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The National Leader of the All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has said there is more to the victory of Governor Godwin Obaseki than the leaders of his party, Peoples Democratic Party, are telling Nigerians.
Obaseki floored the candidate of the All Progressives Congress in the September 19, 2020 poll, Osagie Ize-Iyamu, with over 84,000 voted as declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission on September 20, 2020.
According to the INEC tally for the election, the governor secured 307,955 votes, while Ize-Iyamu, his closest challenger, got 223,619 votes.
However, Tinubu said the leaders of the PDP who shouted wolf before the election needed to explain to Nigerians how their fear of rigging of the poll did not materialise, only for their candidate to emerge victorious.
In an article by his Media Aide, Alhaji Tunde Rahman, titled: “Asiwaju Tinubu and Edo Election,” the former Lagos State Governor queried the seeming sudden turn around in the fortunes of the PDP in the Edo State election.
Rahman, former Editor of Thisday on Sunday, wrote: “It is interesting that the Peoples Democratic Party, its candidate, Governor Obaseki, and the Chairman of the party’s Campaign Council for Edo, Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike, all of who had initially alleged the APC had perfected the rigging of the poll, suddenly turned round, after seeing the results being declared going its way, to say the election was now the best thing to have happened since Nigeria’s independence and that INEC had redeemed its seeming sullen image.
“Yet, this was the same Wike who had alleged that 300 policemen were deployed to restrict him to his hotel in Benin as part of APC’s plot to rig the election! Is there more the nation needs to know about that election?”
Tinubu also commended the peaceful nature of the poll and debate culture that was further entrenched during the Edo State election.
Rahman wrote in the article, published elsewhere on this news platform: “One, contrary to the expectation that that poll would be characterised by massive violence, we all have providence to thank for the fact that the election was devoid of any major incident, save for some skirmishes in some areas. The poll was largely peaceful. The peaceful election may have been helped by the heavy deployment of policemen. Reports had it that over 30,000 policemen aside from some men of the armed forces and officers of other para-military outfits were engaged for the election.
“Also, the culture of debate seems to have been further cemented in our electoral process. Both Obaseki and Ize-Iyamu participated in a number of debates where they spoke about their manifestoes and their plans for the people of the state. It is instructive, however, that whereas both turned up for the Channels Television debate, Obaseki shunned the debate, tagged conversation, put together by ARISE Television to which he had earlier promised attendance.”
Roqeeb Onijo
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