I will set out hereafter to examine these three grounds on which the ACN and its leaders are celebrating. This is with a view to positing that it is rather too early for the leadership to rejoice because, whether it agrees or not, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presents a formidable opposition in the governorship battle. It is also to declare that the route to victory in the crucial battle is laden with landmines, which will consume either the incumbent governor or the candidates trying to unseat him.
But it becomes very significant if it is the incumbent governor that is consumed because in journalism parlance, that constitutes the news, the big news. If the incumbent governor triumphs, it is only an anti-climax; something not more than the ordinary. Winning the election therefore puts big pressure on the incumbent governor. However, the pressure can partly be taken care of with the instrumentality of the state resources and machinery at his disposal.
The ACN in Edo is happy that it controls the government and by extension the state resources which it can deploy to prosecute next year’s governorship election. There is nothing anyone can do about this undue advantage that the control of government funds confers on the party and Oshiomhole over other persons who will contest with him in the election. This is, simply put, the tyranny of incumbency factor. But Oshiomhole’s ACN should not be deluded into believing that this factor guarantees automatic victory at the polls.
In case the governor and the party apparatchik are seized by the grandeur of delusion, permit me to take them on a short flight back to 2003 when in Kano, the then incumbent governor, Rabiu Kwakwanso of the PDP (who is now governor-elect), despite his sterling performance in office, was defeated by Malam Ibrahim Shekarau of the ANPP in an election that the PDP national leadership adjudged to be clean, free and fair. Some factors, outside performance, caused a collateral damage to his re-election bid.
In 2007, the opposition ANPP dislodged from government, the PDP under the leadership of Adamu Muazu in Bauchi State, regardless of the fact that he performed creditably as governor, especially in the area of infrastructure development. His bid to represent his Bauchi South Senatorial District in the Senate suffered a crushing defeat in the hands of ANPP candidate, Bala Mohammed (current Minister of the FCT).
Those he presented for election into other positions were defeated at the polls because of his alleged arrogance. He was said to have suffered from a deficit of public relations, something bordering on the personal rather than on concrete performance in governance. In fact, his performance in office remains a positive reference point. Regardless, he was rejected by the people of Bauchi.
It should be instructive that the Edo people are politically enlightened. Therefore, self-acclaimed and perceived performance as well as the flashes of achievements by the incumbent executive head cannot be the sole consideration or reason to unreasonably cast their votes to some self-conceited persons who have scant regard for them. The people are seeing through the antics of personal aggrandizement which is contesting the public space with good governance; whereas good governance should be taken for granted. No one should be deceived; the people will speak clearly and emphatically at the polls next year.
Coming back to the just concluded general elections, Comrade Governor Oshiomhole and his lieutenants have seen how the opposition sacked the incumbent governors in Nasarawa, Oyo and Zamfara States. Need I propose some possibility or a conclusion here? Should the ACN rejoice yet?
Second, on the issue of the victory of the ACN in the National Assembly and the State House of Assembly elections, the party in Edo State cannot validly lay claim to an excellent performance in the sense of sweeping the polls like the ACN in Lagos, under the inimitable Governor Babatunde Fasola, did. Yes, it could pass off as having gained more seats in the Legislature in that it won two Senate seats to PDP’s one seat; seven House of Representatives seats to PDP’s two; and nineteen State House of Assembly seats to PDP’s five.
The scenario above was certainly not a clean sweep that Oshiomhole had planned to achieve. If it had been, one thing is sure: the comrade governor and his aides would have declared a celebration galore and clicked the good wine glasses to mark the total eclipse of the PDP in the state.
Perhaps, the most important issue is the political capital which Oshiomhole and the ACN operatives in Edo State want to make out of their visit to the palace of the Oba of Benin where the royal father reportedly endorsed the governor for a second term in office, although not without going through the rigours of an election in the state. He must, of course, subject himself to revalidation through the ballot box.
Be that as it may, I will round up by declaring that indeed the battle ahead is the Lord’s which will be fought through the people and not through the instrumentality of the state machinery, which has failed in some states. It is the people who will decide-voice populi, voice dei (the voice of the people is the voice of God.) In the meantime, let the political parties engage with the people; let politics of ideas contend and let concrete development flourish from it for the overall wellbeing of Edo State.
Omoregie, a public commentator, is based in Lagos
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