THE 2010 Electoral Act in Section 53 subsection (1) states that: “No voter shall vote for more than one candidate or record more than one vote”.

Succinctly put, the supposed legal and electoral meaning of that provision is “one-man, one-vote”. Before the 2010 electoral law was passed, there were other electoral laws that point to the same fact. The “one-man, one-vote” phenomenon is a standard that has been set which all politicians and the electoral body are expected to comply with.

But in reality, over the years, the Nigerian politicians and the expected impartial umpire have refused to conform to this rule of the game with many becoming victims of electoral processes that are fundamentally manipulated and flawed. Any victim of such a process would normally seek for redress within the confines of the law.

Within the context of fighting to reclaim a stolen mandate and lay a foundation for preventing future occurrences by way of encouraging the electorate to vote and defend their votes within the confines of the enabling law and the launching of the one-man, one-vote campaign at Ogbemudia Stadium in 2009, Comrade Adams Aliyu Oshiomhole can be said to be an apostle of “one-man, one-vote”. In particular, between 1999 and 2007 Edo State was a victim of mandates theft some of which were retrieved through the judiciary, including the 2007 Governorship mandate.

On Sunday, February 23, 2014 Dr. Tonnie Iredia wrote an article in his Nigeria Today’s column in the Vanguard newspaper entitled “One-Man, One -Vote: Edo’s futile slogan”. As a student of political history, I read through the write-up and wish to refer Dr. Iredia back to what led Comrade Oshiomhole into becoming the apostle of “One-man One-vote”. In that article, Dr. Iredia argued that the philosophy of One-man, One-vote was a mere diversionary slogan that was not brought to bear on the 2012 election and the Esan North-East Local Government Council election in 2014.

It is better to place on record why Comrade Oshiomhole wanted to be governor of Edo State. Number one reason was the issue of godfatherism which like a cankerworm had eaten deep into the fabric of our state. Other reasons rest on the above reason.

In the said 2007, after the election while reflecting on the non-performance of the PDP leadership in Edo State, Chief Anthony Anenih himself had this to say: “The people of Edo State suffered most tragically from poor governance, bad leadership in government and lack of development, resulting in acute shortage of infrastructural facilities, good roads, potable water, electricity, housing, health and educational facilities. Our cities are polluted with constant threats of floods and erosion.

There is no security of life and property, while poverty and unemployment are at their peak. One is tempted to ask if indeed, there had been government in Edo State in these eight years. The …government must have totally ignored Section 14(2) of the 1999 Constitution which states that the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government”.

In my response, I chose to use the word “Point Blank” as the anchor-name of Dr. Iredia’s erstwhile programme on the Nigerian Television Authority, NTA, to explain away my reaction to the said write-up on the basis of facts.

Dr. Iredia must know point blank that Comrade  Oshiomhole was the Action Congress governorship candidate in the April 14, 2007 Edo State governorship election who overwhelming won the election but had his mandate stolen by the combined forces of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP and the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, a mandate that was later retrieved through the Edo State Election Petitions Tribunal, EDSEPT and the Court of Appeal. It was not only the Edo State governorship mandate that was stolen by these forces. Ekiti, Ogun, Ondo, Osun and Oyo states were equally victims of mandate theft in that same election.

Dr Iredia must remember point blank that in what seems to be admitting the obvious about the massive rigging of the 2007 elections by the ruling PDP, and while telling “defeated candidates” to head for the elections tribunal, then President Olusegun Obasanjo described the said 2007 elections this way in his nation-wide broadcast: “On my part, I am disappointed in the conduct of the political parties and their candidates that employed thugs and violent means to secure what they consider ‘electoral victory’“.

But shamefully too, this was how AFROBAROMETER as reported by Washington Post on April 20, 2007 described the same 2007 elections: “The faith of Nigerians in democracy plummeted from 84% during the early years of Obasanjo’s first term to a miserable 25% in 2005.

Neither military President Babangida’s cancellation of the June 1993 presidential election, nor President Shehu Shagari’s flawed 1983 elections, nor even General Sani Abacha’s terrible tyranny between 1993 and 1998 come near the damage Obasanjo has done to Nigeria’s democracy since 1999”.

In the same vein, Dr. Iredia must remember point blank that this was also the verdict of local and international observers on the outcomes of the 2007 elections through the Chief Observer of the European Election Observation Mission, EUEOM, Mr. Max van den Berg: “The 2007 state and federal elections have fallen far short of international standards for democratic elections….They were marred by poor organisation, lack of essential transparency, widespread procedural irregularities, significant evidence of fraud, particularly during the election collation process, voter disenfranchisement at different stages of the process, lack of equal condition for the contestants and numerous incidents of violence”.

In that same general elections so described, the ‘PDP won landslide’. Such was the scenario that threw-up Comrade Oshiomhole as the apostle of One-man One vote.  It is true as duly acknowledged by Dr. Iredia that Edo State is virtually the originator of the ‘one man-one vote’ scheme because of the shame of election chicanery that involved the PDP and INEC from 1999 till date. These are facts, not lies!

During the launch of the one-man one vote campaign in Benin City, notable Nigerian past and present leaders, including those who did not believe in democracy were invited and they came to imbibe the spirit and share it abroad the country. Is there anything wrong in that?

Dr. Iredia must know that if he has intellectual cum socio-political interest in democratic governance in Nigeria he should but be disconcerted by the general climate of electoral mandates theft by the PDP, the morbid corruption that is tearing the Federal Government apart and the issue of general insecurity and terrorism.

Dr. Iredia must know point blank that in reality and contrary to the outcomes of the 2007 elections in the State which led Governor Oshiomhole to launch the one-man, one-vote scheme in the first instance, Edo State was well prepared and indeed ready for the July 14, 2012 Governorship Election which the Governor won overwhelmingly in the 18 Local Government Areas of the State and is yet described the freest and fairest election in Nigeria’s political history after the June 12, 1993 Presidential Election.

Here are point blank posers for Dr. Iredia:

In the light of what Farooq wrote of Dr. Iredia’s leadership at NTA, will it be right to say or can it be said point blank that the Authority allowed itself to be a tool in the hands of its appointing authority?

From the outcome of most recent elections conducted in parts of the country and the apparent mandates theft traceable to the PDP in collusion with INEC, will it not be right to say or can it be said point blank that the PDP-led Federal Government and its INEC are involved in the shame of election chicanery despite the position of both the PDP and INEC leadership on one-man one-vote?

Will it be right for someone to say that Dr. Iredia is a PDP apologist? And if he is, as one may be forced to believe, can it be said point blank that the proposed National Confab by the PDP-led Federal Government is a diversionary tactic from the main issues of governance and development that the country is in dire need of?

Conclusively, the extent to which Tonnie Iredia is prepared to attack the Comrade Governor, those opposing the PDP and be silent on the way the country is drifting in the hands of the PDP-led Federal Government does not only beat any sane political Nigerian’s imagination but best captures the way Farooq Kperogi described his leadership at the helm of affairs in the Nigeria Television Authority: “In the name of protecting a so-called Broadcasting Code, he assaults our sensibilities with cheap, unimaginative propaganda, and has reduced the NTA to one irritatingly boring, one-sided propaganda mouth-piece of an insensitive, incompetent and unbelievably venal government”.