By ‘Kunle Animashaun
In the next 48 hours, eligible voters in Osun state would go to the polls to elect a new helmsman for the 31 year old South West state. The net outcome of the election will either give a mandate renewal to the incumbent governor or throw up a new chief executive in the state.
The Independent National Electoral Commission formally flagged off preparations for the July 16 election with the release of election time table in February 2022. Other activities such as distribution of PVCs and training of ad hoc election workers have followed. In the last two weeks, the Chairman of INEC, Professor Mahmood Yaqub has visited the state twice with a pledge to deliver a credible election. The relative success of the Ekiti guber poll should be a booster to the election oversight agency in prosecuting Osun election.
Ahead of Saturday’s election, the state has enjoyed relative peace with little incidence of election-based violence. The peaceful atmosphere was however violated on Tuesday this week when the state witnessed a major pre-election violence with alleged attack on the private residence of Rt. Honourable Lasun Sulyman Yusuf, the candidate of Labour Party. It is hoped that the Peace Accord signed in Osogbo yesterday by all the competing parties under the auspices of the National Peace Committee would extract greater commitment from the candidates. At the signing ceremony, the Convener of the National Peace Committee, Most Revd. Matthew Hassan Kukah made a strong appeal to the parties and their candidates to abide by the spirit of the peace pact.
15 parties are fielding candidates in the 2022 contest compared to 48 in 2018. This large reduction in the number of competing parties in a way signifies erosion of political parties in the current republic. There are no female guber candidates in the race although 6 of the parties field female deputy governorship candidates. 2 of the candidates were in the 2018 contest as top contenders.
In the past two weeks, I have been involved in the election-related activities of INEC and civil society including being present (with Dr. Rasheed Adebiyi, Team Lead, Positive Agenda Nigeria, PAN) at the signing ceremony of the Peace Accord yesterday in Osogbo. PAN was invited to the ceremony by the National Peace Committee.
With what I have seen in the last two weeks, if all election stakeholders including INEC, security services, political parties, media and civil society play their respective roles professionally and responsibly, Nigerians are set to witness a guber election that is greater in credibility and legitimacy than the Ekiti experience which INEC has touted a ‘national success’.
In this piece, I attempt to to undertake analysis of the key factors that may shape the outcome of the 2022 Osun election. In doing this, I identify 6 core factors namely, status/stature of competing parties, organisational cohesion of party platform, propaganda/misinformation/negative campaigning, support of the organised labour, Aregbesola/TOP factor and large pocket or war chest of contesting political parties.
The status of the political parties in contention in terms of incumbent or opposition parties as well as their stature in terms of their being either mainstream or nascent, entrenched structures and wide networks as well as finances will shape the outcome of Saturday’s election. The parties competing in the election have varying levels of these attributes with APC and PDP leading the pack. The other parties are fringe parties in the politics of the state.
The organisational cohesion of parties will also play a big role in the electoral prospects of the parties at the polls. The two leading parties in the race are organizationally troubled and are going to the election as factionalised platforms. While PDP had parallel nomination congresses, APC got badly divided into two opposing factions. The two parties are yet to achieve full internal cohesion 48 hours to the crucial election. The other parties also have their own fair share of internal troubles.
The electioneering has been marked by misinformation, disinformation and negative campaigning both in the conventional and social media. The campaign efforts are defined largely by personality attacks with less premium placed on policy engagement. This much has been consistently captured in the findings of Positive Agenda Nigeria, a not for profit research based organization which has been monitoring the campaign activities of the political parties contesting the July 16 election. The extent to which the voting public believes or rejects the messages in the negative campaigning will influence the outcome of the election.
The support of the organised labour in the state may also prove decisive to the outcome of the election. With the endorsement rally in support of the incumbent governor by the joint labour groups in the state, APC appears to have an advantage here. If those who organised the rally represent the voice of the formal labour sector in Osun state, then Governor Oyetola has cause to be confident of victory.
The influence of Aregbesola and his loyal group, the Osun Progressives (TOP) will strongly shape the outcome of the election. While the defection of Barrister Kolapo Alimi, a staunch loyalist of the Interior Minister, has been cited by some analysts as a covert endorsement of PDP’s Ademola Adeleke, there are yet no credible indications as to where Aregbesola throws his support. It is however certain that any of the candidates that enjoys the support and political structures of Aregbesola at the election is likely to emerge the winner.
Large pocket or strong financial base of the competing parties will also shape the outcome of the election. The literature on political financing is very clear on why political parties need money to meet legitimate needs. But evidence since 1999 has shown that in addition to legitimate needs, political parties in Nigeria also engage in illicit or unethical political financing. One example of unethical expenditure of parties in Nigeria is vote buying which Professor Mahmood Yaqub recently described as a ‘diabolical practice’. In spite of the strong advocacy against vote trading and the pledge by political actors to shun it, vote buying will play a significant role in the outcome of Saturday’s election.
The past few weeks have seen the candidates appealing for support in the election through media interviews, televised debates and campaign rallies. By my personal assessment, Labour Party’s Lasun Yusuf has been the most impressive in taking his message to the voters. He has not only been elegant in articulating his programmes, he has demonstrated uncommon understanding of the political economy of Osun state. His party label may however be his major undoing. PDP’s Adeleke has broken the jinx of media appearance by featuring in media interviews and debates. This is a marked improvement over his 2018 outing. APC’s Oyetola goes to the election with a heavy measure of political incumbency that gives him a head start advantage over the other prize chasers.
In conclusion, I classify the candidates in Saturday’s election into three broad categories: winners, losers and also rans. Winner will be either Oyetola or Adeleke. Losers will be either of the two and Lasun Yusuf. The remaining candidates constitute the ‘also rans’. Ultimately however, it is the voters who turn out on Saturday to cast their ballot that would determine the electoral fate of the contestants.
_Kunle Animashaun, a member of Positive Agenda Nigeria, lectures at the Department of Political Science & Public Administration, Fountain University, Osogbo_
