BY BENEDICT NWACHUKWU, ABUJA
Barely five months to go, the Independent National Electoral Commission will be on duty again after a strenuous 2023 general election conduct.
The Mahmood Yakubu-chaired commission which is still battling in the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal to clear its name and regain its integrity internally and globally has a litmus test ahead.
The three states where the elections will be held are Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi. Of the three, only Kogi state’s governor, Yahaya Bello is serving out his constitutional two terms of eight years and therefore is not contesting. The governors of Bayelsa and Imo States; Douye Diri and Hope Uzodimma are seeking reelection as they are completing their first four years.
Unfolding events have shown that the do or die syndrome in the country’s elections is being played up in the processes leading to the November 11 polls. Inter party attacks leading to killings and maiming coupled with campaign violence is already characterizing the elections in all the three states.
Recently there was an attack on the convoy of Governor Bello by suspected followers and supporters of one of the candidates who also claimed he was attacked by unknown gunmen he accused of working for the state government.
In Imo State, the campaign of calumny by the political gladiators and their parties is the order of the day, same as in Bayelsa State.
Already, the incumbent governor and APC candidate, Uzodimma is working hard to assert his authority and the supremacy of his party in the state. Covertly or overtly, bigwigs of other political parties, particularly the main opposition party, PDP have been defecting to the APC.
Recently, seven members of the party’s State Working Committee abandoned the party and pitched tent with the ruling APC and speedily endorsed Uzodimma for governorship promising to roll out their machinery to make sure he is reelected.
Nevertheless, the Labour Party, PDP, ADC, SDP, AA, APGA and various other political parties that fielded candidates are not relenting in spite of the whirlwind of defection few months to the election.
Silver Emeka, a social critic and political analyst differs from others who are already shouting to high heavens that the numerous endorsement of the incumbent governor coupled with the defections to his party by some chieftains of other parties has confirmed his victory in the November 11 polls.
“Underrate the Labour Party at your peril. The Peter Obi tsunami is still sweeping across the geopolitical zones and it will not be surprising if the party wins the election. I’m not saying they are the party to beat, but when you follow the trend, you will agree with me that they are in very serious contention”
Emeka, in an interview with The Point said Imo State politics vis-a-viz voting pattern is unique.
He said none of the contestants including the sitting governor is confident about what the outcome would be.
“People are already celebrating the victory of governor Uzodimma before the polls but they have forgotten so soon how he became the governor. When you go down memory lane, you will agree with me that Imo State voters are unpredictable. They are not intimidated by any politician; they are not influenced by money. Most of the politicians who see themselves as juggernauts are alone when it comes to voting. We have severally witnessed too many men of timbers and calibres lose their polling units. This is exactly what I am talking about. It can still happen in November.
“Let me refresh their memories because they have forgotten so fast. Former governor Rochas Okorocha believed he had Imo electorates in his pocket. The people gave him false hope and he literally wanted to force his son-in-law in the state, but guess what happened, the people rejected him, even rejected APC which Uzodimma hijacked the ticket and voted massively for Emeka Ihedioha and the PDP. Other things that followed are now history. From Sam Mbakwe, Evans Enwerem, Ikedi Ohakim to the present governor Hope Uzodimma, nobody was certain of who Imo people were going to vote for till they made their choice,” he noted.
Emeka insists that all the governorship candidates are hopeful but added that a big factor in the forthcoming polls is the emergence of the Labour Party and the Peter Obi tsunami.
“Underrate the Labour Party at your peril. The Peter Obi tsunami is still sweeping across the geopolitical zones and it will not be surprising if the party wins the election. I’m not saying they are the party to beat, but when you follow the trend, you will agree with me that they are in very serious contention.”
His worry is whether there would be a conducive atmosphere for the electorates to exercise their franchise.
“What every Imolites should be concerned about is the atmosphere in which the election will be conducted. These elections in Imo, Kogi and Bayelsa are litmus tests for the acting IGP, the service Chiefs and INEC. Even Nigerians will assess President Tinubu’s belief in democracy with the elections. Therefore, I join millions of Nigerians who are clamouring for free, fair, transparent and credible elections to beg the Police and other security agencies to use the elections to reassure Nigerians that they are not anti-democracy.”
Signals coming from Kogi State are not different from those of Imo State. However, unlike Imo State, the APC is fully in control in Kogi State.
Though there have been some desires to retrieve the state from the ruling APC by the PDP, the desires are facing very big challenges that will make them a utopian dream.
X-raying the November 11 election in the state, human rights activist Jonjo Abdullahi said Kogi State is always a flashpoint. He said there will be violence considering the pre-election happenings.
“Kogi State is volatile in elections and the reason is simple; a particular people want to continue dominating, continue ruling while others have no say. This is where the trouble lies. Governor Bello by divine intervention broke the jinx. The candidate he is supporting, I mean the APC candidate seems not to have the support of the Igala people but one good thing about it is that the PDP candidate. Dino Melaye is also from the minority. The Igala son in the race, Muritala Ajaka is in SDP. How popular is the party in the state? These are the things that will likely erupt election violence. There were reported incidents of attack on the governor’s convoy and that of the SDP candidate. Recently also, there was reported “political killing” in the state. All these may snowball to the main election, so, the security agencies must be alert and neutral to save lives in the state.”
Bayelsa State situation report going into the election shows that the crisis in the state in intra party squabbles.
The tendencies of opposition political parties going into the election as a divided house are high. Five months to the election, the APC is still fighting over the ticket. The loyalists of the party’s strongman, David Lyon who was candidate for the 2019 polls and Festus Daumiebi are yet to accept the former Minister of State, Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva. The squabbles may end up dividing the party’s votes and giving the incumbent governor a return ticket to the government house.
However, based on its performance in the last governorship election in Bayelsa State, the APC can no longer be referred to as an underdog in the forthcoming contest in the oil-rich South-South state.
In the last election, which took place in November 2019, the party fielded David Lyon against the incumbent Governor Duoye Diri of the PDP and succeeded in winning against all the odds stacked against it. But, the victory was eventually nullified by the Supreme Court because of the inconsistency discovered in the name of the party’s governorship running mate, Biobarakuma Wangagha Degi Eremienyo.
Many observers believe the party would have had a better chance of repeating the 2019 feat if it fields Lyon a second time.
But, the party thinks otherwise; it has lined up Sylva to face the incumbent governor in the election. This development has been greeted with mixed feelings by supporters of the party.
Many political observers were shocked that he could condescend to vying for the party’s governorship ticket with Lyon who was more or less his godson in the last election. Many of them have been wondering why he is desperate to return to the Creek Haven Government House. This is particularly curious because he had during an interview with a Yenagoa-based radio station vowed that he would never contest for that office again.
The consensus on the streets of Yenagoa is that if Sylva and the APC leadership had allowed Lyon to have the right of first refusal and allowed him to fly the party’s flag, the development would have sent jitters to the PDP.
It would have been a rematch between Lyon and Governor Diri who is seeking a second term. The general feeling is that PDP chieftains and supporters are more favourably disposed to squaring off against Sylva in the November election than Lyon because many of those who voted for him during the last election will probably still do so if he had emerged as the APC candidate. Prominent PDP chieftains were said to have clinked glasses and jubilated when they heard that Sylva had picked the APC ticket.
For many political watchers, Sylva’s change of mind has put a huge moral burden on him which might eventually work against the APC at the election. They believe that Bayelsa has moved beyond Sylva and that his interest to govern the state again is a hilarious joke taken too far. For the PDP, Sylva is a political featherweight who has lost his steam and could easily be defeated.
Considering the perceived cracks in Bayelsa APC, political observers believe that a house divided against itself cannot stand.
Unlike the situation before the 2019 election when the APC formed a coalition with many disgruntled PDP members, there are different political camps in the opposition party today. Under the leadership of Sylva, the party appears heavily polarised; no thanks to his alleged maverick style of leadership. Before now, the APC boasted great and prominent politicians in its fold. But most of them have either left the party or are simply indifferent about the party’s quest to dislodge the ruling PDP this time around.
Many critical stakeholders in the Bayelsa APC are uncomfortable with his leadership style as there appears to be a mutual suspicion among the chieftains of the party. This development, if allowed to fester, will work against the party’s ambition in the coming poll.
Sylva appears to have a credibility crisis and has a lot to do to convince his followers and party faithful that he is a man of his word. For instance, during the 2015 governorship election, Sylva told many of his followers that he was not going to contest.
The assurance prompted some of his foot soldiers to purchase the governorship forms because he had promised to back some of them. They sheepishly believed him but he went ahead to contest the governorship election.
The result: he failed woefully. He barely managed to win only his Nembe Local Government Area out of the eight councils that make up the state.
It was gathered that the just concluded general election was poorly handled by him too. The dust generated during the party’s primaries had hardly settled when the general election was held and the result was a poor performance for the APC, which lost all the eight National Assembly seats to the PDP.
Before the party’s primaries, Sylva allegedly convened a meeting of stakeholders in a bid to come up with a working modality for the conduct. The meeting presided over by him, opted for consensus candidates instead of conducting elections. The exercise did not sit well with many aspirants and they opposed it openly. The imposition of unpopular candidates was not only devastating but caused unimaginable disenchantment which led to a humiliating loss for the party in the National Assembly elections.
The APC lost all the senatorial seats, as well as the House of Representatives seats. The party managed to secure three seats out of 24 in the state House of Assembly. But, Sylva’s bid to vie for the party’s governorship ticket against David Lyon appears to have polarized the party ahead of the election. The people of Bayelsa still sympathize with Lyon over the nullification of his 2019 victory due to no fault of his.
“Sylva appears to have a credibility crisis and has a lot to do to convince his followers and party faithful that he is a man of his word. For instance, during the 2015 governorship election, Sylva told many of his followers that he was not going to contest”
Many people claim that Degi Eremienyo, Lyon’s running mate in the last election, was nominated by Sylva and that he could not feign ignorance of the legal encumbrances against him. He was accused of not conducting due diligence on Degi Eremienyo before he was made the running mate to Lyon.
It was gathered that when a few concerned party members saw the danger ahead and drew Sylva’s attention to the issue, he simply dismissed it with a wave of the hand and took everything for granted. It was not surprising that the Supreme Court nullified the election 24 hours before the inauguration. It is believed that when one juxtaposes the schisms in the party with the political reality on the ground, Sylva may just be chasing shadows and his loss might be worse than that of the 2015 governorship election.
Sylva had clinched the ticket for November 11 election after defeating the 2019 candidate, Lyon and four other aspirants during the primary that took place on April 14 across 105 wards in the eight local governments of the state. The APC adopted the direct mode of primary. At the end of the day, Sylva polled 52, 061 votes to beat the other contenders for the governorship ticket. Lyon came a distant third with 1, 872 votes, while Joshua Maciver, now the running mate of Sylva, came second with 2, 078 votes.
However, the outcome of the primary that produced Sylva as the party’s candidate for the November election did not bode well with some of the aspirants. Two out of the six aspirants — David Lyon and Festus Daumiebi — had questioned the outcome of the process that threw up Sylva as the governorship candidate. The duo described the process as a sham, irresponsible and criminal because, according to them, it was marred by irregularities. They had called for its cancellation.
Lyon and Daumiebi’s rejection of the process, coupled with those of others who were not happy about it but chose to sit on the fence, is a clear indication that the party is approaching the election as a divided house. Daumiebi in particular had claimed that there was no election in the wards across the state because officials of the party who were sent to conduct the election failed to turn up. He also complained that the April 14 governorship primary was only held in selected places where the election officials tried to put up a show to convince the party’s national leadership that there was an election. He said the process was marred by irregularities and that it was heavily compromised.
Already, the seething political pot has started spilling its contents and the race is filled with the frenzy, intrigues, propaganda and the dramas that come with politicking. But, whether Sylva will be able to weather the storm and return to the Creek Haven he left 11 years ago, only time will tell.
