The chaos and the controversy that witnessed the conduct of the 25 April governorship election re-run in Ekiti State and the results announced by Mrs Ayoka Adebayo under the unprecedented pressure mounted by the Inspector General of Police Mike Okiro, the Minister of Information and Communication, Professor Dora Akunyili and the INEC boss, Maurice Iwu, demonstrated to all Nigerians and the rest of the world that elections in Nigeria are a sheer showcase of shame and not an exercise to be relied upon. The re-run election was unfortunate and a bad signal for true democracy in Nigeria.
The Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) for Ekiti State, Mrs Adebayo demonstrated a high level of incompetence, unreliability and lack of credibility in the way she conducted the election re-run. At one time she would resign her position and hold on to her ‘Christian belief’ and threaten not to carry on with her job unless the powers that be take off their unsolicited pressure to announce a false result; at another time, the 74-year old Ayoka Adebayo would offer her self-proclaimed ‘divine conscience’ for sale and allow the likes of corruptible Okiro to overwhelm her whilst she announced dubious and disastrous results. This is a slap on the face of true democracy in our country.
What Adebayo failed to understand is that she has, with that singular act, inscribed her name permanently in the scroll of voters’ betrayals in Nigeria (VBN). She has emulated the likes of Prof. Henry Nwosu, our Chief Electoral Officer during the world acclaimed June 12 1993 election, who under the pressure of Military General Ibrahim Babangida, annulled the most free and fear election in the history of Nigeria. She has allowed whatever is left of her ‘good name’, after that bashing in a biography authored by Mrs Obasanjo, to further sink into the bottom of the mud. The 74-year old woman, by announcing the unbelievable results, has flocked with the birds of similar feathers of the likes of the Obasanjos, the Babatopes, the Omisores, and the Oyinlolas, who are today viewed in Yorubaland as of doubtful character with unenviable records in the land of Oduduwa. By the disastrous announcement of false results, the septuagenarian, Ayoka has sold out the Yoruba race to the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), a party that the people of Ekiti staunchly rejected and came out to vote against. Ayoka Adebayo offered her conscience for sale and was bought against the wishes of the good people of Oye and Ido-osi. What the whole world now know is that the 18 thousand votes recorded in Oye and the 15, 939 votes recorded Ido–Osi could not be justified and are unacceptable. Mrs Adebayo’s declaration of falsified votes as true votes had denied the people of Ekiti of their democratic rights.
We call on the people of Ekiti not to relent. They must not be complacent and allow their democratic rights be openly eroded with a flip of the hand. Dr Kayode Fayemi must stand up and give his people the leadership they need to fight for what is actually due to them. The Ekiti people must not relent until their yearnings for true democracy and good governance are eventually achieved. The legal challenge of the results must be pursued to a rightful end.
We call on Oni and his PDP collaborators to know that although result had been announced in his favour at the expense of Dr Kayode Fayemi, who clearly is the popular choice of the people of Ekiti, the truth, however it is crushed to the earth, shall always rise again. It is just a matter of time before the true aspirations of the Ekiti people will start to rise again to take over from those who stole away their votes.
Dr. Bisi Adewole is the secretary, AC Osun states, London.
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