Tag Archives: OKE

Ondo election: Akeredolu commends Jegede, Oke for conceding defeat.

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Ondo State Governor-elect, Rotimi Akeredolu has praised his opponents at the election for not challenging his victory at the court.

Akeredolu was declared winner of the governorship election in the state by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

Two of his major opponents, Eyitayo Jegede of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Olusola Oke of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) did not

file petitions at the Election Petition Tribunal within 21 days they are required to do so.

Akeredolu while speaking at his hometown Owo, in Owo Local Government Area of Ondo State said the election commended both candidates.

He said, “I have to praise my other contestants, especially, Mr. Eyitayo Jegede and Mr. Olusola Oke. I am sure that they have seen, as senior lawyers, that we are in a position to accept the result of an election, having assessed all the parameters, we believe the election was free and fair and I want to believe that their attitude is worthy of note and all of us, at least should try to emulate that in subsequent elections.

“They must have weighed all the options that there must have been substantial compliance to electoral acts by deciding not to challenge the result, that is a decision that is worthy of note and I want to thank them.”

Oke concedes defeat, decries monetization of electoral process as he congratulates Akeredolu

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The Gubernatorial Candidate of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) in Ondo State, Chief Olusola Oke on Monday congratulated Mr Rotimi Akeredolu of the All Peoples Congress (APC) who won last Saturday’s election even as he decried the heavy monetization of the election process which produced him.

Oke who addressed the Press in Akure commended both the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the security agents deployed to the State for being fair in the handling of their duties but regretted that the open and free use of money to purchase votes during the election by the ruling parties remains a sad commentary on the nation’s electoral process.

This development, according to him, required the urgent intervention by government if the much publicized anti-corruption agenda of the Federal Government must have meaning to Nigerians.

His words: “in the last seven years, the policy direction of the government of the day ( in Ondo State) has resulted in the growth and circulation of poverty to our people.

“The resultant effect is the debilitating poverty that had made the people so vulnerable. Therefore, trading away dignity in the face of excruciating hunger during electioneering process requires little or no considerations for morals and values that defined us as a people. The open and free use of money to purchase votes, during the election by the ruling parties remains a sad commentary on our electoral process. This requires urgent intervention by government if the much publicized anti-corruption agenda of the Federal Government must have meaning to Nigerians.

“Offer of money for votes is worse than looting the government treasury. Apart from compromising the dignity of the people, it provides a fertile training ground for future looters of government treasury. The consequence of it is to render the anti-corruption fight a farce. There may be no economic matter more urgent, difficult to unravel and more sensitive to the pursuit of the average person in Ondo State than the current indignity foisted on the people by poverty orchestrated by maladministration and priority misplacement by the current administration. We hope the incoming administration will address the problem of poverty so that the integrity of our electoral process will be restored.”

While noting that from the observation of the people of Ondo State, they appear confused and unsure of what would follow the immediate satisfaction from the naira handout received in consideration of the votes cast.

“They appear wondering whether the votes they delivered yesterday would restore light, revive dead industries, complete the uncompleted ones, give hundreds of thousands of unemployed graduates employment, pay arrears of salary to workers and guarantee regular payment of salary; whether their votes will make water to flow again in their unused and rusted water pipes, reduce dust on our roads, revive our education and health sectors  and so on,” he stated.

Oke, who recalled the event leading to his and his followers  movement to the AD, said the movement was necessitated by the need for “us as democrats and conscience of the people to shun the in-built perfidy and organized deception in APC as revealed during its primary election.

“We moved to AD less than six weeks before the gubernatorial election. We knew it was a big challenge and the greatest challenge was time. But we were determined in the pursuit of our dream.

“We know how bad the situation is and we are aware that the art of governance is difficult and complex, especially during trying times. The steep reduction in global oil prices from over 120 dollars per barrel to roughly 30 dollars and the huge debt profile of Ondo State present a hard challenge that requires a prepared mind and experienced hands in the saddle. We are convinced that we can no longer afford past practices.

That was the compelling re-occurring issue that defined our struggle. We thank the people of Ondo State who believed in the struggle of Alliance for Democracy and its candidate, Chief Olusola Oke.

“Ondo State requires economic re-engineering, creative reform, materially changing the substance of its economic policy as well as the objectives of that policy in a way that the economic well-being of the people will be restored again. Therein lies the essence of progressive democratic governance and that is what our party, the Alliance for Democracy stands for. The incoming government therefore must urgently address the issue of ravaging poverty in the state through: Industrialization; Job/Wealth Creation; Rural Integration; Infrastructural Development; Security,”

He, therefore, assured that as members of the opposition, the AD shall continue to contribute to the process of governance and would not hesitate to point, in a civilized manner, the attention of the incoming government to any area where the masses seem not to have been considered in the policy framework of governance.

“We shall voice our opinion whenever we believe any member of the incoming government strayed from the progressive calling required of the administration,” he posited.

He, therefore, congratulated the governor-elect, Rotimi Akeredolu, SAN and wish him success and praying to God to guide him “as he directs the affairs of our dear state.”

OndoDecides: “Abuja has prevailed over Tinubu”, says Yinka Odumakin.

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The Yoruba socio-cultural organisation, Afenifere, considers the victory of Rotimi Akeredolu of the All Progressives Congress in the just concluded Ondo governorship election as a blow to Bola Tinubu’s hold on south-west politics, the organisation’s spokesperson has said.

The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, declared Mr. Akeredolu winner on Sunday, having polled 244, 842 to defeat his challengers, mainly Eyitayo Jegede of Peoples Democratic Party with 150,380 votes and Olusola Oke of Alliance for Democracy with 126,889 votes.

This outcome, Afenifere spokesperson, Yinka Odumakin, told PREMIUM TIMES on Sunday, meant “Abuja has prevailed over the south-west which worked against Akeredolu.”

“And this is going to have implications for future politics of the south-west,” Mr. Odumakin added.Akeredolu1

Pressed to explain what he meant by “Abuja” and ‘south-west” – Mr. Odumakin said that, “the South West APC has a controlling leadership under Tinubu, or by South West I mean the Tinubu caucus which is the majority in the region.”

“And, at the moment, Fashola (Babatunde), Governor Ibikunle Amosun (of Ogun State) and Fayemi (Kayode) do not belong to that group under Tinubu which was opposed to Akeredolu’s emergence.”

He said Afenifere would watch “these implications” as they unfold.

Mr. Akeredolu’s emergence as the candidate of the APC months ago at the expense of several aspirants, including Olusegun Abraham, backed by Mr. Tinubu, had generated crisis which saw aggrieved defeated aspirants petition the party’s appeals panel.

The panel invalidated Mr. Akeredolu’s victory at the primary poll, but the National Working Committee of the party led by John Odigie-Oyegun overruled the panel, provoking a furious Mr. Tinubu to accusehis party of injustice and undemocratic tendencies, and demand Mr. Oyegun’s resignation in a strongly worded letter through which he also renounced the “honorific title” of national leader of the ruling party.

Olusola Oke, Ondo APC Aspirant Photo by SaharaReporters
Olusola Oke, Ondo AD governorship candidate

But Mr. Odigie-Oyegun, who hit back at Mr. Tinubu and dismissed allegations against him as reckless, has remained in office, apparently backed by President Muhammadu Buhari.

Mr. Tinubu and his core loyalists, including Governor Rauf Aregbesola of Osun State and Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos State refused to endorse Mr. Akeredolu and shunned his grand rally attended by Messrs. Buhari, Oyegun, Amosun, Fayemi and Senate President Bukola Saraki in Akure.

One of Mr. Aregbesola’s aides, Bola Ilori led AD’s Mr. Oke’s campaign and many card carrying APC members, citing “injustice” in their party, openly mobilised support for Mr. Oke, fuelling claims Mr. Tinubu backed the AD’s candidate against his own party’s flag bearer.

Mr. Oke joined AD to contest the election after he lost in the APC primary. But despite the support he had from APC members in the south-west, he came distant third leaving over 100 thousand votes between himself and Mr. Akeredolu who faced abandonment by his own party members and leaders in the region.

In his victory speech, Mr. Akeredolu thanked Mr. Buhari, Mr. Oyegun whom he called “our indefatigable and principled chairman”, and “loyal” governors – subtly hitting at his APC governors in the south-west allegedly involved in anti-party activities.

However, hours after Mr. Akeredolu was officially declared winner by INEC, Mr. Tinubu congratulated the governor-elect and noted his “persistence and perseverance”.

The governor-elect first contested the Ondo governorship election in 2012, fully backed by Mr. Tinubu, but came third, trailing Mr. Oke of PDP then, and the outgoing Governor Olusegun Mimiko, who then used Labour to clinch a second term.

Bola Tinubu
Bola Tinubu

In his reaction, Mr. Tinubu also extended congratulations to Mr. Buhari whom he called “the national leader of the party whose stature and dignity helped guide the APC to another victory…”

Mr. Ambode also congratulated Mr. Akeredolu, just after Mr. Tinubu’s reaction on Sunday, and charged the governor-elect to pursue unity of Yoruba through regional integration and economic transformation of the south-west. But Mr. Aregbesola has not issued any public reaction as at the time of filing this report.

The Afenifere and Mr. Tinubu have been on divergent paths since the latter’s tenure as Lagos governor.

Afenifere was the socio-cultural organisation behind the AD in 1999, as Egbe Omo Oduduwa was for the Action Group led by late Obafemi Awolowo in the 1950s.

However, the group did not back the AD candidate in the Ondo election because of the perceived support Mr. Oke enjoyed from Mr. Tinubu.

ANALYSIS: Six questions about Mimiko, others, Ondo election left unanswered

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In this analysis, Bisi Abidoye looks at the talking points from last weekend’s governorship election in Ondo State

Gatecrashing the federal party?

The All Progressives Congress won Saturday’s governorship election of Ondo state. The candidate of the party, Rotimi Akeredolu, was declared winner, having received the highest number of the votes and met all the stipulated requirement. Mr. Akeredolu won in 13 of the 18 local government areas of the state and was runner-up in the other five shared by his two nearest rivals, Eyitayo Jegede of the Peoples Democratic Party (who won in three LGAs) and Olusola Oke of the Alliance for Democracy (who won in the other two LGAs.)

If Mr. Akeredolu’s election stands, it will be only the second time in the 40-year history of Ondo state that it has elected the candidate of a federal ruling party, the first being Olusegun Agagu who was elected on the platform of the PDP in 2003. Of course, the electoral commission had on two other occasions returned candidates of the parties ruling at the centre – Akin Omoboriowo of the National Party of Nigeria in 1983 and Segun Agagu of the PDP in 2007. But both verdicts were upturned at the court. Mr. Omoboriowo’s win was quashed after an uprising that gave the state its reputation for violent resistance to perceived electoral shenanigans.

It may be relevant that Ondo voted APC in last year’s federal elections, before consoling Mr. Mimiko by electing a majority of his party’s candidates into the state legislature. And just last week, the only Ondo senator elected last year on PDP ticket, Yele Omogunwa, defected to join the APC caucus. Maybe Ondo is an APC state after all.

When is a mandate?

Mr. Akeredolu won the election with 244,842 votes. But his tally represents only 44.41 percent of the valid votes cast, and means there were more voters on Saturday who preferred someone else as governor.

In some other electoral systems, where a mandate can only be delivered by a majority of voters, the Ondo state governor-elect would only have qualified for a run-off against his closest rival. But don’t blame Mr. Akeredolu for this seeming quirk – Nigeria’s electoral system awards victory to the candidate with the highest number of votes, if the candidate can show his or her footprints across the constituency. The framers of the nation’s constitution made provisions to ensure that the winning plurality does not come from only a section of the field. In addition to having the highest number of votes, the winner must also score at least a quarter of the votes in at least two-thirds of the constituency.

Mr. Akeredolu cleanly scaled this hurdle – in fact, he had majority of the votes in each of 13 LGAs and returned second with more than a quarter of the votes in each of the other five of the state’s 18 LGAs, apart from Ilaje where his rival of the AD denied every other candidate that honour.

But that is not the only thing that may twitch some purists’ noses. Only 35.49 percent of the registered voters cared to turn out last Saturday, despite initial media reports of public enthusiasm about the polls. If you take Mr. Akeredolu’s 244, 842 votes as a percentage of the 1,647,973 registered voters, then it means he has been elected by only 14.85 percent of those who were entitled to have a say on who should be the next governor of Ondo State. Again, this is not peculiar to Mr. Akeredolu, many before him had been so elected, including the man who would soon be his predecessor, Olusegun Mimiko.

What happened, Mr. Mimiko?

The outgoing two-term governor’s party got only 27.27 percent of the votes on Saturday (150,380). Curiously, the chairman of the PDP Governors Forum was never elected on a PDP ticket. He became governor in 2008 after a successful petition against the 2007 election of PDP’s Mr. Agagu. A post-primary defector from the PDP, he had challenged Mr. Agagu’s reelection on the ticket of the Labour Party and was reelected in 2012 on the same party’s ticket, in a three-man race that mirrored that of last Saturday. His two main challengers in that election were Mr. Akeredolu of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria and Mr. Oke, who was the PDP candidate at the time. After his reelection, Mr. Mimiko defected with the governor’s seat to the PDP, infuriating sitting members of the party in the state, including Mr. Oke who eventually fled to the APC.

In the 2012 election, Mr. Oke’s PDP finished second behind Mr. Mimiko’s Labour Party. So with the LP dissolving into the PDP long before Saturday’s election, it was normal to project the PDP as frontrunner last Saturday. Alas! It returned a distant second with just over 27 percent of the votes. Considering that the PDP candidate was handpicked by Mr. Mimiko, did the outcome of the election indicate how sore Ondo voters were over the stewardship of the outgoing governor?

A rolling stone

As for Mr. Oke, what would he make of his finishing on Saturday? He was first runner-up in 2012, albeit with the (some have said half-hearted) support of the PDP which then controlled the federal government. Mr. Oke defected to the APC in resentment of Mr. Mimiko taking over the PDP in the state. He ran for the ticket of the APC but again left in a huff over alleged lack of fair play in the primary. Mr. Oke seized the ticket of the AD for last Saturday’s election to howls by some of the older members of the party. But it was widely speculated that a disaffected section of the APC covertly backed his campaign, so many punters made him the dark horse. It turned out not to be a smart bet. He returned very far behind the man whose nomination by the APC he had queried. Will he stay where he is now or keep his feet loose?

At least, Mr. Oke proved that he has home support though. He won in his Ilaje LGA handsomely, unlike Mr. Jegede of the PDP who only won in the backyard of his mentor, Mr. Mimiko.

Lame donkey or sabotaged?

To be fair to Mr. Jegede and the PDP, it still has to be analysed how much his race was affected by a headwind called Jimoh Ibrahim. For six critical weeks in the run-up to the election, Mr. Jegede gnashed his teeth in no man’s land after he was elbowed out as the candidate of the PDP by a court judgement the Appeal Court has sternly rebuked as fraudulent. While the other candidates were on the field courting the electorate and setting their nets for votes, Mr. Jegede was out in the cold baying at Mr. Ibrahim who had snatched his ticket and parading the courts for delayed help. When just two days to the election, the ticket was retrieved for him from the wily snatcher, Mr. Jegede did not know what else to do other than mount a fruitless campaign for postponement of the polls. No way the authorities would allow a family affair delay a race the community had long awaited. Now, the defeated PDP flag bearer can only rue what might have been! Still, you are not going to be proud of yourself when you cannot win even your LGA.

The-also-ran parties

Twenty eight parties presented candidates for the election. Although the media, trying to separate the men from the boys, projected a four-horse race, it turned out that only three horses actually ran to win, as Olu Agunloye of the Social Democratic Party garnered only 1.84 percent of the votes. The combined votes of all the other 24 amounted to a mere 3.47 percent! So what was their purpose on the ballot, apart from giving electoral officers clerical headache? Worse still, 16 of these parties had joined their voices with the PDP’s in calling for a postponement of the polls last week, pretending to be genuine stakeholders.

In some polities, a party or candidate has to scale some hurdles before being allowed on the ballot. This could be in the form of having their nominations endorsed by a percentage of the registered voters, or, as in the First Republic, making a deposit which they forfeit if at the end of the election they did not reach a particular threshold of the votes. May be Nigeria has to consider reintroducing something like that in the future, to weed the field. Imagine one of these parties being mistakenly left out of the ballot paper. It would have gone to court to have the entire election cancelled and repeated at great cost to everybody.

And by the way, what happened to Mr. Agunloye too? The former minister’s SDP has as its national leader, Olu Falae, an elder statesman whose chest is full of badges as a former secretary to the federal government, minister, presidential candidate of the combined forces of two major parties (AD/APP) in 1999 and an Akure monarch? Perhaps the media still has to learn how to identify paper tigers.

Finally, beware Mr. Akeredolu, speed breakers ahead!

Before Mr. Akeredolu assumes office next February, he would have to carefully ruminate on how to relate with his state Legislature that may be controlled by the vanquished PDP at least until 2019. The party has only a small majority in the House, but that is enough to make Mr. Akeredolu worry about forming his cabinet and passing his budgets. By giving control of different arms of government to different parties, Ondo voters too may need to hope that they have not inadvertently set the stage for gridlock in how their affairs will be run from next year.

OndoDecides: I will not congratulate Akeredolu yet – SDP candidate, Agunloye.

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The candidate of the Social Democratic Party, SDP, Olu Agunloye, has said he is still studying the governorship election won by the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Rotimi Akeredolu.

 

Mr. Akeredolu was on Sunday declared winner of the election with an overwhelming score of 244, 842 votes.

 

Mr. Agunloye came a distant fourth with just over 10,000 votes.

 

The head of media, Agunloye campaign organisation, Tunji Fajimbola, told PREMIUM TIMES on Sunday that the candidate was not in a hurry to accept or reject the election.

 

rotimi-akeredolu

 

“He is still studying the situation,” said Mr. Fajimbola. “It is not wise to make pronouncements in a hurry. He still has to consult with the party.”

 

He said it is often the best practice to congratulate the winner of any election, but noted that Mr. Agunloye would not want to hurriedly make such pronouncements, in order not to be take a position different from his party.

 

“Dr. Agunloye did his best to show there is an alternative to the suffering situation of the people of the state,” Mr. Fajimbola noted.

 

olusola-oke

 

“He offered himself and did what he should do. He is still the best option, and if the people needed a person who will rescue and rebuild, he is the best option.”

 

Mr. Agunloye scored 10,149 to place fourth behind Olusola Oke who scored a total of 126, 889 votes.

 

He based his campaign on the slogan to rescue and rebuild.

Ondo guber: You’re Not a Progressive – APC tells Oke

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The All Progressives Congress, APC, in Ondo State, yesterday, accused the Alliance for Democracy, AD, governorship candidate, Chief Olusola Oke, of pretending to be a progressive with the aim of hoodwinking the electorate to vote for him in the coming election.

The Chairman of the Akeredolu Campaign Platform, Ade Adetimehin, said in Akure that Oke “was not progressive-minded but only pretending to be one by being in the AD with the aim of winning the election, using AD’s platform’’ and warned the people of the state “not to be carried away by Oke’s antics, which is to resuscitate the Peoples Democratic Party in the state and South-West states in general if he wins the governorship election.’’

Adetimehin alleged that “Oke’s spirit was still with the PDP where had spent 16 years before crossing to the APC and later the AD. He said that Oke wanted to deceive the people of the state in order to get their votes in the forthcoming governorship election.

“Our people have had enough of PDP misrule in our state and they are waiting for the real progressives party to take over the state. Oke cannot be addressed as a progressive. He spent all his political years in PDP.’’

Countering, Chairman of the Media and Publicity of the Olusola Oke Campaign Organisation, Kola Olabisi, said: “APC is full of hypocrites, who are not real progressives but people deceiving Nigerians. When Olusola Oke was with them some months ago, building the APC, he was a progressive then but now that he has been rigged out of the party, he is no more a progressive.

“They are only afraid of their imminent defeat in the election. The APC people only believe in propaganda and rigging and now we are waiting for them. Because they know their candidate is not popular that is why they are doing all things possible to tarnish Oke’s image and that can’t work for them because the electorate know their choice.”

Ondo guber: Group accuses Aregbesola of financing Oke’s election.

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A youths group, Osun Youths Movement, has accused Governor Rauf Aregbesola of Osun State of bankrolling the election expenses of the candidate of the Alliance for Democracy in Ondo State, Olusola Oke, for the November 26 governorship poll.

In a statement in Osogbo by the Coordinator of the group, Yusuf Olaosebikan, the group accused Aregbesola of diverting the meagre resources of the state “to feather his expansionist political agenda” in other states while the state’s workers suffer from months of unpaid salaries.

The group said physical infrastructure has also collapsed in Osun State “because of lack of focus and reckless ambition” by the governor.

The group warned the Federal Government against granting further bailout to the state until Aregbesola was able to explain how he spent the earlier cash meant for the settlement of several months of unpaid salaries.

It said: “It is heart-warming that the Senate Committee of Local Government is set to investigate Governor Aregbesola on how he spent the last bail-out meant for salary payment, which the governor failed to comply with.

“We alerted Osun people then that we had information that the governor was more concerned about his political fortunes than the welfare of Osun people, particularly the civil servants.

“Aregbesola started his expansionist idea when he started funding Mr Ayodele Fayose’s election with the state’s fund in 2014 to cause the defeat of his own party, APC, in Ekiti State.

“After succeeding in helping Fayose, Nigerians can now see that their friendship has blossomed with Aregbe holding secret meetings with Fayose and at present extending his tentacles to Ondo State, and this time around too, helping another party, AD, to defeat his own party to consolidate on his plans for a new party where he can wield enough influence.”

Warning against starving millions of Osun State residents to advance personal political ambition, the group threatened to make the state ungovernable for the governor if he continued spending the state’s money to fund elections in other states.

It said: “We can no longer continue to watch the governor spending our scarce resources to recklessly finance the elections of his political associates in other states in pursuit of personal ambition.

“Monday hiring of more than 300 buses in Osogbo and environs to ferry hired people to Ondo State for Olusola Oke’s campaign rally will no longer be tolerated because the governor cannot be pursuing his personal political ambition while our people suffer.”

The Cable: What’s happening in Ondo State?

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It was amusing seeing the pictures of Governor Olusegun Mimiko at the Presidential Villa last Friday. Not that he does not have the right to visit the president; he does, particularly with our warped federal structure wherein states are more of appendages than federating units. But his reason for the visit was funny, to say the least. The visit was like pounding on anvil that gave off no sparks, especially with his request that the president intervenes in the raging fire in Ondo State.

Mimiko is an astute politician, a great mobiliser of people and resources towards a particular goal. One does not fight former president Olusegun Obasanjo politically and beat him if he is not a strong politician and maybe only him and former Lagos State governor, Bola Tinubu, have been able to dust the ebora Owu on the political field while he held sway between 1999 and 2007. A former minister told the story of how they were unable to persuade Mimiko not to leave the federal cabinet in order to become the Ondo governor, why leaving for uncertainty, they asked him. Iroko, as he is known, however, stuck to his guns and resigned as housing minister to contest the April 14, 2007 elections. He recalled how Obasanjo was apoplectic with rage at the cabinet meeting where Mimiko tendered his resignation letter threatening that he would ‘deal with him’ but Iroko kept quiet.

A colleague who covered the governorship election for a foreign broadcast organisation spoke of how Mimiko was well loved by the people that everywhere he went with his crew, they saw how difficult it would be for the late Segun Agagu to beat him. Incredibly, INEC declared Agagu the winner but Mimiko went to court and on February 23, 2009, the Appeal Court ruled that he was the winner paving the way for him to become the first and only Labour Party member to win a gubernatorial election in our country. He assumed office the next day. On October 2, 2014 he switched to PDP after securing another term and thereby becoming the first governor in the state history to win a second term. So, as we say in Nigeria, ‘he is very much on the ground.’

But how did the 62-year old medical doctor find himself in a political mess that he has to seek refuge from a president he barely tolerates? What happened that his anointed candidate, Eyitayo Jegede, a senior advocate, did not foresee the legal landmines and thereby prepare well on how to navigate such? How come the hunter is now the hunted?  More annoyingly, the ‘PDP candidate’ recognized by INEC is a corporate undertaker with many companies or corporations dying under his watch than surviving. And that’s where INEC comes into the picture. It is interesting that the electoral body, which recognized the Ahmed Makarfi faction before the Edo State governorship election, decided not to recognize it now. Though there is the other matter that it was the state executive that Mimiko allegedly sidelined before the primaries that has been recognized now by INEC. An important observation, however, is that what do we make of INEC’s presence at the primary where Jegede emerged? On what basis was the attendance if that faction was not authentic?

Too often we do not focus on two critical players in our democratic journey as a country, INEC and the judiciary. As a country, we place so much emphasis on election that governance suffers because of it. While no one knows how the saga involving our judges will end, it is instructive that electoral victories are won in courts now more than at polling booths. What is INEC doing wrongly that candidates are seemingly more interested in going to courts after elections? Even while violence should be condemned emphatically, INEC should not push citizens into thinking it is an option. By the way, whatever happened to some withheld results after the Rivers State election by INEC? Some judgments too are baffling that even lawyers are confused on the reasoning behind them, much more disconcerting are even the judgments of the highest court in the land.

Good enough that there is an appeal on this issue but what happens if the court does not rule in favour of the Iroko faction? That’s why we should all be worried about the protests rocking the Ondo State capital. Dissent remains an integral part of democracy, but violence should be abhorred. Citizens should be free to make their grievances known in orderly and peaceful manner without killing. There’s still the unresolved matter of the accusation leveled against INEC by Mr. Jimoh Ibrahim wherein he said that some officials of the electoral body demanded for a bribe from him in foreign currency, I think that’s worth probing. It may be that it played a role in what is happening in Ondo State presently.

I Didn’t Defect To APC Because Of Federal Appointment – Oke

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A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress in Ondo State, Chief Olusola Oke, has denied speculations in some quarters that he defected to the APC to be able to get an appointment from the incoming administration, saying his priority for joining the party was to help build the party in the state.

Oke, who was a former National Legal Adviser of the Peoples Democratic Party and the party’s candidate in the 2012 governorship election in the state, defected to APC on April 8, 2015 following internal wrangling in the state chapter of the PDP between his group and that of Governor Olusegun Mimiko.

The former PDP flag bearer in a statement on Monday by his media aide, Rotimi Ogunleye, said instead of jostling for positions, he was ready to be a part of the process that would deepen democracy, throw up good and accountable leadership that would deliver good governance to the people of the state.

The lawyer added that his intention was to join other leaders of the party in the state to build a formidable party that would win elections in the state.

“My priority is to join other leaders of APC to build a stronger and formidable party in Ondo state. Contrary to unhealthy speculations from some quarters, I am not in a chase for any position. More than anything, restoration of good governance in Ondo state is my priority. This I am committed to”, the statement partly read.