By this time next week, it would have been clear to all and sundry who the new governor of Edo State will be among the three contenders, Asue Ighodalo of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Monday Okpebholo of the All Progressives Congress (APC), and Olumide Akpata of the Labour Party (LP). Tension is on high end in the state as the D-day glides nearer. The fear of violence became palpable with the refusal of the PDP to sign the Peace Accord initiated by the General Abdusalami Abubakar-led National Peace Accord Committee (NPAC), with the APC signing reluctantly. In this piece, ‘SUYI AYODELE reviews the situation as Edolites file out to elect a new governor.
“Tell me sir, how can we sign a peace accord in this situation?” Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State asked the question on Wednesday, September 11, 2024, at the Government House. There was palpable tension in the room. The question raised the tempo of the tautness that had begun to envelop the state preparatory to the all-important ceremony slated for the next day. Obaseki’s interlocutor, a retired General, maintained his mien. But those in the room knew that the dignitary was in a position of discomfort. Should the governor make good his threat, nobody needs a prophet to predict the implication. Edo State at that moment was in a precarious situation. Only the cosmic, and a Deus ex-machina could avert the looming danger!
Until Wednesday, September 11, 2024, anyone could have taken the oath that the Edo State governorship election, scheduled for September 21, would be hitch-free. The hope of a peaceful election was almost guaranteed before the said date. The minor skirmishes noticeable in some parts of the state remained insignificant. The state was in a state of calmness if not complete peace. That atmosphere emboldened the National Peace Accord Committee (NPAC), led by the former military Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, to move into the state capital, Benin City, for the ceremonial signing of a peace accord among the 18 political parties participating in the election.
As protocol demands, General Abubakar visited the Edo State Government House to officially register his presence in the state and was received by Governor Obaseki. That courtesy call by the retired military officer marked the beginning of the tension that has since enveloped the state.
The tiny rope binding the Edo gubernatorial race and peace together snapped during that visit. The host, Governor Obaseki, who happens to be the leader of the ruling political party and one of the major parties in the election, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), was livid. He had no room for diplomacy because the situation prevailing would not allow any pretence. Barely welcoming the former Head of State to his office, Governor Obaseki declared, as a matter-of-factly, that the PDP might not sign the peace accord scheduled for the following day, Thursday, September 12.
The governor, who did not mince words while delving the knife to the tiny rope of hope, said that the PDP would find it difficult to endorse the spirit and letters of the accord when it was clear that the agency that would implement the agreement, the police, was in cahoots with the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC). Obaseki’s allegation of the police working hand-in-hand with the APC was just a mere open declaration of the sentiment that had been expressed in hushed tones by the leadership of the PDP in the state that the party’s major challenger in the election was actually not the APC, but the police, an agency of the Federal Government that the PDP regarded as biased and unprofessional.
Obaseki reminded General Abubakar who was in the state in 2020 for a similar assignment that the situation had changed considerably and that given the open partisanship displayed by the police, it would be foolhardy for the PDP to sign any agreement that would later turn out to be a ruse. He speaks thus:
“You are very conversant with the politics of Edo State. You were here in 2020, and we had a very heated election. You know this is an off-circle election and there is a lot of attention. Unlike 2020, I am very worried with the developments in the state today. The party met yesterday, and we might not likely sign this agreement. This is the first time we are witnessing that the person who is supposed to keep and enforce the peace accord is now an active participant in creating a destructive environment. The opposition party in the state, the APC has always argued that they may not be as popular and didn’t win in the last election but however promised to use federal might to determine the outcome of the election. We thought it’s just rhetoric but in the last four weeks, we’ve had a situation where from the office of the IGP, armed gang policemen have come into Edo State to invade, arrest and take away PDP members.
“As we speak, there are 10 PDP members arrested and detained in Abuja without a trial. Two days ago, they came to pick up a local government chairman. The chairman was going back home and was attacked and shot at. We reported and the police asked him to come and give evidence; he came and was arrested. As I speak, he is in Abuja. Even if an offence has been committed in Edo State, why will you not charge the offenders and try them here in the state? Why take them to Abuja? Are the offences of high treason? Why not charge them to court? The IGP’s office came in, issued a warrant to arrest 60 PDP supporters, driving all our leaders into hiding. My role as the Chief Security Officer of the state is being made nonsense of by the IGP. I heard somebody was arrested and I called the commissioner [of police] to inform him. He said he will come back to me only to hear that he moved the person to Abuja. Tell me sir, how can we sign a peace accord in this situation? Clearly, what they are saying is that it is going to be a violent election and that they are going to use the forces of coercion and intimidation to win elections in Edo whether we like it or not. That is the message.
“Now that the IGP is in town, we say until everybody arrested is brought back to Edo and be tried here in Edo for whatever offences they have committed, we have no confidence that the police will protect us in Edo State during the governorship election,” Obaseki had told Abubakar, adding that his wise counsel was discarded, and before he knew it, the arrested PDP members had been moved to the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja.
Before Governor Obaseki made open the intention of the PDP not to sign the peace accord, the chairman of the party in the state, Dr Tony Aziegbemi, had also raised the alarm over the deployment of associates of the former governor of Rivers State and Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, to act as the Independent National Electoral Commission’s (INEC) Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in the state and the Edo Commissioner of Police in the lead up to the September 21 governorship election.
Aziegbemi said the party was raising dust over the involvement of Wike’s associates in the election because of the well-documented disagreement between Governor Obaseki, and Wike noting that the party regarded the involvement of the officials as a recipe for disaster as they shared close links with Wike, and would have the tendency to act the script of the former governor of Rivers State, before, during and after the election. The PDP chairman noted that the Edo State REC, Onuoha, is a former Special Adviser on Lands to the FCT Minister, Wike while he served as governor, adding that the Edo Commissioner of Police, CP Nemi Edwin-Iwo, a close associate of the FCT Minister, was deployed to the state barely a month ago. He stressed that the close link between those officials and the FCT Minister meant that the election might have been compromised even before it kicked off.
“We are worried that the election may have been compromised even before it starts. This is because we are certain that the officials responsible for conducting a free, fair and credible election are close associates of the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike. The INEC REC in Edo is Wike’s cousin and served as a Special Adviser on Lands to him in Rivers State. Everyone in Nigeria knows the antecedents of Wike and his conduct during elections in Rivers State. So, we will not close our eyes and watch him deploy the same tactic in Edo State. The current Edo State Commissioner of Police, Nemi Edwin-Iwo, is also a close associate of Wike. We believe he would not act in the best interest of Edo people nor even in the spirit and letters of the electoral act.
“So, it is no wonder that the police have been acting arbitrarily in the run-up to the election. They have been after members and leaders of the PDP in the last few weeks, as a rogue team has been hounding, arresting and whisking PDP leaders away to Abuja in a Gestapo style. So, for us, the precedent has been set and we will not sit and watch these men cause chaos in the State in pursuit of personal vendetta,” the PDP chairman submitted.
The stage was set in the tense mood for the peace accord signing ceremony. The opposition party early on Thursday morning added its own share to the tension, when, through its Acting State chairman, Emperor Jarret Tenebe, the APC also announced that it would not be signing the agreement. Tenebe’s announcement of the party’s stance came barely two hours to the ceremony. The APC said that it would not sign the accord because it was not satisfied with the shoddy way the police had handled the investigation into the killing of Inspector Akor Anuh, one of the security details attached to the APC governorship candidate, Senator Monday Okpebholo, on July 18, when the motorcade conveying Okpebholo and Philip Shaibu, the embattled deputy governor of the state, from Benin Airport was attacked afte their arrival in Benin from Abuja where Shaibu got a Federal High Court to upturn his April 2024 impeachment by the Edo State House of Assembly.
Addressing a press conference at the Edo APC secretariat on Thursday morning, the state chairman of the party, Emperor Tenebe, said the reason for the party’s declining to sign the Peace Accord, among others, was that for over two months after Inspector Onuh was shot and killed along the Airport Road, nobody had been arrested and prosecuted despite claims by the former Commissioner of Police, Funsho Adeboye, that the police had the names of those who killed the police officer. Tenebe insisted that until those suspected to have carried out the dastardly act were apprehended, APC would not be part of the peace agreement.
“This failure of the police has emboldened the state governor, Godwin Obaseki and his Peoples Democratic Party to attack members of our political party at rally grounds and in their private businesses premises ceaselessly.”
Thus, the two major political parties entered the Victor Uwaifo Creative Hub Hall, where the ceremony took place in that tense state. While the APC capitulated and signed the agreement, the PDP maintained its hard stance and refused to sign. The Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, and the PDP chairman, Aziegbemi, exchanged hot words. While Aziegbemi dismissed Egbetokun as “incompetent and a biased”, the IGP on his part accused the PDP chairman of blackmailing the police in order to frustrate the investigation of the killing of Inspector Onuh.
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