Former Ekiti State Governor and Social Democratic Party candidate in the 2022 governorship election, Chief Segun Oni, tells ABIODUN NEJO his thoughts on the state of the country and what the incoming government needs to do differently to correct the wrongs in the system.
From my viewpoint, it was not free and fair and the Independent National Electoral Commission rehearsed what it wanted to do. The Ekiti governorship election preceded the general elections and ours was one of the first where the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System was used. It’s funny that Nigerians did not bother to find out how BVAS performed in Ekiti before they started jumping on the bandwagon. When the result was announced, we thought the next thing we should do was to go to the tribunal because that is the process. We went to the tribunal because we wanted to prove that there was no election in Ekiti. We tried to do that without any bitterness but to show that this system is terribly faulty, not because Segun Oni wanted to become governor at all cost, but because the system is faulty and it is for the sake of Nigerians. The tribunal gave orders to INEC twice to allow us access to BVAS and electoral materials because we knew we could prove the case, but on the two occasions, INEC refused. So, if Nigeria wanted to conduct a post-mortem, the same way they should look for the Resident Electoral Commissioner in Adamawa State (Hudu Yunusa-Ari) who called a wrong result is the way they should also look for the REC in Ekiti or any other REC that refused to obey court orders to allow people access to election materials. I don’t have any bitterness towards anybody. But if the system is that if you feel the election was not properly done you go to the tribunal, we went to the tribunal and one official, the REC, blocked our access. It is funny that the so-called civil society groups are not asking questions. Part of the funny thing is that even the election tribunal that gave orders twice that we should have access did also not remember to include it in its judgment. So, you should ask questions; is this a serious country; are we a serious people; are we serious about democracy? In this case, the judiciary, rather than being quiet when someone obstructed justice, should have pronounced that what they did wasn’t right. We are being too selective in what we do. When you see selective justice, it angers people and eventually it may boil over.
The Punch Newspaper