“I think that for democracy to flourish, only people who can accept the pain of rigging, sorry of defeat, should participate in an election,” -Oshiomhole
Aniekan Udofia
In 2006 during the build up to the 2007 general elections Comrade Adams Oshiomole as he was then addressed had come into the governorship race in Edo State fresh from his exploit as the President of the Nigeria Labour Congress that had held the government of President Olusegun Obasanjo to a standstill. Oshiomole’s popularity soared that the Labour Party, LP platform he had initially wanted to run on was gathering steam.
In a dramatic turn of event, the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, the major opposition party in Nigeria at that time, favoured Oshiomole as it standard bearer. The support for Oshiomole was organic and momentous. The student community of the University of Benin threw its weight on Oshiomole and galvanised support for his aspiration.
The Candidate of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP Professor Oserheimen Osunbor, almost became a leprose finger. Oshiomole lamented the flawed system. Campaigned on the mantra of “One man, One vote,” “No to godfatherism,” “Accountability,” etc. The likes of late Tony Anenih, sitting governor Lucky Igbinedion, were demonised as godfathers and Osunbor presented like a stooge before the Edo people.
In the 2007 governorship election in Edo State, Adams Oshiomole’s recorded a landslide victory at the polls that it took the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC under Professor Maurice Iwu to make the declaration of Osunbor as winner of the election on Channels Television outside of Edo State, a contravention of the electoral law. Osunbor was returned elected against the wishes of the majority of Edo people who desired their messiah Oshiomole.
In 2007 as a final year student in the department of Political Science and Public Administration in University of Benin who had joined other students to rally support for Oshiomole, I was selected as the spokesperson to a delegation that met with Oshiomole after his mandate had been stolen.
We were ushered into his office in Benin City as the man we all saw as a beacon of light and hope that our nation was seated. I spoke on behalf of the delegation and told Oshiomole how much we believed that his mandate was too loud to be shutdown, that it was only a matter of time for the court to declare him the winner of the election. Oshiomole spoke about the problem of the Nigeria political culture and his vision for Edo State. Many of us saw beyond Edo State and wished the time would come when Saint Oshiomole would be president of Nigeria.
Our belief in Oshiomole was enough to make us sacrifice our all to support him. Oshiomole pointed out the flaws in the election and said his mandate would be reclaimed. True to his belief and ours, in November 2008, the court held that Oshiomole was the rightful winner of the governorship election in Edo State. An apostle of the rule of law, President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua ordered the immediate swearing in of Oshiomole as governor on November 12, 2008.
Oshiomole administered Edo State for 8 years from 2008 to 2016, and when it was time to produce a successor, Oshiomole forced the choice of Godwin Obaseki on his party and, by extension Edo State.
By the end of the first term of governor Obaseki, Oshiomole had fallen out with his godson. Oshiomole became the victim of what he fought against in Edo State as he was accused of the same godfatherism. He felt out with Obaseki, and in a desperate attempt to unseat the governor, he used the party to frustrate him. Oshiomole, through the instrumentality of the party, made it obvious that Obaseki was not going to get the ticket. Obaseki was forced out of the party. He sought refuge in the PDP for any hope of reelection.
Oshiomole in dramatic fashion threw up the same Osagie Ize -Iyamu he vilified in 2016 as the candidate of the PDP in the governorship election that produced Obaseki. Edo Governorship election presented a laughable scenario where the same candidates switch parties to square up again. Obaseki APC in 2016 and PDP in 2020. Ize-Iyamu PDP in 2016 and APC in 2020.
Oshiomole shamelessly went about campaigning for the same Ize-Iyamu against the same Obaseki he extolled in 2016. Of course, the outcome of the election was not in favour of Oshiomole because the sitting president Mohammadu Buhari was not ruthless in state capture and undermining our democratic process with reckless abandon. Again, the judiciary had not become the full rape of our democracy and the monster it has become today after its decision in 2023 that exonerated INEC from disregarding its guidelines in announcing election results
As the judiciary constituted a grave danger to our democracy, the sanctity of the ballot found no meaning in our electoral process. Sadly, the man, Oshiomole, who championed the charge in the 2024 governorship election in Edo State, was the same man who had benefited from a credible process.
Oshiomole paraded the candidate of the APC without any iota of doubt that the flawed system will throw him up as governor. His firm belief that the fraudulent electoral system will deliver him as governor was reinforced everywhere he spoke. Oshiomole demonstrated the courage to do nonsense in a grand style with his open acceptance that the 2024 Edo Governorship election was free, fair, and credible.
The once saint Oshiomole we revered openly accepted an election where there were several cases of over voting. The same saint Oshiomole will give a seal of credibility to an election where the results on INEC Result Viewing, IReV Portal differed from the announced results. The same saint Oshiomole damned the report of election observers who said anything contrary to his position about the election. The same saint, Oshiomole , who once relied on observers’ reports to pursue his stolen mandate in 2007, discredit the report of reputable YIAGA Africa because it did not favour him. The same saint Oshiomole who got justice in the court is challenging others to go to the court in Nigeria that has become the temple of injustice.
Oshiomole’s case is clearly a demonstration of how dangerous the Nigeria political culture has become that it can swallow any individual no matter your standing. Today, saint Oshiomole has joined the oppressors against the oppressed he once fought for. The same saint Oshiomole as the National Chairman of APC endorsed the shenanigans in the 2018 Osun Governorship election.
The Nigeria political culture has swallowed our saint Oshiomole, a clear case of if you can not beat them, join them. Our hopes and aspirations on the man we once revered as students of Political Science in our time at the University of Benin has vanished with the wind of electoral fraud.
