Afenifere Renewal Group (ARG) is appalled by the brazen robbery that took place in Ekiti on Tuesday May 5, 2009 in which all the institutions of state and critical personnel acted in one inglorious concert to declare Mr. Segun Oni as the Governor in utter violation of the the wishes of Ekiti people.
In one night, Chief (Mrs.) Ayoka Adebayo, the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) for Ekiti State bowed to the PDP rigging machine and entered her name and her lineage in the Hall of Infamy by using 15,000 non –existent voters from Ido-Osi to nullify 15,000 genuine voters who chosed Dr. Kayode Fayemi in the elections.
Mrs. Adebayo resigned her appointment on the 26th of April 2009 citing undue pressures to do what is against her conscience and not right before her God. Though she did not give details of the pressure, but her Personal Assistant, Olu Solomoni explained that the pressures on her came to a head with attempts to force her to announce the results from Ido-Osi.
Said he: "The elections results of Ido-Osi were not duly accredited at designated centers…Those she had earlier read were duly endorsed by authenticated party agents and collated at designated centers before bringing them to the State capital… The EOs said they had to take the results to a police station to collate. And the woman asked at what point did I give you the directive to move the designated centre to a police station".
This was the background to the Inspector General of Police declaring her wanted to come and clarify the weighty allegations in her resignation letter. Till date we have not been told what her explanations were save for her "I am still a member of INEC" chants. Of course no one expected the partisan Inspector General of Police, Mr. Mike Okiro whose men behaved more like PDP thugs or protection units for PDP thugs and warlords throughout the elections to do better. As we write, the IGP has yet to say a word on the Ido-Osi saga in which his men were accomplices despite the Supreme Court order to the IG in 1983 to discipline policemen who behaved in similar fashion. Sir Okiro has not denied the allegation that himself and controversial Senator Iyiola Omisore flew in a police jet to Ekiti on the eve of Oye Re-rerun.
Of course there is Prof. Maurice Iwu, the grand master of electoral manipulation and iwuruwuru conduct in electoral matters. This man has bent on all rules in the Ekiti re-run to satisfy his PDP paymasters and in the process dealt a deadly blow on the concept of one-man-one vote in Nigeria. Just a few samples:
(i) Iwu addressed a press conference in Ado Ekiti on April 22 to reiterate the law on electoral violence and that results would not stand wherever such occurs. But this same man of suspect honour insisted that two wards in Oye where elections could not hold twice (April 25, 26) would determine the winner of the elections.
(ii) The law enjoins Iwu to display the voters scroll before the elections, he didn’t do this. Yet he claimed there were 18,000 voters in 2 wards in Oye, a 12-ward Local Government with a population of 19,000 by the 2006 census. On May 5, 2009, only 2039 voters turned out in Oye I and II an indication that this career rigger has only been padding figures in most elections.
(iii) The law states clearly that for the Governorship elections, only the Resident Electoral Commissioner could announce the result. But Iwu took over this function by announcing the results of the April 25 rerun including all the figures Mrs. Adebayo earlier rejected. The announcement by the REC on May 5 was just re-echoing what Iwu already did.
We cannot but also talk about the Commander-in-Chief of this Ekiti show of rig-branding, President Umaru Yar’Adua, the serpent leader who started the "do-or die" drive when he went to campaign for Segun Oni in Ekiti by saying that he must rule for six years. This was a clear presidential directive to PDP enforcers, the Iyiola Omisores, Ayo Arises, Mike Okiros, Maurice Iwus, Olagunsoye Oyinlolas, Gbenga Daniels and Ebenezer Babatopes to go to work.
In his usual character the President promised on the eve of the April 25 re-run that soldiers would not be used for the elections but soldiers stormed Ekiti on April 24. He issued another President Deceiving People statement after Mrs Adebayo resurfaced that she should go and satisfy her conscience and obey her God. But every conduct of his presidency and party showed the "conscience" was already inside Wadata Plaza while the gods of the PDP had been made to replace the Almighty God in Mrs. Adebayo’s life.
In the Ekiti re-run, the President has displayed poverty of leadership in its nakedness. It is little wonder his preceding dictator Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo said he was not aware of his Electoral Reforms. Electoral Reforms is not about preaching but showing in concrete terms that things must be done aright. The useless bills he has sent to the National Assembly on Electoral Reforms awaits the signatures of his thug-Senators who specialized in ballot snatching and thugs rearing in the Ekiti re-run.
WHAT IS TO BE DONE?
The stolen governorship in Ekiti is a final nail on the coffin of one-man-one-vote in Nigeria. It is a major milestone in the internal colonization process. It is a major enslavement of our people by the hegemonic forces with the active cooperation of the quislings of Yorubaland. It is one crude assault that must be resisted by Ekiti people, all Yoruba progressives and democratic Nigerians. If we allow this electoral coup to stand, there is no reason talking about elections in 2011 as the list of Governors would just be pasted on a bill board in Aso Rock without any election.
We therefore endorse the decision by Dr. Kayode Fayemi to challenge the PDP/Police/INEC idiocy at Ido-osi. We await how a Tribunal, even if chaired by Yar’Adua with Iwu, Okiro, Mrs. Adebayo, Omisore and Babatope as members would say results in five wards collated in a police station and unsigned by party agents are admissible before the law.
In this regard, we appeal for support for this battle to free our electoral process from pirates posing as patriots that just happens to be located in Ekiti. Lawyers are called upon to volunteer their services and those who are not lawyers can make moral and material contributions.
Unlike June 12 struggle that we did not finish and whose ghost is now haunting us, this is a long drawn battle we must pursue to a logical conclusion. It is either we make the riggers to eat the humble pie or win us, and excise those of us who want free and fair elections from their country.
We commend the people of Ekiti who cried out in 2007 that their votes were stolen. They were challenged to go to the Tribunal. They proved that the counting were not right in 63 wards in 10 LGAs the Appellate Court said re-run. The PDP rigging machine was confronted gallantly and was now forced to go and cook up figures in 5 wards.
Ayoka Adebayo has again shouted the ridiculous "go to court" over the 5 wards in Ido-Osi. As Ekiti people go to that court again, let popular court sessions open all over Nigeria and internationally to end the rule of riggers in Nigeria.
We have come this far, we cannot afford to retreat or surrender. We must finish this battle because we are on the right side of history. Those holding on to the pyrrhic victory now will ultimately be put to shame. They and all they represent shall become what they have temporarily used fictitious figures to reduce our people to in Ido-Osi-NOTHING!
This act in itself will not postpone their day of reckoning.
Yinka Odumakin
National Publicity Secretary
Afenifere Renewal Group
