PDP bought Ekiti victory –Lai Mohammed

by John Alechenu

Mr. Lai Mohammed
| credits: File copy

The National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, in this interview with JOHN ALECHENU, speaks about the lessons learnt from the Ekiti State governorship election and other sundry issues

What lessons did your party take away from the Ekiti State governorship election?

We came into office and stayed faithful to our manifesto. We stayed faithful to our promise to our people. What we now see is an absurd conclusion that has been reached especially by the Peoples Democratic Party. The absurdity in this logic is that how do you say a governor who has performed and introduced a welfare policy, the first of its kind in Nigeria was rejected? As part of the policy of his party, he promised free and qualitative education and in the pursuit of that abolished schools fees, built new schools, paid teachers regularly but when the students were failing their exams decided to find out what was wrong. The administration introduced assessment examinations but the teachers purportedly don’t like this. If we accept this, we are going to enthrone a kind of government that will buckle under the whims and caprices of any pressure group, however, unreasonable their position may be. This to me is worrisome.

What is the consequence of this kind of scenario you have painted?

The logical consequence of this kind of thing is that in the future, governors might not even bother providing infrastructure, building capacity or improving the education system. If all he needs for re-election is to satisfy a vocal minority and put money in the pockets of a few people. This is what is most painful to us. However, I think we’ve been able to convince Nigerians that for us, politics is not a do-or-die affair; for us the will of the people is supreme. What this means again is that democracy might not necessarily be a contest for good governance. Having said all these, we also wish to put on record that while it is true that we conceded victory, we don’t believe the election was free and fair. To us as a party, if you are not prepared to accept defeat in an election, you do not deserve the joy of victory either. More importantly, we consider the interest of our people above everything else. With over 35,000 security agents milling all over Ekiti State, we have proved that the aspiration of our governor is not worth the blood of anybody. I think we have walked the talk. However, we will not be learning anything if we think for one moment that this election as conducted by the Independent National Electoral Commission is free and fair, we will be insincere and hypocritical.

Why do you say so?

We are saying this because election is a process and not just one single event. If you look at the buildup to the election in Ekiti State, if you consider the happenings before, during and after the election you can only come out with one conclusion that the election was skewed in favour of the PDP. I will give you some illustrations. I will start with that fateful Sunday –barely three weeks to the election. There was a peaceful rally of the APC that was turned bloody and led to the death of one of our members. Not even the personal intervention of our governor could call the police to order. We discovered that the head of the Ekiti riot police was actually the ADC of President Goodluck Jonathan when he was deputy governor of Bayelsa State. Rather than the police being called to order, a commissioner of Ekiti State and other party members were arrested and charged for terrorism. Shortly after that, a police van carrying 200 boxes of electoral materials was arrested. Only for INEC to say they were waste materials, we were never told how they became waste materials. While we were still battling with this, there were reports, they have still not denied that about two aircraft made several trips to Akure Airport with strange secret cargo believed to be money, the distribution of which was supervised by the Minister of State for Defence. Till today, no one has told us what those planes were doing in Akure and why the Minister of State for Defence was there. One was a Howker 900 and the other was a Beech Craft 1900, we have the numbers of the two aircraft. Closely on the heels of this, almost on the same day, one day before the election, 22 young men were arrested thumb-printing and filling forms EC8 in a hotel belonging to the campaign manager of the PDP candidate. Nothing more was heard about that. On Thursday, when the APC was having its mass rally, the helicopter bearing the governor of Edo State, Adams Oshiomhole, an APC governor, was denied take-off, River State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi, who made it to Akure Airport, was physically detained and forcibly denied entry into Ekiti State. Immediately after, the airport was closed to all our governors. Governors Rochas Okorocha, Rotimi Amaechi, and our leaders, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Chief Audu Ogbeh and others were forced to abandon their aircraft and travel by road. On the eve of the elections itself, our leaders were harassed and arrested. By midnight of Friday, the campaign manager for the governor and his commissioner for finance were harassed. The following morning our leaders were arrested in virtually every local government area and every polling unit identified by the PDP agents. Our law does not make provision for the military during elections. As a matter of fact, the military are supposed to stay very far away from the polling areas. What we witnessed in Ekiti was the military busting into homes and arresting leaders of our party in many places. We even saw them with guns in polling booth areas. Journalists who were perceived not to be malleable were deported after they were accredited. At least, I know four personnel of the Osun State Broadcasting Corporation and one lady from Inspiration FM, they were physically bundled out of Ekiti State and dumped at the boundary between Kwara and Ekiti states. When you have this kind of intimidation before, during and after election, can you in all conscience say that the election was free and fair?

The Peoples Democratic Party has been celebrating its victory especially after Fayemi conceded…(Cuts in)

The victory is hollow for many reasons. We have proved to be better democrats than they are. We have also proved to be better patriots than they are. More importantly is that there is no place in the world that you are going to intimidate people, harass and arrest them and then come out and say oh, the election was free and fair. What bothers us really again are the so-called international observers and the international community. They use two sets of rules; one for countries they deem civilised and another set for us. We have catalogued events before during and after the elections. In their own countries, do they consider what happened before, during and after the elections as qualifying that election as free and fair? This is very sad because when you use a different set of rules with regards to Nigeria, you are saying that as long as there is peace even if it is the peace of the graveyard, you are satisfied.

There are insinuations that the lack of internal democracy within the APC also played a part in your loss.

That is absolutely untrue. In the first instance, we had primaries. I would now want to ask you, what primaries did the PDP have before they threw up Fayose? We are all witnesses to the fact that 11 other candidates disagreed with the emergence of Fayose. So, if you are talking about the lack of internal democracy, how come this did not work against them? You see, every excuse they want to churn out to legistimise their victory will fall flat. When people say it’s because we lack internal democracy you begin to ask yourself, how did our primaries differ from the one that produced the PDP candidate? What was the aftermath of Ayo Fayose emerging? All the party said was the serving governor was doing well there is no reason not to endorse him but any other person who is interested should come. But what did he (Opayemi Bamidele) do? He left the party. I don’t think that is the only reason. For me it was the over militaralisation, intimidation and the obscene use of money. It is within those factors that you can locate the so-called victory of the PDP. What happened in Ekiti, is because it was an isolated case. In the general election, you cannot have 35,000 security personnel in Ekiti State alone. If they want to try that in Osun, we wish them well. We assure Nigerians that we will continue to play the game according to the rules.

@punchng.com