Jonathan and Oshiomhole
In a statement released by Ikechukwu Eze, on Wednesday, Dr.
Goodluck Jonathan, reacted to an allegation by the national chairman of
the All Progressive Congress (APC), Adams Oshiomhole, that vote-buying
was started by the former president, and questioned the psychological
state of Oshiomhole.
Jonathan described the former Edo State Governor’s remark as
“misleading falsehood”, and accused him (Oshomole) of introducing the
vote buying trend during his stint as Edo governor in 2016.
He described the APC chairman as someone suffering from multiple
personality syndrome and has a Jekyll and Hyde Schizophrenia citing
Oshiomhole’s recent ‘flip-flops’ which he said may not be unconnected
‘with the pressure he is going through in his new office’.
The statement read in part: “It appears that Mr Oshiomhole’s
psychological strain may have reached boiling point. His recent
flip-flops where he praised Governor Samuel Ortom and Senator Rabiu Musa
Kwankwaso one day only to denounce them the very next day, is enough
evidence of his fragile psychological state.
“Not only is he content on squabbling with members of the
opposition, we note the self-destructive tendencies of Oshiomhole who is
locked in a feud with members of his own party including the minister
of labour, Chris Ngige, and a host of APC Governors.”
Jonathan said vote-buying phenomenon became prominent during the
2016 Edo State governorship election, and noted that Oshiomhole was one
of those who praised him over the numerous credible elections his
government conducted including the 2011 and 2015 general elections ‘as
well as Anambra, Ekiti, Ondo and Edo gubernatorial elections’.
“On the vexatious issue of ‘vote-buying’, which has
unfortunately found its way into our election lexicon, this is what we
know: It is obvious that the shameful development in our democratic
experience became very glaring during the 2016 gubernatorial elections
in Edo State; an exercise that took place more than one year after
President Jonathan had left office.
“It is therefore disingenuous for any politician or group to
link the former President with the anomaly, no matter how they want to
stretch the now-failing blame game.
“While in office as president between 2010 and 2015, Jonathan
conducted many elections including the 2011 and 2015 general elections,
and many off-season gubernatorial and parliamentary elections in some
States like Anambra, Ekiti, Ondo and Edo; and not for once did the issue
of vote buying come up in the assessment of those elections.
“It is instructive that in each case, the former president was
given a clean bill, with both local and international observers
commending him for having supervised a credible and transparent process.
“One of those who gave the former president a clean bill of
health, was Mr Oshiomhole himself who on July 16, 2012, said: ”What the
Edo election has confirmed is that when the President and
Commander-in-Chief puts the country first and he conducts himself as a
statesman not just as a party leader, credible elections are possible”.
“When you juxtapose the above statement with Mr Oshiomhole’s
current statement, it becomes obvious that the APC Chairman is suffering
from multiple personality syndrome and has a Jekyll and Hyde
schizophrenia.
“It may be that Mr. Oshiomhole’s false accusations against Dr.
Jonathan stem from his own guilty conscience arising from the unenviable
behaviour he exhibited during the September 2016 gubernatorial election
in his state, when his bid to anoint his successor pushed him into
desperate measures and a win-at-all-cost mentality that introduced
flagrant vote merchandising in our polity, thereby making Edo State the
clear starting point of that cankerworm.
“After observing the Edo 2016 gubernatorial election, the
Transition Monitoring Group (TMG) a coalition of over 400 civil society
organisations spread across the country, said the following about the
exercise: “The most frequent reported incidents (of electoral
irregularities) are vote buying/voter bribery. The trend was later to
spread to Ondo, Anambra and Ekiti States governorship elections, all
taking place after Jonathan had left office as President.
“What also changed was that Oshiomhole’s emergence as the
national chairman of APC and the burden of ‘delivering results to his
party’, has pushed him into exporting and escalating this vote buying
dexterity to other states, as recently witnessed in Ekiti governorship
poll.
“The fact is that inducement as a tool in the hands of
politicians is an old malaise that no Nigerian can be proud of. It is
bad enough that this has been allowed to fester and morph into the ugly
trend that is today called vote buying. Given this circumstance, you
would expect a statesman of Oshiomhole’s standing to offer perspectives
on how to solve this problem that is already making our country an
object of scorn in the eyes of the international community.”
The ex-president while urging Oshiomhole to shun the blame game, also chided the APC-led government.
“That Oshiomhole only resorted to blame game rather than offer
any useful suggestions to the election management bodies on how to solve
this shameful problem, in the cited television interview, is a sad
commentary on the quality and character of today’s political leaders.
“A government that continues to blame its predecessor rather
than show its scorecard, less than one year to the end of its four-year
tenure, is only giving the impression that it is already at its wit’s
end,” he added.