Dr. Don Pedro Obaseki was the Deputy Director Basic of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Governorship Marketing campaign Organisation within the current governorship election in Edo State. On this interview, he speaks on his celebration’s allegation that the Unbiased Nationwide Electoral Fee (INEC) rigged the ballot in favour of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and different points, ANAYO EZUGWU stories
With the establishing of the transition committee, what’s the newest in Edo State?
Edo State has grow to be an never-ending melodrama, the place politics and democracy should not allowed to occur the best way they need to occur. Nonetheless, now we have a governor who understands the nuances and the dictates of the legislation.
That is the primary time now we have had a scenario whereby a celebration which one way or the other was bulldozed into being declared victors in an election below a vastly disputed electoral heist, which failed all democratic norms.
The most important electoral heist within the historical past of the nation is being approached by a governor who is asking them to come back and allow them to plan the transition seamlessly. He’s calling the opposition APC, who are actually coming into energy, telling them to come back ‘allow us to plan and do the transition collectively.’ Edo State is turning into one thing dangerous and a nasty precedent for election.
The worst is that even when and if this result’s overturned, there isn’t a approach to punish the Unbiased Nationwide Electoral Fee (INEC) over this altering the collective will of the Nigerian folks, which has continued for thus lengthy. If there’s a punishment for stealing the folks’s mandate within the method they’re doing it, perhaps INEC will probably be keen to discontinue derailing Nigerian democracy.
They did it in Imo State and no person stopped them; they elevated the tempo and upped the ante, and the Ondo election is simply across the nook.
In Edo, the umpire disregarded the INEC End result Viewing (IReV) portal. It disregarded the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BIVAS) and went forward to declare a end result that by no means existed so far as the election in Edo State was involved.
Did you see a scenario the place folks had been declared winners and people who had been declared winners had been behaving like folks coming back from a funeral?
That’s to say, they had been like ‘sure now we have gained the election however we’re afraid to come back out to have a good time it.’ That was the scenario in Edo when INEC wrongly declared them the winner. It was pathetic that the desire of the lots was suppressed by INEC.
PDP has constantly accused INEC and the APC of rigging the election however do you contemplate some pre-election points that may have affected the probabilities of your celebration and its candidate like Governor Obaseki combating many battles forward of the election. Don’t you assume some folks even inside the PDP may need labored towards the celebration?
Sure, that one is apparent that the governor fought so many battles. If you discover a man who’s combating an existential battle, you’ll perceive the place he’s coming from.
He was within the APC however we guided him into the PDP below the steering of the late Raymond Dokpesi. It was clear that the governor was combating an existential battle and you may see the brigandage that’s rolling out in all of the locations. What the governor did is what I’ll do; it’s what each right-thinking one who needs to place us on a greater path will do.
The governor is even exhibiting extra examples regardless of how they stole the mandate the folks of Edo State freely gave to his candidate by nonetheless telling them to ‘come allow us to hand over to you, that is correct and that is the best approach to do it’, placing apart these political points.
Nonetheless, to your query on whether or not it affected the election or not, that’s comprehensible. However the reality is that they didn’t win the election regardless of the battles he fought.
That is additionally as a result of no matter points Godwin Obaseki had with some folks had no direct consequence on the turnout of the election in favour of the PDP.
INEC and the APC ignored the turnout and ignored the outcomes that had been on the IReV and the BIVAS. I agree that among the politicians got here collectively towards the federal government and determined to rob our state.
A combating authorities is a combating authorities and that’s his (Obaseki) alternative nevertheless it was and nonetheless is the selection of the folks to facet with him. The folks had been on his facet regardless of the so-called combat as a result of no matter actions he took had been for the sake of the better good of the folks.
Even now, persons are siding with him as a result of he’s the one one who has been paying minimal wage; he’s the one one which elevated the minimal wage and has by no means stopped paying.
They’re siding with him as a result of he’s the one combating those that need to steal the collective patrimony of the folks and if that’s the reason they’re combating him, so be it.
He’s constant in paying pensions and since he got here in, Edo State staff can swear that they hadn’t obtained their salaries on the thirty first of each month; it has all the time been 4 days earlier than that thirty first.
If you’ll combat him as a result of in 2021 he informed you that Nigeria is printing cash wrongly and because of that, the N400 to a greenback then, would within the subsequent few years, cross to over one thousand naira to a greenback, so be it.
If he’s the person you’ll combat as a result of he stands on the facet of the folks; if he’s the person you’ll combat as a result of he stands on the facet of fairness; if he’s the person you’ll combat as a result of he wished to cease the political buccaneers that need to destroy the collective patrimony of the folks of Edo and the bigger Nigerians, so be it.
However know one factor, is that it’s the combat that the folks recognised, it’s the combat that the folks supported. That’s the reality of the matter.
The umpire disregarded the IReV portal. It disregarded the BIVAS and went forward to declare a end result that by no means existed so far as the election in Edo State was involved
PDP leaders lately went to INEC to entry the election supplies as it’s the proper factor to do forward of theirappeal and so they had been denied entry. Do you assume INEC is denying the celebration its professional demand and is it proper to name out the umpire for allegedly blocking entry to justice?
That’s the sorry state of Nigeria we see at this time, sitting down and doing nothing. When you sit down and do nothing, you grow to be crippled. Nigerians ought to get up and demand the best factor. A thief steals as soon as, and no person holds him, he steals once more and no person holds him, so he would proceed to go like that.
For INEC, from Jega to Mahmood Yakubu, they’ve continued on this line. The Nigerian folks, with Edo State as a take a look at run, have grow to be like a conquered folks with no motion.
And once more, the educated center class have grow to be like a wasted class, a dying species. And all of the media, just like the journalists are like ‘Bolekaja’ journalists. I used to be a journalist, I keep in mind in these days when Bayo Abodunrin was I feel in Punch; I used to be then ASUU secretary. We fought Abacha.
I imply we fought khaki people who carried weapons and armoured tanks. I spent six months in a spot referred to as Gashua Jail within the present-day Yobe State however then it was in Borno State.
We weren’t scared and we weren’t pondering solely about our take-home pay, we weren’t afraid however we had been pondering of the continuity and oneness of this nation.
And one of many beneficiaries of that singular combat is Bola Tinubu. He can’t, now he has grow to be the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, gainfully or nongainfully so attained, grow to be an albatross to the political system of the nation.
You described journalists as ‘bolekaja’ within the face of alleged inadequacies of the electoral umpire; what do you assume journalists aren’t doing proper within the face of current circumstances?
I simply really feel that only a few journalists may be the arrowhead in calling out those that are undermining the system and the method.
In the event that they know you’ll name them out and that your name will resonate amongst Nigerians, positively they’ll change. If now we have vibrant journalists with intent on functioning because the fourth property of the realm and being a watchdog, the federal government can’t do sure issues.
INEC particularly has grow to be sore pus in Nigeria’s political evolution and journalists, because the fourth property of the realm, are unarguably a very powerful individuals on this journey. You’re the ones who should educate our folks and never name these folks on this or that.
You’re the ones to teach our folks on their civil rights, on their constitutional rights and inform them any time such rights are being trampled upon; any time such rights are being abused and never pandering to their whims.
On the finish of the day, what have we achieved and what are we doing? Edo State is a case research. So many media organisations weren’t even allowed to sure locations.
They had been there when collation centres had been shut down; they had been there when outcomes had been referred to as out and so they had been there when outcomes being referred to as out had been totally different from outcomes that they had of their scenario rooms.
The stations had been there as witnesses to a daylight theft, though they reported it a few days and that ended it. After that, it’s all about all that’s properly that ends.
Until we are able to stem the ugly tide, it should proceed. From there, Edo will go down, one other state will observe till we will probably be on an oblique highway to Venezuela; we grow to be a cubicle Uganda, and we are going to grow to be a rustic the place our electoral legal guidelines, our judiciary and all democratic tenets are on their knees, the place our legislature will grow to be a unadorned model of Portuguese parliament the place our govt executes nothing, the place our leaders are our collective misleaders, the place our take-home pay can by no means once more take us dwelling.
If you earlier talked concerning the press, I feel we needs to be speaking concerning the freedom of the press. Some journalists have put their lives within the line of responsibility, some have been taken away and by no means been discovered. Now how free is the press in at this time’s journalism within the aftermath of the quite a few examples listed above?
That is essential in reaching the successes you earlier talked about within the time previous. The press ought to enable itself for use; the press itself needs to be keen to permit itself to be locked up, it should be the poster boy of this democracy. Let me inform you that extra journalists should be locked up if the press should obtain its objective.
You because the journalist should be hounded for telling the reality. As a press, you should be afraid to jot down within the open in case you are doing the best factor since you should be hounded, you should be chased since you are telling the reality to them. That’s what God has despatched you to do by means of your occupation.
It’s because you because the press are the holders of the collective conscience of hundreds of thousands of individuals. And since our judiciary has grow to be a laughing inventory, that position of being the final hope of the frequent man has really and tactically shifted to the facet of the media. This time the hope is actually what it’s – hope, hoping towards hopelessness.
However as an excellent chief, you should be hopeful of a greater time and in addition as a company, you should be telling the reality to encourage hope, and the one individuals who ought to try this, are keen to do this and converse the reality to the powers all the time is the press.
With that, there will probably be hope for this nation, a dying nation as a result of everybody is aware of that when non-state actors start to problem and dispense safety and set up their order in giant components of the nation, the nation is a failed nation. Once we can’t discuss however have a look at virtually 100 per cent of the value of products each month due to inflation, it’s a failed state.
If you had been paying N195 per litre of gas a 12 months in the past and at this time you might be paying N1,200 for a similar one litre of gas, it’s a dying nation.
When there isn’t a mixture rise within the pay bundle of the typical Nigerian, we’re a failing nation. Whereas I commend the journalists, I really feel they haven’t achieved sufficient.
What subsequent for the transition committee after the assembly reportedly didn’t maintain?
The assembly lastly passed off. We had a bit challenge right here after which and I’m not in APC to know why they couldn’t put their home so as.
The state authorities has continued to point out them how the federal government is run. There will probably be subsequent conferences and I hope the APC will get up to the transition. We, in our celebration, will proceed to combat the electoral heist.
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