The votes of Edo electorate must count

Adam Oshiomhole, Edo State Governor

By Paul Arhewe

Edo State is attracting cover headline news once again, no thanks to the imminent gubernatorial election in the state fixed for next July 14. Already on display is the usual melodrama where the dramatist personae devise dirty schemes to outwit one another. Characteristically, the electorate are relegated to the background.

As politicians are busy heating up the system they usually see dirty antics and ploys as primal to winning elections. This recurring trait is undeniably fast becoming a stratagem for electioneering in Africa’s largest democracy. How politicking in Nigeria got so messy and pathetically undemocratic should be not only a concern of the authorities, the problem should be fixed. Politicians should allow the electorate to freely exercise their franchise to decide who should rule them. I cannot help but wonder why Nigerian electorate are not wooed with realistic manifestoes and campaigns promises?

The incumbent state governor, Comrade Adam Oshiomole of the ACN, has demonstrable and intimidating evidences of performance that have become a formidable threat to his opponents. Displacing him from the high office may therefore, be difficult. In an ideal democracy, the opposition is expected to come up with more convincing action plans that would make the electorate consider it better than the incumbent and cast their votes in its favour.
The first state governor under this dispensation, Chief Lucky Igbinedion of the PDP, spent eight years without significantly impacting on the lives and living standards of the people of the state. His performance in office is a serious drawback for the PDP and the reason why the electorate would want to throw their support for an achievement driven by the ruling ACN governor.
With the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) and other opponents scheming to seize power from the ruling ACN, I believe this should be done through the presentation of a stronger USP laced with robust and convincing policy alternatives supported by executable strategic enforcement framework (SEF), which is much more realistic than what ACN has. I am totally opposed to the deployment of the state’s instruments of coercion (military, police etc) and non-appropriated funds to get unpopular and undeserved results. The attraction of democracy lies in the fact that the electorate can punish a non-performing government while rewarding achievements saturated one.
It is glaring that Oshiomhole’s campaign team is getting it right with the One Man, One Vote sloganeering. Watching the incumbent’s governor’s campaign in Esan land recently, the manner in which he read out the lists of ongoing projects and those executed in this part of the state and called out witnesses from among the local people to either refute his statement or corroborate it, was really heart-warming.
The July 14 election in the state should be based on issues; especially developmental programmes that each party is capable and willing to deliver in making the people of Edo feel more the impact of their government. If there is true that opposition parties are campaigning and making promises of what the current government has already delivered to the people, then I see this as a lazy man’s approach to politicking and evidence of the ill preparation of a party that wants to take over from a performing incumbent government. The opposition should refrain from name calling, but keep to the strategy of telling Edo people the blueprint of what they can deliver better than the ruling party in the next four years if given power.
Nigeria’s politics, after 13 years of uninterrupted democratic governance, begs for consolidation with well thought out programmes and policies and SEFs for actualizing the set goals. For the assurance of a free and fair election, the ruling party at the federal level should know to what extent it should interfere in the politics of the states without overt show of its preference for the ruling party, likewise for the state governments during local polls.
The era of political god-fatherism, witch-hunting and political thuggery should really be a thing of the past. What makes the ideal democracy worldwide a beauty to behold? The answer is that politics is played with fairness, transparency, level playing ground for all the parties and respect for the choice of the people. That explained why Nicolas Sarkozy, the immediate past president of France, could within 20 minutes of poll results declaration come out openly to congratulate his opponent and nemesis, Francois Hollande, and pledged his support and cooperation for his government.
Such maturity is what we really desire in Nigeria to grow our democracy. We can start experiencing such when politicians respect the wishes of the electorate and see them as the ultimate sovereign. It is my outmost desire that all the political actors powers must strive towards ensuring that come next July 14, the wishes of Edo people must be supreme. This is non-negotiable.