Ondo Guber: Pivot parameters for victory in the next elections elsewhere in Nigeria

By ISAAC OLUSESI

The governorship election in Ondo State was President Bola Ahmed Tinubu's determination at ensuring that the sanctity of the electoral right of Nigerians is not compromised.

And the statistical details of the election results in stages, pointing up the outstanding efforts of the federal government at the consolidation of democracy as key to national life in politics, economy and society with electoral integrity and dramatic increases in the quality of democracy in Nigeria, would continue to accord the nation a deserving role in regional and global affairs. 

Analysis is there and everywhere, showing that the other nation in the lacuna of elections with democracy backslided, and threatened by promissory coups and executive aggrandizement or arrogance can not be reckoned with in any rewarding sense, in the determination of the resources of the globe. Such a nation has failed in the test of collective resolve and resilience in the conduct of elections, let alone showcase its peace, unity, governance and accountability in the face of intransigence, resulting from certain electoral imbroglio. 

In the particular case of Ondo, the election outcome was, for all practical purposes, the contextual after -effect of the decamping and, or re-decamping, secretly or overtly, in the pre-electioneering campaigns in the state. The scenario secured quality large support for Governor-elect Lucky Orimisan Aiyedatiwa and his All Progressive Congress (APC) in the overwhelming margins, and small support for the competitor-other political parties and candidates, saliently determinable by such key parameters as partisan strength, campaign issues and budget, incumbency and endorsement, candidates' personal integrity, politics of party alliances and media politics, and aggregate voting pattern of the electoral area. 

The six- factor, or leverages significantly, pivoted  the outcome of the Ondo governorship election, landslide in favour of APC and, as in all democracies, exacted enormous bearing on the outgrowth of election campaigns and the highly defensible election outcome as officially announced, even in the absence of any such compellingly crucial swings of the general presidential and congressional polls.

The high partisan strength of APC was the simplicity that made the party record high traffic of results in substantial dominance in the state electoral space and got the total votes for Aiyedatiwa, the simplicity, so clear that he dominated the election space with significant impact on the election outcome. The variations in the election results at the gross level, as magic wand yielded the winning votes and made the day for Aiyedatiwa, and broke the other candidates' chances. That fact sets APC, its governor-elect, ready for inauguration, soonest.

One does not have to stay in the kitchen to get perfumed with the smell of onion, a politician of the All Progressive Congress (APC) from Ife/Ijesa axis of Osun State, Dr Thomas Olaleye Ogungbangbe said, adding that "the Ondo gubernatorial election that saw Aiyedatiwa as governor-elect is our democracy, respectable for its time-tested tenets, and the election outcome shows the primacy of niceties of multi parties and democratic ethos, attuned to the federal government free rein that permitted the ultimate decision and expressed will of Ondo people, as power giver."

In the political party pluralism, the Ondo gubernatorial election was free, fair, transparent, and credible. The election as monitored in the neighboring Osun, the outcome is not to elicit any suspicious hurt and doubt as nothing inclined to logjams and precipice to cause any anxiety in the farrago of collateral electoral damages to paralyze the election result, in case anyone might want to flag court action for magisterial ruling, but Ogungbangbe cautioned "any such contra stance can be misleading, unpatriotic, dismissive, and unsuitable to throw a life buoy to the nation."

What of campaign budget or expenditure, speaking to the impact of money talk? The campaign issues and budget unmistakenly, showed the strength of APC in the rivalry for votes, and dwarfed other political parties. The whiff of understanding partisan strength lies in the simplification of the variations in the Ondo election final results. The analysis is that APC that recorded high traffics of the pro-APC voters and results across electoral levels has substantial dominance out there in  in the state electoral fields. The fact of political strength projected APC, from the onset, on the winning stead or track.

The campaign budget expenditure, singularly and on its own, complemented the strength of APC on campaign policy issues for governance. The size or volume of campaign expenditure, sure can enhance the votes of a political party, it doesn't necessarily work in every case, going by the 2007 electoral defeat of the then incumbent Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) government of Olagunsoye Oyinlola in Osun by the Rauf Aregbesola Action Congress (AC). Meaning that the differential in the spending effect in the 2007 Osun as it were, and in relation to the contemporariness of election campaigns, is not as heavy as the partisan strength of a political party and other key parameters.Meaning also, that campaign spending is not all-inclusive, after all.

What happened in the 2007 Osun gubernatorial election, was committed in the 2024 Ondo but by the other governorship candidates. Apparently, to level up to the incumbent Ondo APC government, its accountability prowess,  its galore of endorsements, its candidate's personality integrity in terms of his political attitudes, behaviour and practices of democratic politics and performances in office, the other political parties particularly PDP and Social Democratic Party (SDP) did additional expenditures. Findings indicate that anyone political party and its candidate in the wise, that spent far and above what was already, heavily spent, was likely to have different election outcome. Deleterious, harm or damage to self. 

The final overall result of the Ondo governorship election as it reflects the respective performances of the candidates, is the direct consequence of complications in the campaign spendings, unduly overdone, as well as difficulties erected in the politics of party alliances in the eleventh hour to the election. And the candidates' general performance in the election were also affected by the politics of social media, self threatened by biased  surveillance, hateful publications, and self censorship for disinformation, misinformation about candidates, policy issues, voting processes and pattern. The operation of some online media can profusely, decrease the quality of electoral integrity.

As nothing is at any risk in the corollary of the Ondo election to have brought the people of the state under any pressure, stress or strains; and next, is for the state to move in a more determined manner to tackle the various challenges, being faced by the state, and consolidate the gains of the past, Ogungbangbe  commended the nation's election organizing body, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the people of Ondo, APC, other political parties, civil society organizations, and the media for the successful conduct of the election.

He shared in the victory of the governor-elect, charging him to ignore any pussyfooting, and set at bringing harmony to both Ondo political titans in the electoral race and other polarized political actors in the Ondo election, as definitive instrument of the administration of the state. He opined that Governor Aiyedatiwa would re-appraise and re- prioritize the critical areas of his governance and policy objectives with increased dedication to further cardinal commitment of his administration at engendering more meaningful growth and development of his state.

*OLUSESI writes via* isaacolusesi@gmail.com