The Osun State Governorship Election and the Figures: Who Won?

The Osun State Governorship Election and the Figures: Who Won?

Oluwaseyi Oduyela

Since Saturday night President Goodluck Jonathan has been getting praises from unusual quarters. These are people who don’t and have not seen anything good in him. He has been commended for conducting and ensuring a free and fair election. Some even compared him with Obasanjo, claiming that he is better than Obasanjo.  According to all these praises, President Goodluck seems to have bought himself some goodwill.

How do we define free and fair election? What makes an election free and fair? Judging by some Nigerians positive appraisal of Goodluck Jonathan’s deployment of armed military personnel to elections states, the absence of violence and non-report of stolen ballot boxes means the elections were free and fair. In fact some of them endorsed the idea of flooding the election venues with lagbaja-like armed men.  But one question that has not been answered or rather which has been played down has been the issues raised by opposition parties. That is the issue of arrest of officials of members of APC. In some quarters, APC was just making noise without proof. 

Does the presence of armed men, Lagbaja-like or not ensure or guarantee free and fair election? Why would men of the Nigerian Armed forces wear mask in performing their duties? Though the issue has been raised but it has been quickly dismissed.

If we define free and fair as “not only transparent and well-managed election day polling, but also a society that encourages full citizen participation, political parties to operate freely, independent media to flourish, and which builds a judiciary system capable of exercising independent and impartial authority;” how do we explain the arrest of opposition party officials by masked armed men? How are we sure these men are men of the Nigerian Armed Forces and not political thugs in uniform?  

Despite the absence of violence and reported cases of stolen ballot boxes, falsification and manipulation of elections results can make an election unfair.

So many people wonder why PDP would field an unmarketable candidate like Omisore in Osun State; many people wondered why the PDP will risk that, in fact some even said if another person was fielded Aregbesola would have likely lost the election. Anyway Omisore ran and lost to Aregbesola but Aregbesola is not the only winner here. He may remain in office, but it appears that while one party is present-looking, another is futuristic.

I have gone through the results, and wonder why and how Aregbesola, who won 22 Local governments, ended up with 394,684 votes, while Omisore who won in 8 local governments, ended up with 292,747 votes. Looking at the margin of defeat from both candidates sides, the facts don’t add up at all.

Let’s take for example, Ede North with a population of 83,818 yet recorded 25,830 votes. This means that more than a quarter of Ede North are of voting age! Let’s take a look at Oshogbo with a population of 155,507, 51,496 votes were recorded. At Ayedaade local government-Ikire- out of 149,569 people, 24,056 votes were recorded.  The total number of Ife North, Central, South and East population is 643,582 and it polled 107,467 votes.

What do all these mean? If Saturday was the presidential election, the outcome favored the PDP because according to the constitution, section 133, sub-section B:

“133. A candidate for an election to the office of President shall be deemed to have been duly elected to such office where, being the only candidate nominated for the election –

 (b) He has not less than one-quarter of the votes cast at the election in each of at least two-thirds of all the States in the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.”

President Jonathan Goodluck does not care if Omisore did not win, what is important here is the control of the center which this result has ensured. In a presidential election, APC and PDP will share the victory in Osun and Ekiti. May be one can say that it is the PDP’s calculation to make sure it wins in its opponent backyard and prevent its opponent from getting near the required one-quarter of the votes in its (PDP) own territory. If APC does not deem it fit to challenge unscrupulous numbers now, it will be laying the precedence that would be difficult to change.

This is not new anyway, the NPN did that in 1983, and PDP did it in 1998. Obasanjo, though didn’t win total votes in most of the southwest states but was able to win the needed one-quarter in some of the states, while AD was unable to win poll close to one-quarter in most northern states.

Since the outcome of the election favored the APC and the party is in a festive mood, chances are some of the irregularities would not be addressed after all, they’ve won, just let it slide. In a true democracy, even if you’re a beneficiary of such big numbers, you will still want to review it.

For the new fans of President Jonathan Goodluck, I will advise that you read between lines and exercise caution in praising him. I may appear as an incurable pessimist but looking at these numbers, they just didn’t add up.