Ondo 2024 guber election: Systemic distrust, voter apathy, economic hardship may mar poll

The absence of robust civic engagements, the citizenry’s lack of trust in the electoral process, and governance, economic hardship, as well as, the twin evil of vote-buying and voter apathy may all play diverse roles in tomorrow’s gubernatorial election in Ondo State. Since 2011, voter turnout in Ondo State has never exceeded 40 per cent, but as over two million registered voters go to the polls to elect a new governor, the processes leading to tomorrow’s climax have failed to inspire voters’ confidence. MUYIWA ADEYEMI, SEYE OLUMIDE, LAWRENCE NJOKU, AYODELE AFOLABI, ADEWALE MOMOH, and IBRAHIM OBANSA, examine some of the factors that make the exercise less interesting, and how they may likely affect voting.

With the stark failure of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to prosecute suspected electoral violators during the 2023 General Elections, and those that committed breaches in the subsequent off-season elections, there are strong indications that tomorrow’s gubernatorial poll in Ondo State, may not be anything radically different.

Following recent patterns, the build-up to the Ondo poll has similarities with despicable scenes of the recent past where robust debates, and sundry engagements (where candidates sell themselves and their parties to the electorate) are gradually being relegated to the background while vote-buying and sundry shades of malfeasance reign supreme to the chagrin of lovers of democracy both within and outside Nigeria. The situation in Imo, Kogi, and Edo states lends credence to the sad development.

Perhaps dissatisfied with all the shenanigans of the past, the electorate in Ondo State is showing little enthusiasm and excitement ahead of the contest to elect a new helmsman, just as the political atmosphere does not suggest a keen contest.

Across the state, electioneering began very late, and posters and campaign materials of the contestants are barely there. Messages from the candidates are simply insipid and lacking in motivation, just as the parties’ manifestos are not anything to write home about.

Since Nigeria returned to democratic rule in 1999, Ondo State governorship elections have always been one of the most keenly contested polls, with parties and candidates conspicuously slugging it out even in the media space.

One reason adduced for the high interest that elections in the state generate among stakeholders in the South West is perhaps that it is the second most economically viable state in the region, next to Lagos, and the third in size of population after Lagos and Oyo states.

Taking a cursory look into its history, the 1983 governorship election in Ondo, which was contested between the late Akin Omoboriowo, the candidate of the defunct National Party of Nigeria (NPN), and the late Pa Adekunle Ajasin, the incumbent governor and candidate of the defunct Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), ended in violence when the then Federal Electoral Commission (FEDECO) declared Omoboriowo the winner.

The people of Ondo violently rejected the result and went out into the streets in protest, which was one of the remote factors that led to the collapse of the Second Republic.

Also, in 2007, the Federal Government led by former President Olusegun Obasanjo, allegedly manipulated the result of the state election to favour the late Governor Olusegun Agagu. Agagu, the then incumbent contested against Olusegun Mimiko of the Labour Party (LP), who was largely seen as the people’s choice.

Mimiko eventually challenged the result of the poll at the Election Petition Tribunal. The matter lasted until 2008 when the court overturned the result, sacked Agagu, and declared Mimiko the winner.

The peculiar nature of the Ondo governorship election also manifested again in 2012 when Mimiko, who had fallen out with Bola Tinubu (who was then the leader of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) now the All Progressives Congress (APC) squared up against Rotimi Akeredolu, who had Timubus’s support.

Tinubu had supported Mimiko throughout the court matters in 2008 before switching his support to Akeredolu, but the people of Ondo State, who were still interested in Mimiko’s re-election resisted him (Tinubu) and insisted that they would not allow any Lagos-based politician to impose his stooge as governor on them.

Mimiko later defeated Akeredolu in the keenly contested election, but not without the backing of the central government-controlled PDP led by former President Goodluck Jonathan.

By 2016, the dynamics of Ondo politics had again changed, and it became a feast for the media. The same Akeredolu, who was rejected by the electorate perhaps because of Tinubu in 2012, suddenly became the preferred candidate of the electorate as against Mimiko’s anointed candidate, Eyitayo Jegede.

Akeredolu, who was then courted by the presidency headed by former President Muhammadu Buhari, was pitted against Tinubu’s preferred candidate, Segun Abraham.

The 2016 governorship primary of the APC in Ondo was not only controversial and well-debated, but it was also considered a mini-election before the major election. This compelled many pundits to conclude that whoever emerged as the winner would win the guber poll properly. It turned out to be so as Akeredolu won the primaries and went ahead to defeat Jegede of the PDP. The Muhammadu Buhari-led presidency was massively interested in the poll.

The 2016 gubernatorial election in Ondo was not only exciting but at the same time one of the most hilarious since the state was created on February 3, 1976, in the sense that when Tinubu was backing Abraham on the platform of APC, the presidency supported Akeredolu on the same platform, while the then Tinubu’s Man-Friday, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola choose to side with Mr Olusola Oke, a former national legal adviser of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who had defected to APC.

All the moves were strategically played on the platform of APC while Mimiko was allegedly busy manipulating the PDP’s primary election to install his preferred candidate.

Interestingly, by that time Oke had moved to realise his governorship ambition on the platform of Alliance for Democracy (AD) with the alleged backing of Aregbesola, and Senator Oluremi Tinubu. Oke eventually lost to Akeredolu.

By the time Akeredolu finished his first term in 2020, two critical things had happened to Ondo’s politics, which made it the talk of the country. First, the former President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Akeredolu had fallen apart with his then deputy governor, Agboola Ajayi, PDP’s current flag bearer.
Secondly, the former governor was no longer in the good books of the Buhari Presidency and the cabal but had reconciled with Tinubu.

By the end of his first tenure, Akeredolu had replaced Ajayi, with the incumbent governor and flag bearer of APC, Lucky Aiyedatiwa. Interestingly by the time Akeredolu passed on in December 2023 after a protracted illness, he had also fallen apart with Aiyedatiwa, who would have been impeached but for his death. Those intrigues and many more had persistently made Ondo gubernatorial polls interesting and keenly contested over the years unlike what we may likely experience in tomorrow’s exercise, which appears to be looking drab and uninteresting.

Factors responsible for uninspiring outlook
EXAMINING the two major candidates in the contest— Ajayi of the PDP and Aiyedatiwa of APC reveals that they are both offshoots of Akeredolu stable having worked under the former governor as deputy for four years. Aside from the fact that the majority of the electorate in Ondo remains unenthusiastic about Ajayi and Aiyedatiwa, they also perceive both of them as not possessing the political acumen to transform the state or do better than what their former boss did when they served under him.

Secondly, the Ondo elite still considers both contenders as Akeredolu‘s stooges, who were handpicked by the former governor not necessarily for competence, merit, and political strength, but for political exigencies.
Many observers have also faulted the party primaries that threw up the two major candidates. The processes were believed to have been deliberately tailored to stop the ambition of some serious aspirants.

Also, both Aiyedatiwa and Ajayi, are embroiled in certificate scandals, a development that has never occurred in Ondo politics going by the qualifications displayed by past leaders of the state.

For instance, Pa Ajasin and Dr. Omoboriowo’s academic pedigrees were not only sound but could not be disputed. The same goes for the late former Governor Adebayo Adefarati, who was a seasoned administrator, and Dr. Olusegun Agagu, who was succeeded by a medical doctor, Mimiko. Akeredolu, a successful lawyer was a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN).

It is for these reasons that most political elites in Ondo State are not enthusiastic about the academic pedigree of the two major candidates. For example, the lawmaker who currently represents Ondo South on the platform of APC, Senator Jimoh Ibrahim, was persuaded by the party’s leadership to drop the suit he filed against the party and Aiyedatiwa over the outcome of the primary election, while the likes of Olusola Oke, a former Commissioner for Finance, Wale Akiterinwa, and others stayed aloof from the party since the primary ended.

Another possible factor that has contributed to the low spirit of the 2024 Ondo gubernatorial election is the economic hardship currently permeating the country.

One of the national leaders of a fringe party, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) recently told The Guardian that the candidates and some parties do not have the kind of money to run mega campaigns like the PDP and APC. Therefore, what most of them did was merely targeted and noiseless campaigns.

Many party stalwarts in the APC have accused Aiyedatiwa of not running an inclusive campaign and also of starving the party of funds.

Influence from neighboring states
DESPITE the uninspiring and drab build-up to the poll, some neighbouring states are not taking chances in mobilizing citizens of Ondo in their domains to support the candidate of the two major contenders.

This is peculiar to the APC and PDP-controlled states surrounding Ondo. Such states include Kogi, Ogun, Oyo, Osun and Ekiti.

For instance, Kogi State Governor, Ahmed Usman Ododo, on his part, mobilised all the large settlements of Ebira people in Ondo for Aiyedatiwa just like Governor Biodun Oyebanji of Ekiti, Dapo Abiodun of Ogun, and Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State made serious efforts to mobilise their citizens in Ondo for Aiyedatiwa.

However, Governors Seyi Makinde, and Ademola Adeleke of Oyo and Osun who are of the PDP also encouraged Ondo and Osun indigenes living in Ondo State to support Ajayi.

Makinde, it was understood, also went a mile ahead to negotiate a possible alliance with the candidate of the New Nigerian Peoples Party (NNPP) to step down for Ajayi.

Voter apathy imminent amid hardship, citizens’ distrust in the electoral process
UNLESS the situation changes between today and tomorrow, there is the possibility of voters not turning out in droves to participate in the poll particularly due to a lack of interest in the political developments, the biting economic situation, as well as the outcome of the recent governorship election in Edo State.

But having realised this possibility, INEC and some civil society organisations (CSOs) in a series of fora, harped on the need for the electorate to come out and vote for the candidate of their choice.
Findings by The Guardian revealed that voter apathy has been a persistent issue in elections conducted in the state, considering statics from previous polls.

In the 2016 governorship election, the state’s voter base stood at 1,660,055, but only 707,776 votes were cast, leading to a less-than-half turnout rate of 42.64 per cent.

The trend continued in 2020, where, despite an increase in the number of registered voters to 1,822,346, only 607,892 voters participated. This indicated that of the 33 per cent of the 607,897 that voted during the last gubernatorial election, a paltry 292,830 votes were recorded to secure late Akeredolu’s re-election.

Following the voter register, which was recently updated in the state through the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR), Ondo State now boasts a total of 2,053,061 eligible voters, marking a 3.0 per cent increase from the 2023 general election figure of 1,991,344, which recorded a mere 28.62 per cent turnout.

With the trend revealing that voter participation in elections has been in constant decline, INEC revealed that 62.2 per cent of PVCs made available for collection have been successfully distributed for tomorrow’s exercise. This is creating concern that the minority may end up deciding who will govern Ondo for the next four years.

Vote-buying is also another issue that observers hope will be adequately corrected in the poll tomorrow. The lacklustre preparations and lack of aggressive mobilisation of voters displaced by parties during the campaigns also indicated that the political actors might have concluded to resort to inducement “instead of wasting money, time, and energy to campaign.”

Vote buying is one of the challenges that affected the credibility of the Edo State gubernatorial election. A political analyst and senior lecturer at the Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko (AAUA), Dr Gbenga Abimbola, attributed the situation to a lack of confidence in the political class by the electorate, as well as the failure of political leaders to fulfil campaign promises.

He said: “Voter apathy is now a recurring decimal in Nigerian elections at all levels. With the benefit of hindsight of previous elections, voter apathy is most likely to reoccur except security people will be on red alert.”

A civil society organisation, YIAGA Africa, expressed the need to foster an environment that encourages civic engagement, as well as, trust in the electoral process and governance if the problem of voter apathy must be addressed.

The Senior Communication Officer of YIAGA Africa, Mark Amaza, therefore, tasked INEC and political parties on the need for adequate sensitisation of the election process.”

A Pre-election Assessment report presented by Safiya Bichi, the Head of Knowledge, Management, and Learning of the organisation, stated that voter turnout in Ondo State has never exceeded 40 per cent since 2011.

The report stated that Ondo North Senatorial District has a long history of high voter turnout, even though Ondo Central has the highest concentration of registered voters since the conduct of the 2011 election.

According to the report: “Except for the 2011 presidential election, Ondo Central Senatorial District has the highest case of rejected votes in all elections preceding the 2020 election.”

The Publicity Secretary of PDP in Ondo, Kennedy Peretei, while speaking on the upcoming poll said that his concern is that the ongoing economic hardship and lack of trust in INEC may discourage people from coming out.  He said: “The people are already overwhelmed with the present economic hardship and the inability of most families to meet their daily financial obligations,” adding that INEC has tragically failed to restore the integrity of the electoral process, which has brought about voter apathy.

The Chairman of the Young Progressives Party (YPP) in Ondo, Dotun Ojon, also expressed concern over the high rate of poverty in the country.  He said such may discourage the electorate from coming out to vote. While stating that the people will be more interested in vote trading on the day of the election, Ojon said: “It is a general situation around us. Anytime there is a strain on the economic capacity of the people, there’s always a strain in their enthusiasm toward electing leaders.”

Responding to the uninspiring nature of the Ondo state governorship election, a senior lecturer in the Department of Political Science, University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN), Dr Chinedum Eze, stated that experiences of previous offseason elections may have contributed to it.

“There is a serious loss of confidence in elections conducted by our electoral umpire. The ruling party has ensured dominance in all spheres. The win-at-all-cost syndrome is killing the system. How is it possible that people will go out to vote and at the end of the day, you are announcing a different result and ask them to go to court? Then on the part of the candidates, what is there to talk about when there is power of incumbency? They muster all in their arsenal to ensure that they subdue every opposition,” he stated.

He continued; “Looking at the uninspiring build-up to the Ondo election, I can tell you that poverty is contributing to it. The only candidate that has the wherewithal to contest this election is the incumbent governor. That is because he belongs to a party that is in control at the centre. What others are doing is to endorse the process and nothing more. So, a situation that leaves no hope for both the people and contestants is not a good one”.

Eze, who cited the recent election in the USA, said that the world followed the campaigns because the candidates gave them something to talk about and wondered what the candidates in the Ondo election have given the electorate that should form the basis for a robust exercise.

Also speaking, a political analyst, Jerry Onwurah, noted that the country’s economic situation has taken a dangerous toll on almost every activity, stressing that “with hunger biting in the land, you can see that those who went to cast votes in Edo State a few weeks ago, resorted to selling their votes to feed. So, when you have such a situation, you are not bothered about the message from the candidate, rather what you will focus on is what you can get now. So, we are in a difficult situation, which can only be solved by a resolve of the people and nothing more. Those who have taken power are using economic warfare to garner whatever they want from the people of the country”.

The Board of Trustees (BOT) Chairman of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Chief Chekwas Okorie, stated that the uninspiring nature of the election in Ondo State should not worry anybody, stressing that unless votes begin to count, the trend would not change.