www.vanguardngr.com/2014/08/apc-lost-osun-election/ y Femi Aribisala
The only way the APC could have won the Osun
election is by rigging it.
My first impressions are usually mistaken. If I
have a good first-impression about someone, it
generally turns out to be wrong. But if I have a
bad first-impression, it usually turns out to be
right. However, if my bad first-impression remains
bad; or if my good first-impression remains good;
it means my view of the person is bullet-proof.
Attahiru Jega
My first-impression of Attahiru Jega was very
good when he was appointed INEC chairman in
2010. Then, as I watched him for hours
painstakingly collating the results of the 2011
elections with the help of university vice-
chancellors, that first-impression was more than
reinforced. I concluded that the winner of the
2011 elections was Jega himself. That led me to
ask myself: since we have this kind of man in
Nigeria, how come we never elect someone like
him as president?
My opinion of Attahiru Jega has not changed. He
remains one of the best presidential materials we
have in Nigeria today. He is also by far Nigeria’s
best public-servant, as far as I know. Here is a
man who is not only highly-educated; he is also
very competent and scrupulously honest. He is
yet again, the real winner of the Osun election;
and he is doing a fantastic job transforming the
electoral process in Nigeria for the better and
even the
best.
God has given us in Jega a man that is making
what we thought was impossible possible. He not
only deserves to get a second-term as INEC
chairman after his term expires in 2015; he would
also be a shoo-in if he were to run for president
thereafter. He already has my vote. I want to take
this opportunity to congratulate Jega and his
entire INEC team for excellent job they have been
doing. They are really doing Nigeria proud.
New politics
The Supreme Court decision that led to the
staggering of some gubernatorial elections has
provided Jega and his INEC team with training-
grounds for perfecting our electoral process. One-
by-one; from Edo, Ondo, Anambra, Ekiti and now
Osun, we have had election results that, by all
accounts, reflected the true wishes of the people.
That is a sign of progress in a Nigeria where
progress is often few and far between.
As INEC has grown, so have some of the actors in
the political process. Growth in the PDP is
evidenced by increased internal democracy. PDP
candidates are now chosen through popular
democratic elections and not through the diktat of
the party leadership; as used to happen during
the Obasanjo presidency.
Governor Kayode Fayemi showed great maturity in
accepting defeat and in congratulating Ayo
Fayose after the last election in Ekiti. When INEC
announced the victory of Ogbeni Aregbesola in the
just-concluded Osun election, Goodluck Jonathan
immediately congratulated him. Ayo Fayose of
Ekiti also extended to him a right-hand of
fellowship as neighbouring governor in the South-
West; even though they belong to opposing
parties. These are the nascent signs of new
democratic politics in Nigeria.
Cry-wolf APC
In all this, there is still one big problem: the APC.
The APC calls itself a progressive party, but in
actual fact, it is antediluvian. It cannot recognize
the sign of the times. When Fayemi accepted
defeat in the Ekiti election, the bigwigs of PDP
Central persuaded him to reject the result. They
came up with such ludicrous allegations as
ballot-papers with disappearing ink. One thing is
clear; the APC does not recognize any election
that it loses. Moreover, the APC cries wolf in
every election it is going to lose, or is afraid to
lose.
APC clearly does not believe in democracy or in
the democratic process. It is the party of threats
and blackmail. It is the party of Muhammadu
Buhari; who says the dogs and the baboon will be
soaked in blood if the 2015 election is rigged. It
is the party of Bola Tinubu, who declared that in
Ekiti it will be “rig and roast.” It is the party of
Murtala Nyako, who says there will be civil war if
Goodluck Jonathan runs for president in the next
election.
Before every election, APC goes to town shouting
itself hoarse that the election will be rigged. It
brings out all sorts of fictitious documents
showing “beyond reasonable doubt” that the PDP,
in collusion with the INEC, has perfected
outrageous plans to rig the election. Then when it
loses, it says “We told you so” and decides to
contest the results frivolously in court. Apparently,
the only election that is not rigged in Nigeria
today is the one that APC wins. At least, we are
yet to hear APC say it is going to court to
contest the Osun results.
Pyrrhic victory
Before the election in Osun, the APC went to town
telling the whole world it would be rigged. Every
so often, it came out with broadsides as to the
discovery of fresh plans to rig the election which
it discovered through its detective agency. Its
Sherlock Holmes in this regard is Lai Mohammed,
its Publicity Secretary. Lai Mohammed has the
unique capacity to smell smoke where there is no
fire whatsoever. These days, whenever he makes
an announcement, it is to cry wolf yet again.
A dishonest party will tend to presume dishonesty
in others, especially when it discovers that its
traditional channels for manipulating elections
have been blocked. The APC doctrine implies that
no election can be won in the Nigeria unless it is
rigged. This doctrine cannot be conveniently
jettisoned now that APC has won in Osun. The
APC position is like the backward belief in Nigeria
that, if anybody dies, he or she must have been
killed. Likewise, if anybody wins an election in
Nigeria, it must have been rigged, according the
APC.
Since, therefore, the only way the PDP could have
won the Ekiti election was by rigging it; then by
the same token, the only way the APC could have
won the Osun election is by rigging it. Therefore,
the APC needs to tell Nigerians how it managed
to rig the Osun election. Otherwise, Lai
Mohammed, John Odigie-Oyegun and the entire
APC party-apparatus owe Nigerians, the PDP and
INEC a big apology for maligning virtually
everybody just because it was running scared of
losing in Osun.
APC damage-control
The very fact that Osun was a make-or-break
election for the APC, leading it to cry wolf again
and again, shows that the APC lost the election in
Osun even before it took place. Here is a party
that has pretensions of overthrowing the ruling
PDP nationally in 2015. And yet, this same party
was scared to death of losing an election in what
is supposed to be its backyard.
Can anyone imagine the PDP being afraid of
losing an election in Bayelsa or Akwa Ibom? Of
course not! But this is what happens to an APC
party that, in spite of all its bluster, had been
trounced in Ekiti; one of its putative strongholds.
Under normal circumstances, Osun should be a
cakewalk for APC. It is supposedly an APC
redoubt. The incumbent governor belongs to the
APC. In the last presidential election of 2011,
Osun was the only South-West state that PDP
lost to the ACN. The voters opted massively for
the ACN by a nearly two-to-one margin vis-à-vis
the PDP. Why then should the APC be so afraid of
losing Osun if it were not for the fact that,
instead of growing stronger, the party is actually
growing weaker.
The APC has been running petrified since Ekiti.
The entire party has been suffering from high
blood pressure. Every other day, Lai Mohammed
or John Odigie-Oyegun comes up with yet
another wolf-cry, alerting everybody that would
listen that the PDP, in collusion with INEC, has
perfected plans to truncate the democratic
process, rig elections and retain the PDP and
Goodluck Jonathan in power forever.
Since the APC ended up by winning the Osun
election convincingly, it can only mean that this
ginormous PDP/INEC rigging machinery is not up
to scratch. As a matter of fact, it apparently fails
every so often. It failed in Ondo, where Mimiko
and his Labour Party prevailed over the PDP. It
failed in Anambra, where APGA, and not the PDP,
won the gubernatorial election. Since it has failed
yet again in Osun, it cannot be what the APC is
touting it to be.
The truth is that it is all a figment of APC’s anti-
democratic imagination. APC bigwigs are not only
sore-losers, they are sore-candidates. Such
temperament is not needed in today’s new
dispensation.
Bad omen
In the end, Governor Aregbesola of the APC won
the Osun election convincingly. His margin of vis-
à-vis his PDP rival amounts to a landslide
victory. But placed within the framework of the
forthcoming presidential election, the Osun
election is a major defeat for the APC. It actually
suggests that, without the benefit of incumbency,
and with a Northerner as opposed to a Southerner
as the likely APC candidate, APC will most likely
lose Osun to the PDP in the forthcoming
presidential election.
I repeat; Osun was the only South-West state
that Jonathan lost in 2011. PDP obtained 188,409
votes to ACN’s 299,711. That is a relative vote-
share of 38% PDP to 62% ACN. But three years
later, in this gubernatorial election, PDP obtained
292,747 votes to ACN/APC’s 394.684. That is a
relative vote-share of 42% PDP to 58% ACN/APC.
That shows the strength of the PDP has
increased in Osun state, relative to that of the
APC. When you factor in the APC power of
incumbency in Osun, then this election becomes
nothing short of disastrous for APC’s presidential
aspirations.
If PDP can defeat APC in Ekiti, where APC had a
sitting governor; and if PDP can take 42% of the
APC vote in Osun, where the APC also had the
advantage of a sitting governor; and since Ekiti
and Osun are supposedly APC strongholds; then
the APC does not have a prayer in the coming
presidential election. It will not give any serious
contest to the PDP and President Goodluck
Jonathan.

A goat's utterance

The rants of a sycophantic loser. The paid fool and hungry loser is not even pretending it is about good governance anymore. All he is now spouting off about is PDP and GEJ's 2015 fortune. What a cretin. Another Abati in reality and it is really sad Nigeria produces many of these unprincipled characters posing as intellectuals.

Another Abati indeed. He must be very broke.

skyfall: Another Abati indeed. He must be very broke.

Indeed my brother. His 'debauched' utterance, entirely partisan and irrelevant as usual, leaves no one in doubt that this guys is a compromised pro-PDP hack.