“My conscience as a Christian will not allow me to further participate in this process” It was with these words that Mrs. Ayoka Adebayo resigned her appointment as the Ekiti State Resident Electoral Commissioner on April 28 2009. A series of events followed which has left every one in doubt of just what value Mrs. Adebayo’s conscience is worth. It all came to a climax yesterday when she shamelessly and without recourse to her hitherto advertised Christian Conscience announced and returned Segun Oni of the PDP as winner of the protracted gubernatorial re-run election.
It first became obvious that so much dirty water was flowing under the bridge when the 74 year old electoral umpire after purportedly resigning her appointment and being declared wanted by the police arrived Abuja and had a closed door meeting with the wuruwuru master himself Prof Maurice Iwu the INEC chairman. She emerged from that meeting singing a new song. “I am still a member of the INEC family” she shouted and perhaps to confuse us all the more, she added “God bless Nigeria”.
Before that meeting, she had claimed that she had resigned as a result of the overwhelming pressure put on her to announce results that her conscience wouldn’t let her. Further investigations by journalists including a phone interview on Ray power fm with one of her aides revealed that trouble had started after results of the re-run election in Ido-Osi LGA were brought in. Mrs. Adebayo had rejected the result based on the fact that its collation was done in a Police station (not a designated collation center) without her permission and the said result was not signed for by the party agents. Both anomalies were against the provisions of the electoral act.
No one needed any special intelligence to decipher where the pressure was coming from. The PDP had allocated unimaginable figures to themselves in that LGA, enough to wipe out The AC’s 11,000 lead and needed her to announce that result and secure them victory.
After the Abuja meeting with Iwu, Mrs. Adebayo returned to Ado-Ekiti to finish her job. Elections held Tuesday 5th May in the Oye and afterwards the final result was announced.
In an unbelievable U-turn, Mrs. Adebayo announced the tainted results from Ido-Osi, the same results her conscience had held her from announcing. The same results she had rejected before resigning. Her conscience suddenly took flight or perhaps it got rebranded after her meeting with Iwu. She in dealing a final blow to the hopes of the people for credible elections did the bidding of the PDP by announcing Oni as winner.
Why is the results from Ido-Osi an issue? Aside the fact that they did not meet the primary requirements of the electoral act (as initially stated by Adebayo her self), the figures as announced yesterday was itself suspect. PDP pooled almost 16000 votes with the AC recording just some 3000. The PDP will of course be fast in reminding us that Ido-osi is the base of their candidate, but has it occurred to any one that in all the 10 LGA where elections held it was only in Ido-Osi that over 19,000 people voted. In fact in most of the other LGA less than 5000 votes were recorded. Why such high figures from Ido-osi? Needless to add here that it was the Ido-Osi figures that gave Segun Oni the close to 4000 votes with which he emerged winner over Fayemi.
The fraud here is so obvious. Once again The PDP gets away with massive electoral fraud and this time they did it with the active connivance of the re-branded conscience of Mrs. Ayoka Adebayo, a 74 year old granny. Mrs. Adebayo must know that she just lost an opportunity to do one good in her entire 74 years on earth and she so squandered it.
Now the women who went half naked in her support might as well go stark naked in protest against her. The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) that threatened to go to court if anything happened to Mrs. Adebayo in the height of her being declared wanted perhaps would now chew their words. Obviously Adebayo’s definition of Christian Conscience did not agree with CAN’s. Some people even called her “an icon of democracy”, alas we know, she is nothing close to that.
The AC has announced its readiness to go to court again and challenge the elections. That is the civilized thing to do. But it hurts to know that while the courts take all their time to do their thing, an imposter will be sitting and administering a state. I feel hurt for the people of Ekiti, the women and Youths who came out to boldly express their desire for change. I feel hurt for the lives that were lost in the process. I feel hurt for the Electoral observers who the PDP unleashed terror on. I feel hurt for the soul of this nation. It was high time we stamped a foot strong and said enough is enough.
As Oni prepares to be sworn in for a fresh four year term, I wonder what his conscience (if indeed he has one) tells him. “This people voted me to lead them” or “I am a thief, I stole my way to power”. The things we see in this country makes one wonder if ‘Truth’ was still a virtue.
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