They boasted that he would lose. They distorted his
achievements and cooked false allegations against him
during the campaigns. They over-policed and over-
militarised his state during the election. They arrested
some of his party leaders and commissioners on the eve of
the election. They harassed his party agents in some Local
Government Areas, and even drove some away completely.
In a final bid to snatch victory, they attempted to disrupt
the collation of results at the INEC office.
But he hurried to the finish line so fast that they could not
catch up with him. And, so, by 7:30am on Sunday, August
10, 2014, he, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola of the All
Progressives Congress, was duly returned as the winner of
the Osun governorship election held on Saturday, August
9, 2014.
The mathematics of his victory is interesting for at least
two reasons. First, he scored 394,684 votes, while his
closest rival, Iyiola Omisore of the Peoples Democratic
Party scored292,747 votes. The margin of Aregbesola’s
victory was so clear at 101, 937 votes that Omisore would
not be “the next Governor of Osun State” as he was
introduced to a rally in Osogbo by President Goodluck
Jonathan the previous Saturday.
Second, Aregbesola’s votes translate to 55.02 per cent of
the 717,321 valid votes cast in the election, while
Omisore’s translate to 40.81 per cent. What is interesting
about these numbers is the predictive value of a poll
conducted one week before the election by African
Consulting Professionals, which suggested a 54 per cent
chance of victory for Aregbesola and a 33 per cent chance
for Omisore. The relative improvement in Omisore’s
chance may have been due to the manipulative tactics
allegedly employed in some polling booths, especially in
the four Ife LGAs, his home base.
Be that as it may, there could be no better vindication for
good governance and effective performance than
Aregbesola’s electoral victory. A clear majority of Osun
voters rejected detractors, by using their votes to say
“O’Yes” to his educational programme; to feeding their
children in school and employing thousands of caterers to
cook for them; to assisting farmers in producing food, fish,
and eggs for feeding the children and other Osun citizens;
to giving the children free school uniform and establishing
a garment factory in the process, thereby providing
employment for Osun youths; to completing, or embarking
on, numerous road projects across the state, including a
ring-road around Osogbo and at least 10 kilometres of road
in each of 30 LGAs; to keeping the state flood-free by
dredging at least 123 kilometres of waterways; to the
employment of 40,000 youths so far through the Osun
Youth Empowerment Scheme; and to training no less than
5,000 youths in Information Technology and providing
paramedic training to at least 400.
Osun voters also saw through other kinds of
misinformation. They knew that, in line with his
educational reforms, Aregbesola has, according to reports,
so far hired over 7,000 additional teachers and built over
100 new state-of-the-art school complexes for primary and
secondary schools; increased funding grants for primary
and secondary schools from N7.4 million and N171m to
N424m and N427m, respectively; and worked hard to
increase the state’s Internally Generated Revenue from
N300 million and below to over N1.6bn. He did not leave
out the elderly for whom he provided social security in the
form of monthly allowances and free medical service.
I have taken pains to document these achievements only
as an illustration of why the majority of Osun voters re-
elected Aregbesola. Additional reasons have to do with his
popularity and accessibility. He not only held monthly
sessions for citizens to ask him any question, he also
literally walked the streets of Osun towns and villages on a
regular basis. He never missed singing and dancing with
the citizens at the slightest opportunity.
He may not be flamboyant. He may not even “look like a
governor”. But you cannot take the knowledge of
“practical politics” away from him. Not “amala” politics,
but the kind of pragmatic politics that maximises the
connection between the government and the people.
Anyone who knows Aregbesola closely knows that he not
only thinks about improving Osun, he works out ways of
achieving the best and the most with limited resources. For
virtually every single project he embarks upon, he ensures
that it generates employment for the citizens. This is
especially true of the school feeding, uniform, food
security, and building construction projects.
One interesting aspect of Aregbesola’s electoral success
was the unparalleled cooperation among his cabinet
members and supporters. There were no turncoats among
them and the APC was intact in Osun, where the vast
majority of the population identify with the party. These
are indications of effective leadership in a state previously
governed by the PDP. No wonder Aregbesola’s ratings on
character, personality and credibility remained
consistently high in opinion poll after opinion poll.
The reverse was the case with the PDP candidate, whose
negative baggage was a hinderance to his electability.
Incidentally, he carried the negativity into the campaign
by focusing on misinforming voters about Aregbesola and
his programmes. Rather than induce voters by selling his
programmes, he paid more attention to the distribution of
rice and kerosene.
If Aregbesola did not campaign effectively throughout the
state to correct all the misinformation, he probably would
have lost more votes. But campaign he did! Anyone in
doubt should go to Youtube to watch clips of his
campaign rallies. I particularly recommend the Ikirun rally
where Aregbesola sang, and danced to, the Gbaguro o see
je lyric. Besides, under the effective supervision of his
campaign coordinator, Senator Sola Adeyeye, hundreds of
foot soldiers combed the nooks and corners of Osun,
educating voters and encouraging them to vote in spite of
heavy security. This may have accounted for why up to 54
per cent of registered voters and 74 percent of those who
collected their Permanent Voter Card came out to exercise
their franchise.
If the intention of the over-militarisation of Osun was to
achieve voter suppression to create any room for mischief,
Osun voters were not scared. The voter turnout of 54 per
cent was higher than Ekiti’s, largely because the people
wanted to ensure that Aregbesola was re-elected.
Three issues attend the over-militarisation of a state during
election time. First, it opens the ruling PDP to suspicions,
ranging from voter intimidation to creating room for
mischief by its candidates’ supporters, including ballot
stuffing and outright ballot swapping. That’s why
suspicions attended the Ekiti governorship election, where
the PDP candidate unexpectedly won. Second, these
suspicions tend to override whatever good intentions
President Goodluck Jonathan might have, which might
have included the prevention of electoral manipulation.
What he may not know is how his party’s candidates and
their supporters take advantage of heavy security presence
to harass and arrest supporters of the opposition. His
failure to condemn such actions in Ekiti and Osun
suggests complicity.
Third, the question remains as to whether heavy security
presence could be achieved during the 2015 nationwide
election. If only states governed by the opposition are
militarised, like Ekiti and Osun were, then it would be
clear that over-militarisation was intended to put the PDP
at an advantage. It can only be hoped that it is not the
case. True, over-militarisation is a deplorable method of
ensuring free and fair elections in a democracy. If it is used
as a stepping stone to sanitising our democracy and
eliminating electoral manipulations, then it is all well and
good for now. However, it should not be used as cover for
intimidating, harassing, and arresting members of the
opposition.
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