promoted the fairness in the election.

Moreover, the step taken by INEC to declare the election as inconclusive because of some areas where people were not allowed to vote and where the machines were malfunctioning showed the INEC step to reach fairness. Though Adeleke,  PDP Governorship candidate was leading Oyetola (APC Governorship candidate) with 353 votes which if not for some areas where voting did not take place, he would have been proclaimed the winner. This declaration of the election as inconclusive by INEC is in line with the Supreme Court judgement on the Kogi election which was also declared inconclusive: “The INEC guidelines provides for a rerun where voting did not take place and the margin was more than the margin of victory and there should be a rerun in those places so as to enable disenfranchised voters there to participate in the process”. Thus, what INEC did was to bring impartiality into the election and promote the cause of democracy. 

However, since no state can reach utopian world and absolute peace, one would be wrong to say that there is no tint of violence in the election. But the steps taken by INEC in order to tackle this and allowed people who were affected by the violence carried out in some areas to cast their votes in the rerun showed that Osun Election was a personification of democracy.