By Soyombo Opeyemi

Just as it is said in law that there must be an end to litigation in any dispute, there must also be an end to electioneering in any political contest. I am not aware of any rescheduled election  in Ogun State that could warrant an indirect return to the soap box to canvass for votes.  Losers emerged while winners were officially declared.

On a day the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in the general elections took his dispute to the Election Petitions Tribunal, he also took his case to the court of public opinion, where he unleashed vitriol against the current government of the state. While we shall leave the former to lawyers, his denigration of both the person and the office of the governor should not go without some comments.

While one had thought the PDP candidate would take advantage of the olive branch extended to the opposition by Governor Ibikunle Amosun, during his victory speech by, at least, constituting himself into a credible opposition that is committed to constructive criticisms of government policies, what he merely regurgitated last Thursday were the rhetoric, empty sloganeering and other cock and bull stories that dominated the campaign of the PDP in the run-up to the  elections. Yes, we’ve heard them before. That the governor is so rich, that he bought many private jets, gave one to Obama, one to Putin, another to Bill Gates! But the governor is so generous that he did not even remember to buy one for himself! We also heard that he left the planet earth and travelled to Mars and Jupiter, where he built one storey in the former and a bungalow in the latter! These tales by moonlight are actually good for children but not the type that can be relied on to win elections.

The problem is that these people do not know Amosun or pretend not to know him. Early in the life of his administration, Amosun used to spend weekends in his house in Lagos while the Government House was under renovation. Then one day, from nowhere, a file emerged. It contained travelling allowances running into millions of naira. “What is this for?” he asked the official. “Your travelling allowances to Lagos, Your Excellency!” Shocked, Amosun retorted, “Really, but I was going to my own house?” “That’s the way it’s done sir!” Amosun then dismissed the official with the file and warned against such frivolous expenditure in his government.

While these people may prefer to denigrate the governor and his government, purely for political consideration, those who should know him actually know him. They include the masses, whose children enjoy free education, which they last enjoyed more than a generation ago. The market men and women, auto mechanics, battery chargers, barbers, hair-dressers, video-club owners, business centre owners, auto-mechanics, auto-electricians, welders, tailors, etc. who benefited from the hundreds of transformers distributed state-wide to revive their hitherto comatose businesses. These and others, who now sleep with their eyes closed, were the people that trooped out in their thousands to vote for change in Abuja and continuity in Ogun State. But for the fact that APC was denied thousands of PVCs in its strongholds and the PDP-led centre virtually strangulated the opposition states with funds in order to turn workers against them (which failed woefully here in Ogun State), the PDP would not have been able to garner up to one-third of the total votes in the 2015 elections in Ogun State.

How would they when the party (PDP in Ogun) was polarised with godfathers competing for hold on the party.

The PDP candidate Gboyega Isiaka should not dissipate energy and resources on contesting a free and fair election that is clear to everyone, including himself, that he lost. Now is the time to return to the drawing board with a team of respectable citizens as mentors or godfathers.

• Soyombo writes from Abeokuta via [email protected]