JF Kennedy, a former POTUS, said in a 1962 speech of his: “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” For those of us who believe in the school of thought that says through polling booth revolution Nigeria can be reclaimed, the higa higa in Offa is a rude shock to us. We thought, if the people vote for the right person, stay back for collation at the different polling stations, manipulation would become impossible and the peoples’ mandate would hold. The Edo guber election was reassuring for us. Alas! the PDP instrument of manipulation has outsmarted this. First of all, it would be of help to discuss a little about politics in Offa to get an insight into the present crinkum crankum. Offa is the 2nd largest town in Kwara State, it is the focal point of opposition in the state. Despite the prowess of late Baba Saraki political apparatus, he never had Offa under his grasp. It is the usual trend in Kwara to have 15 LGs under a party and one under another. That one LG is Offa, when the 15 was APP, Offa was AD, when it was PDP, OFFA was AC, at a point it was 16 LGs to PDP when an ACN candidate lost in a very controversial election to a commissioner in Gov Saraki’s cabinet. In this rare occasion of PDP winning Offa, it wasn’t a clean sweep for them as ACN recorded substantial victory at the councillorship level. In the next poll, the normal trend returned, 15 LGs were PDP while Offa voted the charismatic Hon Saheed Popoola of ACN. The opposition stance of Offa might explain why you hardly feel the effect of state governance in the town, most efforts at development are community driven. Hon Saheed Popoola endeared himself to the populace by his kind of leadership, accessible and always swift to act, gives feedback to the people. (I have had a couple of one on one chats with him on FB, I must confess, I was encharmed by his humility and sound reasoning). He updates the LG members through the local radio station on monthly allocation, amount spent on recurrent and the meagre left for capital projects. It is on record that he was the only LG boss in the state who spoke out when the state withheld LG fund. Surely his type of governance keeps the top hierarchy of PDP unsettled in the state. During Popoola stay as Offa chairman, he was faced with court battles. He won the first court case which was welcomed by wild jubilation. His lost at the appeal court was greeted with protest by artisans,market women,NURTW members, et al, this was aired by channelsTV and OSBC. Popoola was finally booted out of office following a communal clash between Offa and her neighbour, the chairman of Oyun LG was sacrificed for this. They were suspended because they failed to secure their LGs as the chief security officers of their LGs,despite documented evidences that the Offa chairman reported the brewing crisis before it blew up. It was clear to all that it was just a cover up to take Hon popoola out of the way, given that months prior to that there was a communal clash between Share and Tsaragi without removal of their respective chairman. Another clash between Ganmo and Gana didn’t necessitate removal of chairman. At the expiration of the 6months suspension,while the Oyun LG chairman was reinstated, Offa chairman was put on hold because of the forthcoming rerun. I have gone this length to show how much PDP wants Popoola out of office and how much Offa people want him there. Now let’s focus on the poll, in the prelude to the just concluded election Popoola cried out to Mr president which sounds like he had premonition to what was to happen.
Below is an excerpt “The people of Offa Local Government have decided to take their destiny in their own hands. Any group, which toys with their direction, will be doing so at its own peril. They have sworn to guide their mandate jealously and warned enemies of progress not to slide the community into an avoidable anarchy. “But we appeal to Your Excellency to save our people the agony of being killed or maimed by thugs. Indeed, these thugs are on the rampage in Offa, threatening people to stay indoors or risk their lives! “We are appealing to you to intervene and caution those who are bent on throwing the blanket of insecurity around the council area from changing the goalpost when the match is yet to begin. We believe in your fatherly intervention to quickly nip the looming crisis in the bud. “It is also our prayer that the result of the election be counted and declared at Offa Local Government Area and the winner openly declared. We reject any attempt to want to take the result elsewhere in a bid to tinker with the result of the election, as was the practice before you intervened in 2011.”
Unfortunately, his fears has come to pass, events of 31st August- 1st september are within public domain. These events are captured in the quotation below:
“To be fair to the security agents, the conduct of the poll was peaceful and orderly. But what happened between 5p.m. when results from polling units level and this morning when Radio Kwara announced that PDP has been declared victorious have confirmed the fact that election results are altered only behind people’s back. As at 12:50 a.m. this morning, the KWASIEC chairman Dr Uthman Ajidagba was telling all the political party agents and representatives who had come from Offa to Ilorin that they should return to KWASIEC office Ilorin at 10 a.m.for official announcement of result. Strangely at 6a.m. on Sunday, Radio Kwara – in a martial manner mimicking military overthrow of civilian regimes – repeatedly announced that the PDP has been declared winner of the rerun poll.
Interestingly, by 5:30 p.m, on Saturday duly signed results from all the 12 wards in Offa were already in at the local government collation centre in Offa. The results showed clearly that APC trounced the PDP in 11 of the 12 wards. PDP won only in Igboodun Ward. In all, APC scored 11,526 as against PDP’s 4668.
For the avoidance of doubts, the results from the 12 wards are as follows: Balogun Ward: APC – 1129 PDP -504; Shawo Central: APC – 1132 PDP-435; Shawo SW : APC- 1171 PDP – 372; Shawo SE: APC- 1054 PDP -370; Essa A : APC – 639 PDP -363; Essa B: APC -644 PDP -381; Ojomu NW : APC -1314 PDP -446; Ojomu Central 1: APC -866 PDP -373; Ojomu Central 2 : APC – 866 PDP- 373; Ojomu SE : APC -1374 PDP -427; Ogbodun : APC – 268 PDP – 381; and Essa C : APC 972 PDP – 351. The finally tally comes to APC, 11, 526 and PDP, 4668. These are the results contained on the forms signed by all the agents and KWASIEC officials. We have copies of them as obtained by our agents who had gone to the local council secretariat of KWASIEC in Offa for final collation and announcement. So while everyone awaited the KWASIEC Returning Officer for the Local Government to officially collate and announce the result, the official was nowhere to be found. Hours after, the police team directed everyone to move to Ilorin following reports that the KWASIEC man was already in Ilorin and was to announce the result there. Indeed the law is very clear about where to collate and announce results for local government elections: it is the council headquarters of the electoral body. The fact that KWASIEC did not allow collation and announcement to take place at the right place is enough reason to smell foul play. That suspicion has now been confirmed beyond reasonable doubt!”
The foolery of PDP is made apparent when one take a cursory look at the result released by radiokwara kwsiec. Offa has 86 polling booths, at 500 ballots per booth we have 43,000 ballot papers. It is only through PDP abracadabra mathematics that over 55000 votes can come from 43 000 ballot papers, I guess of their voters shared ballot paper!
No doubt Offa peoples’ mandate has been trampled upon. This is an open call for a ‘kare jini, biri jini’ situation but I enjoin my people to eschew violence let’s show our sophistication as a people Yesterday there were peaceful, orderly protest matches with police escort in Ilorin and Offa, Offa collation centre and Kwsiec offices were occupied asking for the authentic result. Let the occupation continue till our mandate is returned, surely no one can be forced on us. On a final note,I ask, Is this the trajectory to 2015? #LQOmusing
Lawal Qudus Olajide Medical practitioner and Public affairs commentator
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