Osun election: About the voters or the candidates?By Issa Aremu

The media has presented next weekend governorship election in the state of Osun (or is it Osun state?) as a contest (read; conquest!) between (my dear friend),Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, the incumbent APC governor and (certainly not my enemy),the PDP challenger Iyiola Omisore. A visitor from outer space would hardly know that there are other 18 candidates from 18 other political parties according to Osun INEC. The contesting parties are: Action Alliance (AA), Accord Party (AP), ACPN, Alliance for Democracy (AD), ADC, APA, APGA, APC, CPP, my party, Labour Party (LP) and MPPP, National Conscience Party (NCP), NNPP, Peoples Democratic Movement (PDM), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Peoples Progressive Alliance (PPA), UNP, Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), UPP and Social Democratic Party (SDP).
But is the coming election just between the candidates or between the voters and the candidates? This question is undoubtedly academic. Election is certainly not a ‘Q & A’ issue. Any election, any day is a pragmatic governance issue. Certainly this election is between the leading contestants, namely the incumbent Ogbeni Rauf and the challenger Omisore. But as pronounced as these candidates are, the two are contesting in the name of Osun valid registered voters which according to Osun INEC, totall some 1,407,222 (post-March 2014 Continuous Voter Registration (CVR)). The voters according to INEC spread across the 30 local councils of the state, which has 332 wards (registration areas), 3,010 polling units and 3,379 voting points. 1,407,222 strong Osun voters are as many as the population of the Republics of the Gambia (1,882,450), Kosovo ( 1,815,606) and Guinea-Bissau (1,746,000)taking individually. In quantitative terms (I.e. assuming election is about the number of voters) Osun state (sorry State of Osun!) has shown that Nigeria is a democracy destination.
This coming election is also about the concerns of these Million plus voters not just the candidates. The gender distribution of the voter population of the state also shows that the next week’s electoral process is all inclusive and indeed gender hyper sensitive. INEC indicates that the males voters are 661,394 (47 per cent) and the female 745,828 (53 per cent). What then about these millions of voters?. Certainly they would not be governor nor deputy governor.
Many of them will not get the limited political appointments either. Yet the issues that affect the voters would make or mar the outcome of this election.
Whatever the concerns of these voters are ( and I gather they include roads,education, health, employment, payment of salaries, and even religion related issues), it is the electoral agency notably the INEC that will “process” them in a free and fair atmosphere to know the winning issues. Yours truly so the guest speaker at the recently organized Inter-Party workshop for Osun stakeholders by the Special Adviser to the President on Inter-Party Affairs, Senator Ben Obi. Yours comradely underscored the fact that Politics can be compared to the just concluded World Cup competition in Brazil. The success on the tournament (in which Nigeria’s Super Eagles for once commendably reached the round of 16) was due to the acknowledged conduct of the players, the referees,the fans and FIFA governance officials as well as the host county, Brazil that offered good infrastructure but nonetheless lost in tears.
In Osun let us invest more on the electoral system to produce free and fair elections as much as we must Spotlight the candidates. We must support INEC’s effort for free and fair elections next week. We are encouraged with the new sense of purpose of INEC leadership to conduct free and fair election. We are encouraged that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has warned its personnel to avoid anything that could scuttle any election. The world is not just watching the commission as the commission’s Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, rightly observed but the world will hold the INEC accountable for the quality of all elections including Osun’s in terms of availability of voting materials, integrity of INEC officials, voting, vote counting and announcements of results. Let all the elections be finalized at the polling boots not at the courts. The recent Ekiti election has given credit to all the democratic actors and it shows that votes can count. The hope is that us increasingly INEC seems to be getting it right. It needs our encouragement. Another critical institution for free and fair elections is the Nigeria Police Force. As a matter of fact the critical security institution in a democracy is the police. The new IG Suleiman Abbah has refreshingly assured that the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) must protect the weak and the vulnerable which certainly are the voters in Osun. However no matter what the police and State Security Service do, a lot depend on the activities of the political actors. Our politicians must return to politics 101 and do the first thing first; put the people and the nation first. Conversely the voters must rise up to demand for accountability not after the elections but even now before the elections. We must vote for issues of developments not just persons of means and money.
But credible electoral process can only take place in an atmosphere of peace and security. Osun voters and contestants alike must be hard on the issues and problems of the state not on themselves. There should not be gunshots but sound bites of ideas such that if the process is transparent and credible, both the voters and candidates would be winners and not losers.. Wishing the state of Osun a free and fair contest NOT conquest!
ISSA AREMU mni