By EMMANUEL AZIKEN
The vacillation of the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN to come to grips with its third place finishing in the Ondo State gubernatorial election is bewildering.

After the party shored up its votes from a miserly 30,000+ in 2007 to more than 145,000 votes penultimate Saturday, the party elders do not want to believe that they have achieved anything remarkable.

The leaders of the party after a formal review of the election last Monday said they would continue to review the conduct of the election and would file an election petition to review the outcome should they find a loophole. Meanwhile, it can be said that no smoking gun has been found to launch a petition.

The dithering of the party is not totally surprising. The ACN had set for itself what not a few considered as a ‘tall order’ in its determination to sweep Governor Segun Mimiko away from office in the election.

At the end, the party came a respectable third in a very competitive election that has continued to puzzle many, including your correspondent.

Once the results came out penultimate Sunday, the first shock was that the ACN came third. Never mind that the distance between the ACN and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP which was second, was not much. It was not supposed to be.

The second shock for many was the amount and proportion of votes the incumbent governor, Dr. Segun Mimiko who flew the Labour Party, LP standard got.

Mimiko’s proportion of the votes fell from a respectable 55 per cent of the total votes in 2007 to an estimated 40 percent. It was so shocking that when this correspondent called one of the foot soldiers of the Labour Party that night to tell him that his boss did not do as much as expected, he did not believe it.

Engrossed in the celebration, it seemed as if one was about to truncate a nice dream. Given the acclaimed achievements of Dr. Mimiko in his first term, was it that his supporters ever expected him to lose the election?

That is a hanging question one has been trying to grapple with.
On the other hand, many are also asking whether the ACN and its supporters really believed the message that their leaders drummed up prior to the election that they were going to sweep Mimiko out of office? In analysing the election many, especially those in the ACN, gave the impression of having underestimated the experience of Dr. Mimiko in the Ondo political arena.

With the probable exception of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Chief Bisi Akande, many others deployed by the ACN in the contest were no political mates of Dr. Mimiko.
Dr. Mimiko, it is easily recalled, has devoted almost all his life to politics; more to it than his professional calling in the field of medicine.

Since he left medical school he is reported to have fully engaged in politics since the third republic and has a good political map of the length and breadth of his state.
Engaging him in his own backyard was never expected to be an easy task. That he did not win the majority of the votes cast is really shocking. The ACN must congratulate itself for doing well in the election and articulate a more fitting response to match with the democratic inclinations it so much ventilates.

It is welcoming that the party has promised to establish a vibrant opposition machine to monitor and measure the actions of the Mimiko administration.

That is a welcome development. Indeed, the party must move beyond Ondo State and activate the same monitoring mechanism in every other state where it is in opposition.
The party has commendably won for itself adulation for its rigorous and robust check on the PDP Federal Government.

But it also must further endear itself to democracy enthusiasts by at least conceding victory to Labour in Ondo. There is no shame to it.

After all, the party fought a good fight.
Conceding today will win it the plaudits and positive public image it would need to enter the next battle. Ekiti and Osun coming next will be another story.