By Sebastine Ebhuomhan
Friday, 13th September, 2024. Abuja. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the Nigerian security agencies, especially the Nigeria Police Force (NPF), the Department of State Security (DSS), the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), and the Nigeria Army (NA), must stay alert to prevent the rigging of Edo State governorship election through state government-orchestrated violence and the outright mortgage of votes by illegal means.
On Wednesday, the Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Kayode Egbetokun, formally announced the deployment of 35,000 police personnel to Edo State with a mandate to ensure safe, peaceful, free, fair election. He reiterated the suspension of the murderous Edo State Security Network (ESSN) and Public Works Volunteers (PUWOV), two agencies Governor Godwin Obaseki turned into his private force for intimidating, harassing, threatening, torturing and killing opposition figures. Egbetokun ordered the police to arrest for prosecution anyone wielding gun in Edo State.
In alignment with police readiness, Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, also expressed INEC’s readiness for a hitch-free credible election next week Saturday for the state’s 2, 629, 025 registered voters. But Citizens have, in turn, urged INEC to allow the newly registered and transferred 184,438 voters to collect their PVCs until Friday, 20th September.
The disbandment of ESSN, which atrocities this independent investigative journalist carefully detailed for the Federal Government (FG) in an exclusive report of 30th July, 2024, titled: Why Tinubu, Ribadu, Egbetokun and Bichi Must Disband ESSN and Watch-list Obaseki Immediately, is widely applauded by voters. It came as Edo government was concluding frantic plans to deploy the pump action-armed militia that it recently enlarged to over 11,000 personnel to instigate violence, superintend suppression of opposing voices, and supervise the rigging of next week’s election under the guise of safeguarding orderly vote cast. To a reasonable extent, therefore, the overwhelming threats of violence as a grand plan of rigging Edo election has reduced with Egbetokun’s proactive ban.
It is shocking that despite the widespread assaults, injuries and killings that had become the norm before and after 30th July through the criminal activities of ESSN and PUWOV, Governor Obaseki did not only contest IGP Egbetokun’s power to make his pronouncement but went ahead to snub the National Peace Committee (NPC). Obaseki told NPC Chairman, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, that he would not sign the Peace Accord for the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). He would shamelessly send later to sign, Edo PDP chairman Tony Aziegbemi, who was literally chased out of the venue.
Mr. Obaseki unjustifiably compared the 2020 off-cycle election to the 2024 coming election. He also complained about the transfer to Abuja of 10 alleged PDP criminals arrested by the police. But Obaseki’s agitation is unfounded and baseless because: there was no ESSN and PUWOV involvement in 2020; there was no severe deadly violence in 2020; the same police supervised the 2020 election Obaseki won convincingly under the PDP; while the thugs he is crying to be prosecuted in Edo State were arrested for different criminal allegations such as murder, gunrunning, kidnapping, robbery, assaults, which investigations are running.
As INEC and police are doing their bits, political parties desirous of winning Edo election, especially the All Progressives Congress (APC), must stay alert to prevent the rigging plans of Edo State government. Despite the inherent dissatisfaction, grumbling, division, defections, and unpopularity of the ruling PDP, its leadership has been most vocal about imaginary plans of other parties to rig the election. But investigation has revealed that another grand plan of the Obaseki administration to secure votes illegally for his PDP candidate and godson, Dr. Akintunde Asuerinme Ighodalo, is the shutting of schools. Renowned as the ‘Wake and Sleep Governor’, a nickname he earned when he slumbered at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGASS) Summit in New York years ago, Obaseki is neither sleeping nor succumbing to the devastating threats of losing Edo election.
Public and private schools in Edo State are currently reeling under a government announced closure. On the 6th of September, an Edo State Ministry of Education’s Government Special Announcement closed all schools indefinitely. The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Education, Ojo Akin-Longe, signed the announcement for the Commissioner for Education, Mrs. Joan Osa Oviawe.
The three-paragraph directive stated, “The Edo Government hereby announces the postponement of the resumption of all public and private schools in Edo State, originally scheduled for Monday, 9th September 2024, until further notice. An official statement from the government has directed that schools remain closed due to the tension arising from the recent increase in fuel prices and the challenges faced by parents and guardians. The government urges parents, guardians, and caregivers to monitor the activities of their children and wards closely, given the current situation and the rising tension caused by the fuel price hike.”
Expectedly, parents and guardians of public and private schools’ children have rejected the announcement. They have condemned Obaseki, Ighodalo, Osarodion Odie, and the PDP for playing politics with their children’s future. Despite the government’s shaky justification, it sounds plausible and justified for Kano, the other state that deferred resumption to have done so in view of the destruction of public schools last month during the nationwide protests. Obaseki had tacitly sponsored the protests in Edo State hoping to harvest similar destruction as a cogent reason to close schools. But Edo youth refused to destroy public properties, instead.
As meaningless as the announcement is, as widely rejected as it is, and as rudderless as it portrays the government, some of which key social media spokespersons have even put a watermark of ‘Fake News’ on the scanned one-page announcement, the controversy depicts the government and campaign council as confused and derailed. Caught in a web of lies, Obaseki’s Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Chris Nehikhare, worsened the situation as he proffered a further justification of the announcement with more lies at a press conference in Benin City. Mr. Nehikhare said the school closure reflects Edo government’s commitment to the protection of school children from potential dangers associated with rising fuel prices.
“This decision was also influenced by intelligence reports indicating that some groups had imported armed thugs, posing a threat to the peace and stability of Edo. We will not take any chances with our children’s safety. We are keeping them at home until the situation is diffused,” Nehikhare added with a hint of unfounded claim about the instigation of a state of emergency in Edo State to discredit the ruling PDP.
In a similarly ridiculous statement from the PDP National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba, the party alleged the harassment of its leaders without providing names, pictures or videos to back its claim. The statement that cowardly avoided torching the issue of school closure, said thugs and hoodlums recruited by APC leaders continue to attack, harass and arrest innocent citizens of Edo State “in connivance with certain compromised police operatives.” Mr. Ologunagba went ahead to claim without a scintilla of evidence that APC became violent since it became clear that Ighodalo “is coasting to a landslide victory with overwhelming support of over 68% of the expected votes.” How? What Ologunagba and the PDP leadership should know is that this Edo governorship election leaves no room for them to manufacture votes as they manufactured delegates for the PDP’s primary.
Who is really plunging Edo State into violence if not Obaseki and his angry followers? Long before today, Governor Obaseki publicly threatened to burn Nigeria. That was after his party spokesman, Olu Martins was seen in a video ordering the head of PUWOV to destroy other parties’ billboards and kill anybody who defects from the PDP. In July, personnel of the ESSN killed the APC candidate, Senator Monday Okpebholo’s police orderly, Inspector Akor Onu at Benin Airport gate. Just before Onu was killed, Chief Francis Inegbeneki was seen bragging in a video. Obaseki is very aware of how ESSN personnel fuel cultism and kill themselves and other citizens daily. Is the government and PDP leaders not aware of videos of ESSN’s dead victims regularly circulating on social media? Before the arrest and transfer of Esan West Local Government Area Chairman, Collins Aigbogun, for example, an alleged assassin nabbed with two guns by local vigilante members confessed how a council chairman gave him the guns to act as a political enforcer. While Aigbogun continued to enjoy Obaseki’s protection, he would later storm a ward 10 APC meeting in Illeh, Ekpoma, where he unleashed a bloody violence on the party members. That attack cumulatively marked the fifth particularly against the APC by Edo government and PDP thugs excluding irregular ones against the Labour Party (LP). Violence is not a hallmark of a party truly coasting to victory with 68% of expected votes.
On Tuesday at a PDP rally in Egor attended by Obaseki, leader of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) and chairman of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Edo State Chapter, Odion Olaye, an ally of Obaseki, threatened to burn Edo State if Asue Ighodalo is not handed victory of Edo governorship election. “I want to assure you that PDP, our party, is going to win Egor 80% come 21st of this month. And on 22nd of this month, they must declare Asue Ighodalo the winner. If they refuse to do that, Edo State will burn,” Olaye, a name synonymous with violence, destruction and death in Edo politics, declared.
Owing to Edo government’s unconvincing claim about school closure, it has become crystal-clear that the decision was hastily taken to protect school children from the violence PDP and Edo government wanted to unleash before, during and after the election, if rigging is not giving them victory. On the face of evidence that the association of private school proprietors and public-school managers were neither informed nor contacted before Obaseki abruptly shifted resumption, the government’s claim of protection is hypocritical. Moreso, as Obaseki is aware that public school heads and administrators, private school proprietors and owners, school teachers and gatekeepers, parents and guardians, and school children are clamouring for the reopening of schools in Edo State.
Some public-school heads who craved anonymity to save them from victimisation urged Obaseki to reopen Edo schools immediately to save the future of education, citing growing low reading culture, lack of teachers, poor learning environment, inadequate motivation, lip service, and corruption, exemplified by EdoBEST’s recent leakage of question papers to help students pass their examinations. They denied prior information from the government.
In an exclusive interview with this journalist, the proprietor of Paragon Schools in Benin City, Martins Osakue, faulted the government for shifting resumption. “The decision of the governor to close schools is a dictatorial political decision that has left parents and guardians of students complaining. As private school owners, we were not informed.” Mr. Osakue is the Chairman, Board of Trustees, Association of Private School Owners of Nigeria (APSON).
Continuing, the foremost school owner said, “The issue of violence is a concocted political threat around schools founded on fuel price increase. Many of the students in private schools, live around their schools. Those living afar are not really affected by fuel decision because many of them are driven to school by the vehicles of their affordable parents or school buses. Schools have resumed in other states. Why is it only in Edo State that things are different?” Osakue concluded that the indefinite postponement of resumption of schools will negatively affect students’ psychology, timetable, curriculum, and education.
In another interview with this journalist, the proprietor of Excel Secondary School, Ikpoba Hill, Benin City, Akim Tokura, agreed with Osakue. According to Mr. Tokura, such sudden political decisions result to the disruption of the already prepared timetable for students, who will now have to be rushed to meet up with the national education calendar. “In education, what you lose would have to be regained, in a way or another. This portends problem for the student. And this is why parents are not happy about this shift,” he explained.
On the one hand, Obaseki’s political closure of schools imposes difficulties for educational employers and their employees such as school teachers, who have been on a long holiday before another suddenly imposed indefinite holiday. On the other hand, families with businesses that depend on schools’ resumption such as foods, beverages, books, pens, bags, uniforms, shoes, transportation, security and other educational tools and accessories for survival, are left to rue the indefinite shift with rippling effects, and without income. This has led many parents and guardians into a new belief that Obaseki, who has become notorious for fighting his political allies and helpers, the Benin Nation and Traditional Palace, Edo people and politicians, have now extended his fight to students and pupils.
So, if the postponement of the resumption of all public and private schools in Edo State till further notice has as many disadvantages as the operators have listed, what could have motivated Obaseki into ordering schools’ closure in the face of no real or imaginary dangers?
In the last week of May, this journalist embarked on a self-funded trip from Abuja to Edo State that lasted many days into June. During his trip, he monitored INEC’s Continued Voter’s Registration (CVR) exercise in Benin City, Edo Central and Edo North. Upon his return, he sent two detailed WhatsApp messages dated 8th June, 2024, and titled, Notes and Observations from my Most Recent Trip to Edo State (1) and (2) to the APC candidate, Senator Monday Okpebholo and his running mate, Hon. Dennis Idahosa. In the second message, he informed them of his encounter when he registered for a new PVC at a centre and what he observed at the other centres he visited, including at Garrick Memorial Grammar School in Oredo LGA, where he coincidentally met Mr. Idahosa, who was also monitoring the exercise.
Unlike the APC, registration centres were observed openly operating at some PDP and LP secretariats. “However, I observed that at each registration centre I visited, there were armed ESSN personnel at the gates collecting the data of registrants under the guise of maintaining security while there was also an AO2/PDP branded man or woman standing or sitting right beside INEC registration officials,” he remarked. Soon after the WhatsApp message, the APC accused PDP and Edo government of registering underage children in the CVR exercise. While INEC would later declare that it has cleaned the new and transferred voters’ register, it is arguable if underage school children deliberately registered were completely sieved.
From all indications, Obaseki’s sudden shift of primary and secondary schools’ resumption is intended to give the underage voters the PDP registered ample opportunity to vote next Saturday. Security agencies, INEC, parties, and voters must be alert. What justifies this revelation, you may ask? If the governor truly loves school children as claimed, he could have used the state’s increased allocations or revenues to subsidise educational costs arising from fuel subsidy removal that he admittedly rejected. This could be in the form of free tuition or free transportation or free meal or any other policy that specifically benefits students instead of weaponizing education by shifting resumption indefinitely.
As Governor Obaseki, Edo State Chief Security Officer, finally recovered his voice in lamentations after his long silence on violence maiming, and killing of opposition figures, he must remember he is a dictator, who never governed with love, fairness, justice, equity, and gratitude. In his deflated, sulking, warring, raging, and dejected final days of self-awareness of power abuse, nobody would pity him.
Meanwhile, Akpakomiza, the indomitable spirit of Edo politics, the nemesis of failed promises and his APC leaders remain unrelenting in their campaigns to win Edo election. Although his opponents, especially Obaseki and Ighodalo, have spent more time in Europe, America and Lagos, watching, underlining, gathering, collating, analysing, and twisting Okpebholo’s campaign speeches for linguistic errors and slips instead of campaigning in Edo State, Okpebholo remains clear on what he wants to do as governor.
“I want to become Edo governor because of the obvious lack of infrastructural development, insecurity and the decadence in our education sector. If elected, I will declare a state of emergency in these critical sectors while making sure that the state is conducive and safe to live.” Okpebholo stated.
“We are going to provide you security. We are going to fight insecurity and make Edo State a place safe for business to thrive and farmers to farm,” he restated. For a man whose contributions towards a safer Esan Land towers far above his fellow contestants, especially the billionaire Ighodalo’s, there is no doubt about matching words with actions as an elected executive governor.
Thanks to BBC Pidgin, the world now knows that under Governor Obaseki, majority of Edo citizens, including PDP members, wallow in extreme poverty, hunger and insecurity. “For dia state, dem no get money at all. No light. No water. Dem no fit comot go farm sef. Security no dey. Dem dey fear to go farm…,” Ighodalo confessed to the BBC in an interview. If this is not an indictment of his godfather Obaseki’s administration, in which he served as the Chief Economic Adviser for about eight years and in other capacities, what else? If you agree, why should you reward Obaseki, Ighodalo and PDP failure with victory to continue as governor?
As of today, Ighodalo’s N100,000.00k contribution pales into insignificance in comparison to Okpebholo’s efforts aimed at strengthening security structure in Edo Central District before election into the Senate. These include: the mobilisation of Atanakpa’s leadership and followership, reconstruction of the Police Area Command in Uromi, donation of five Toyota Sienna cars and gadgets to Atanakpa, a Toyota Hilux to Uzea Vigilante, a Toyota Sienna to Uwesan Vigilante, and a Toyota Sienna to Ekpoma Anti-Cultism Group etc, all in addition to the total sum of N5 million in cash among others.
Sebastine EBHUOMHAN is an award-winning journalist and a media consultant from Edo State, writing from Abuja. He can be reached on: usie007@yahoo.com or 08037204620.
