The incumbent PDP Edo State governor, Godwin Obaseki, has refused to sign a “peace accord” for the upcoming election. The accord, which all other contesting parties signed, is a product of the National Peace Committee, a non-governmental organisation founded in 2014 comprising self-appointed “elder statesmen”. Unsurprisingly, the committee has never succeeded in their stated mission of preventing the breakdown of law and order during electoral processes. Their “peace accords”, whose exact wording is not in the public domain, have no legal backing. Legal experts are puzzled because the various crimes committed during elections are all punishable under extant laws, and there is no need for people to pledge not to break the law!
In truth, “Peace Accords” have neither ensured peaceful elections, nor prevented non-signatories from winning. It should be recalled that current President Bola Ahmed Tinubu did not sign the 2023 Peace Accord and was duly elected. Be that as it may, it is ill-advised for a sitting governor whose primary responsibility is to maintain law and order, to petulantly refuse to sign for any reason.
The social media is trending with videos of Governor Obaseki abandoning circumspection and stating publicly that the election is a “do or die matter”. He of course will leave the “doing” or “dying” to others! In the heat of elections politicians must accept that the safety of life and property is far more important than who wins or loses. It is ironic for Governor Obaseki to claim that he has no confidence in security agencies when his own life continues to be safeguarded by a plethora of uniformed officers!
As is now the norm in state elections, political parties hold “mega rallies” in which political jobbers, national officials and governors of other states all of whom know little about the place, descend from private jets to make provocative rabble-rousing statements before departing. They appear oblivious to the fact that their provocative statements are inciting, heat up the polity and create tensions which Peace Accords try unsuccessfully to prevent. They seem not to care that their mega-rallies are mainly attended by the unemployed or cash-induced party members. They are no longer impressed by the antics of campaigns which have descended into an abysmal mix of raining insults upon opponents, making promises of wealth creation which are impossible to fulfil, and gambling with citizens’ lives.
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It’s particularly reprehensible when top party officials fly in to address mega rallies and tell their supporters that “you have to kill or arrest all of us if you have to take this state”, after which they leave the state back to relative safety!
It is disturbing and particularly unwise for any governor who is after all the Chief Security Officer of the state to refuse to sign a peace accord. In African tradition, the wisdom of kings is a function of the character of their advisors. The best kings surrounded themselves with men of wisdom, honour, compassion and integrity. Regrettably refusing to sign a pre-emptive peace accord displays none of these traits.
Peace Accords are not retroactive as they concern future conduct, not past conduct. They are supposed to reflect a commitment not to be the one to break the peace. It is understandable that people who truly want peace may be reluctant to sign peace accords because of certain clauses they want inserted, or removed, but Governor Obaseki has not stated what exactly is contained within the document, which he finds so objectionable.
Leaving aside the issue of failure to sign peace accords, it is widely acknowledged that in addition to incitement, a major reason for the breakdown of law and order during elections is the erosion of trust in the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). The sad reality is that the commission’s credibility, and trust in their commitment not to engage in computational wizardry and deliver honest results was greatly eroded and perhaps irreparably damaged by the extraordinary conduct of the 2023 presidential elections in which they could not produce the documents they used to compile and justify their declared result.
However, even as Governor Obaseki expresses distrust in the impartiality of INEC officials, he apparently fails to see the irony of a man who won elections twice under INEC losing faith in the commission if his candidate is not declared winner!
Ultimately it is expected that even after the unnecessarily expensive electoral processes, the next Edo State governor will not necessarily be the one announced by INEC but rather the person declared by the Supreme Court! Undoubtedly, both Governor Obaseki and former governor Adams Oshiomhole have genuine grievances against each other, but they should refrain from making ill-advised statements which heat up the polity and risk wreaking havoc upon the state, especially as neither is a candidate.
The upcoming election is a three-way race and rising support for the Labour Party candidate implies that he will garner votes from both APC and PDP. As a result, a “landslide victory” for any candidate is unlikely. All the candidates and their supporters should be prevailed upon to be less emotional and more circumspect in their statements.
Governor Obaseki should be prevailed upon to take the high road and sign the peace accord because his refusal sounds a death knell for the National Peace Committee. It implies that they are a waste of time and money and not relevant to the political process.
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