Edo politics: The tribal smear of Okpebholo and his government (1)
By Ehichioya Ezomon
“There must be an end to litigation” is a fundamental legal principle meaning, “legal disputes cannot continue forever, ensuring finality, preventing abuse, and conserving resources, often enforced through doctrines like res judicata, which stops re-litigating the same issues once a final judgment is made,” an AI Overview notes.
Hence, there’s finality when the Supreme Court, as the highest arbiter in litigation, gives its verdict in a case that traverses the courts. In other words, “there’s no appeal” against a judgment by the apex court. But dissatisfied litigants, failing to get the Supreme Court to reverse itself, urge their lawyers to approach the lower courts to pronounce on opinions given by the highest court in the land.
In an unregulated political arena, there’s no end to litigation, as politicians, their parties, members and supporters continuously relitigate in the public domain decided cases by the Supreme Court, to smear and whip up sentiments against the Judiciary and duly-elected officeholders.
While we’re on endless litigation, the issue of “tribalism” in Edo State’s politics – latent and resurrects at every election cycle – has resurged and taken a turn for the worse barely one year in office of Governor Monday Okpebholo, since the September 21, 2024, poll that virtually pitted two Esan indigenes against each other.
Okpebholo of the All Progressives Congress (APC), resigning from the National Assembly as Senator representing Esan Central, to vie for governor, defeated a Lagos-based lawyer and business tycoon, Dr Asue Ighodalo of then-ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Edo State, by 291,667 votes to 247,655 votes – a margin of lead of 44,012 votes.
Oshiomhole, Obaseki, Ighodalo’s relationship
Pre-the poll, then-Governor Godwin Obaseki backed Ighodalo, a friend and business associate, who’s nominal chairman of the Alaghodaro Economic Summit – a think tank that shaped the economy of Obaseki’s tenure (2016-2024) – just as Obaseki’s nominal chairman of the Economic Strategy Team (EST) that drove the economic activities of Oshiomhole’s tenure (2008-2016).
That’s the connection between the Oshiomhole and Obaseki governments, and Oshiomhole, Obaseki and Ighodalo as friends, business, and political allies. It’s Oshiomhole, who “anointed,” and campaigned for Obaseki in 2016 as if he (Oshiomhole) was on the ballot! It’s a similar playbook that Obaseki adopted in attempts to get Ighodalo elected as his successor!
Midway into his first term in office (2016-2020), Obaseki fell out with his “godfather,” Oshiomhole, over his alleged attempts to control the governor, resulting in a political fight that culminated in then-Oshiomhole-led APC’s National Working Committee (NWC) denying Obaseki the ticket for reelection in 2020.
Obaseki, along with Deputy Governor Philip Shaibu, defected to the PDP that gave him the ticket to run at the poll, which he won by defeating the APC candidate, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, who Oshiomhole backed and campaigned for against Obaseki.
Obaseki’s victory was made possible by his campaign’s strategic deployment of Oshiomhole’s words in his vile campaign in 2016 against Ize-Iyamu, candidate of the PDP, in the contest with APC’s Obaseki, who Oshiomhole campaigned for to succeed him. Obaseki’s 2020 campaign was anchored by former Edo PDP chapter chairman, Chief Dan Orbih, who broke with Obaseki pre-the 2024 poll and tacitly backed APC’s Okpebholo against PDP’s Ighodalo.
APC’s controversial primary and Okpebholo’s election
Coming to the 2024 governorship, the watching public had thought that being almost an Esan affair – even when there’re other contestants in the race – the poll would be conducted in a “brotherly” manner devoid of bitterness. But the campaigns were a “do-or-die,” fueled by forces intent on installing their preferred candidate.
Governor Obaseki adroitly handled the primary in the PDP, as he railroaded the “choice” of Ighodalo at the event monitored by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), which shunned the primary by a faction of the party headed by court-reinstated impeached Deputy Governor Shaibu, who got the nod of his members for the ticket.
(Shaibu’s impeached by a 10-member factional Edo State House of Assembly propped up by Obaseki – who refused, for four years, to work with the majority 14-member APC lawmakers loyal to Oshiomhole – and goaded the assmbly to sack Shaibu, to scramble his governorship ambition, in place of Ighodalo, whom Obaseki “anointed” to succeed him.)
The reverse was the case in the Edo chapter of the APC, where Oshiomhole (APC, Edo North) – with the alleged support of the primary committee chairman, Imo State Governor Hope Uzodimma – failed to influence members to pick Hon. Dennis Idahosa (APC, Ovia Federal Constituency) as the ticket holder.
With alleged manipulation of the primary, which Okpebholo won by 12,145 votes to Idahosa’s 5,536 votes, the national headquarters of the APC cancelled the disputed poll, and ordered a repeat of the exercise under the deputy chair of the primary committee, Cross River Governor Bassey Otu.
Concluding the primary that lasted seven days, from February 17 to 23, 2024, and with the fresh poll confirming Okpebholo’s lead of 12,433 votes over Idahosa’s 6,541 votes – fairly consistent with their respective score of 12,145 votes to 5,536 votes on February 17, as then announced by the APC Chief Returning Officer, Dr Stanley Ugboajah – Dr Otu declared Senator Okpebholo as winner of the party ticket.
As there’re no permanent friends nor enemies but permanent interests in politics, Oshiomhole subsequently changed strategy! To get Idahosa in as running mate, he approached President Bola Tinubu, who reportedly backed the APC to pick its candidate from Edo Central – a crucial support that ensured Okpebholo secured the ticket.
Having received Tinubu’s nod for Okpebholo to pair Idahosa for the governorship, Oshiomhole congratulated Okpebholo for “winning the APC ticket,” and pledged his full cooperation and commitment to ensuring that the APC defeat the PDP and its candidate, Ighodalo, which Okpebholo achieved on poll day.
Unlike in the 2020 poll in which Oshiomhole’s words were used against Ize-Iyamu, to hand Obaseki victory; the PDP didn’t only fail to achieve a similar outcome against Okpebholo in 2024, but the tactic spurred Oshiomhole’s Edo North stronghold to produce massive votes against Ighodalo’s gains in Edo South, Obaseki’s political turf, and ensured Okpebholo’s triumph.
PDP, Ighodalo thrash Okpebholo’s triumph, go to tribunal
The PDP and Ighodalo, backed by Obaseki – who, in the thick of the poll, embarked on a midnight visit to the INEC collation centre in Benin City, Edo capital city, in what poll watchers termed an attempt to influence the results in favour of Ighodalo, and was shepherded out by a horde of security operatives – disputed INEC’s return of Okpebholo as the duly-elected Governor of Edo State.
The duo took the matter to the Election Petitions Tribunal in Benin City, alleging massive rigging, alterations, suppression and swapping of results, and urged the panel to recompute the “wrongly calculated votes” in 765 polling units they claimed would show that Ighodalo scored the highest number of lawful votes.
Accordingly, they prayed the tribunal to nullify INEC’s declaration of the APC and its candidate as winners of the election, alleging that Okpebholo didn’t secure the highest number of lawful votes, and that the election was invalid on grounds of non-compliance with the Electoral Act.
For the duration of the proceedings statutorily billed for 180 days (six months), the petitioners, Ighodalo and PDP, were unable to substantiate before the tribunal their allegations of a fraudulent poll – they failed to call polling unit agents, ward agents or other registered voters that witnessed the alleged over-voting in the disputed polling units. The tribunal’s later relocated to Abuja, Nigeria’s capital city, over incessant clashes between supporters of the PDP and APC at the premises.
Dismissing the petition in its entirety, “for lacking in merit,” as the petitioners failed to prove allegations of non-compliance and over-voting, the three-man panel of judges, headed by Justice Wilfred Kpochi, confirmed Okpebholo as the duly-elected Governor and returned him as such!
Dissatisfied, Ighodalo and PDP, blasting the panelists for a ‘hatchet job,” appealed the verdict to the Appeal Court, which upheld the judgment. They met the same fate at the Supreme Court, which affirmed the findings by the lower courts. Did the matter end at the apex court, as the last busstop for litigation in Nigeria? Absolutely not!
Supporters and members of the PDP and Ighodalo continue to publicly relitigate the election, denigrating, maligning, blackmailing, and demarketing Okpebholo and his government as clueless, dull, incompetent, nepotic, tribalistic, and marginalistic – wait forit – “against Edo South with the largest population and voting strength in Edo State.” Really?
LAST LINE: Does Governor Okpebholo deserve the charactisations, castigations and labelling from the PDP and its members and supporters in Edo State and across Nigeria? These and more in the next installment of this header!
* _Mr Ezomon, Journalist and Media Consultant, writes from Lagos, Nigeria. Can be reached on X, Threads, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp @EhichioyaEzomon. Tel: 08033078357_ .
