Temporarily, and precariously pending the full revelation of the indestructible whole truth relating to the 2024 Edo Governorship contest, the APC can for now, shamelessly celebrate the manufactured and manipulated outcome of their September 21st political banditry. PDP’s day of Victory will irreversibly and unchangeably come!
Perhaps consciously or unconsciously, a huge dosage of diffidence was perceivable during the initial celebration by the APC political gang regarding their vote rustling operation. A very close look at the INEC declaration ceremony of the fake result announcing Okpebholo shows even the doubting countenance of the so-called Gov-elect; Oshiomhole was literally pulling up someone, who seems to be in a state of stupor and psychologically dazed, to even believe that their shenanigans panned out – the principal plotter behind the political heist (Oshiomhole) had to nudge the leashed domestic Carnivora (Okpebholo) to at least bark in appreciation of the staged result. The awkward moment of the prodding of Okpebholo by Oshiomhole exposes the hopelessness and the fraud of the APC candidacy, without the constitutional resistance of the people, we are about to literally have a mannequin imposed as Governor on our polity.
The dawn of triumph of the PDP will unstoppably come: our party has a covenant with the people and Edo’s manifest destiny will not be hijacked by the invading barbarian-like horde of unconscious citizens at the gate of our civilization.
The ordained right of Edo people to exercise their sovereignty in a Democracy was cruelly abrogated on September 21st, 2024 – a day that will be indelibly etched in infamy. On the 21st, the brightening rainbow of our democratic progress was draped in mourning fabric while the oxygenating soul of our democratic growth was savagely bludgeoned.
The headquarters of INEC in Benin which supposedly represents the altar for affirmation of democratic values was beastially degraded to a ghoulish abyss for unprecedented manipulation and manufacturing of votes for the APC. Deeply corrupt and compromised INEC officials protected by uniformed goons (federal police) acted in despicable orgy with APC thugs and agents to perfect a coup against the people of Edo State.
The false evangelist and the very personification of moral contradictions, Oshiomhole, was centrally involved in the planning and execution of the political fraud, the same character who once pretentiously hoisted a national flag adorned with the democratic holy grail of “one man, one vote“, was on the 21st orchestrating the scandal of wholesale banditry of votes, Oshiomhole was not just invalidating “one vote“, but he was neutralizing not just the aspiration of hundreds of voters in the polling units but thousands of ballots from entire local governments.
The diabolical duo of Oshiomhole and Okphebholo must fully understand the temporary nature of the euphoria in which they are
frolicking, they should wisely embrace the possibility in the destruction and disruption of the line of history; in fact in the larger context of life’s lessons, the timelessly celebrated author of tragic drama, Sophocles, sagely wrote (paraphrasing) that one must wait till it’s evening before declaring how splendid the day has been.
Oshiomhole should know better than anyone else that the situation of political fortunes may not be permanently linear, the ex-Governor knows that he was a product of judicial intervention in 2008 upturning a seemingly corrupt election. The formidable fact of the September 2024 election is that PDP and Asue Ighodalo have far stronger case, infallibly more compelling than in the Oshiomhole circumstance; the Okpebholo’s victory will be fleetingly and humiliatingly temporary.
If Oshiomhole and the APC leadership thought that their strike on Election Day will be devastating enough, to demolish the confidence of the PDP leadership,
then Oshiomhole has gravely underestimated the courageous will of Edo people and the PDP leadership to defend Democracy.
This is a defining moment in our history and the determination of principled citizenry to entrench ennobling societal political values. We are at the crossroads of a new developmental History and for the kind of changes for which the PDP is fighting, we are confident in jury of History, no counter political force or the army and police no matter how formidable can stop the crystallization of an idea whose time has come.
Oteghe Adams writes from Benin-City, Edo State,Nigeria
