Politics for some is a dirty game and this is one of it - Propaganda, blackmail bedevil Ondo politics

Ondo governorship aspirants

Political parties in Ondo State seem to have abandoned issue-based politics and embraced a campaign of calumny ahead of the Oct. 20 governorship poll, writes SUNDAY ABORISADE

The recent involvement of the General Overseer of the Synagogue Church of All Nations, in Ondo politics was the anti-climax of a series of subtle campaign of calumny embarked upon by some political parties, who are contesting in the Oct. 20 governorship election in the state.

A Short Message Service, which emanated from a source still shrouded in mystery, and alleged that Prophet Temitope Joshua said he did not see the governor winning a second term in office, was freely circulated among residents last week.

The prophet had promptly dissociated himself from the anti-Governor Olusegun Mimiko text message through a clarification in an electronic statement by his consultant, Legaville Konsult, in Akure.

The statement said “

such could not have emanated from him (Joshua) being a man of God, who will never be part of a cheap political propaganda of a family of lies.”

Joshua, who is from Arigidi-Akoko, in the northern part of the state, said he had nothing against the second term ambition of the governor and that, at no time did he give any prophecy against Mimiko’s second term ambition.

He denied the ownership of the hoax SMS and insisted that he did not prophesy against Mimiko’s second term in office.

The three most prominent political parties in the race – the Action Congress of Nigeria, the Peoples Democratic Party and the Labour Party – recently accused one another of buying voter cards from the electorate.

The PDP and the ACN, in separate statements last week, alleged that the LP government was carrying out a biometric registration of civil servants in the state with a view to replacing them with the registered voters in the register of the Independent National Electoral Commission.

But the INEC boss in the state, Mr. Akin Orebiyi, described the opposition parties’ claim as false and unfounded. He said the LP was not in any way conniving with the INEC workers to carry out any illegal voter registration in the state.

He said those peddling the rumour had added that the intention of the fake voter registration was to eliminate the names of supporters of opposing parties and substitute them with the names of their own supporters.

He said, “I wish to say here and now that the allegation is not true. It is false and malicious. No voter registration exercise of any kind is being carried out by the INEC staff or that involves INEC functionary.

“Besides, nobody, including INEC staff, knows how to manipulate the software to access the voter register in this state.”

He said the commission was ready to produce a copy of the voter register for the state to any political party on request, 30 days before the election.

The ACN, through the Director of Media and Publicity of the Akeredolu Campaign Organisation, Mr. Idowu Ajanaku, issued a statement last week and accused the LP of engaging in massive purchase of voter cards.

The ruling LP had also, earlier, hinted that the ACN was planning to buy voter cards from residents.

The  Olusegun Mimiko Campaign Organisation, in a statement by its Director of Media and Publicity, Mr. Kolawole Olabisi, raised the alarm over an alleged massive purchase of voter cards by the opposition parties from the electorate.

Olabisi had insisted that there was “a surreptitious attempt by the opposition to rig the forthcoming election.”

He said, “The Olusegun Mimiko Campaign Organisation has uncovered a massive mop-up of voter caads by the opposition from unsuspecting members of the populace, who are now being lured with financial inducement.

“The opposition parties are luring prospective voters with amount ranging from N5,000 to N10,000 in their desperation to win the forthcoming election at all costs when it has become crystal clear that they could not win in a free and fair election.”

But the Special Adviser to the ACN candidate, Ajanaku, dismissed the LP’s claim and insisted that the statement was not only a lie, but cheap blackmail.

He said, “We don’t need money to buy the people before they will freely vote for us in this election.”

Olabisi told our correspondent that the recent declaration by the INEC Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, that a political party was compiling an illegal voter register a few days after Ajanaku confirmed that 10,000 unemployed youths had submitted their curriculum vitae to the headquarters of the Akeredolu Campaign Organisation, had justified the LP’s claims.

Apart from using the print and electronic media to misinform members of the public, the parties are also employing the use of the social media network like the Facebook, Twitter and others to send wrong information around.

For instance, Mimiko was said to have been arrested and quizzed by the police in London recently, when indeed the governor was attending a meeting in Abuja. 

Obviously worried by the development, the leadership of the State Security Service told journalists at a forum recently that it had been meeting separately with all stakeholders in the election on the need to avoid statements, innuendos or outright lies that could heat up the polity and create unnecessary apprehension.

The Director-General of the Olusegun Mimiko Campaign Organisation, Mr. Akin Adaramola, on Wednesday alleged that a particular opposition party in the state had perfected strategies to cause violence on the day of the governorship election.

Adaramola, who addressed a news conference in Akure, noted that leaders of one of the political parties knew that they could not win the election, hence they planned to wear vests and fez caps that would bear LP inscription to cause confusion.

He said, “Part of their plans was that they had made arrangements to impersonate the LP as they had perfected plans for their boys to wear vests and fez caps with Mimiko’s name on Election Day.

“They planned to take photographs and document the incident for the purpose of presenting them as evidence at the Election Petitions Tribunal.

“Their plot is to explore technical means of creating confusion during the forthcoming governorship election by perpetrating acts which they hope to use against the Labour Party while prosecuting their legal battle after losing the poll.

“At the moment, they had produced about 300,000 out of the over 500,000 copies of vests and fez caps with an inscription, “Mimiko Special Corps, anti-electoral fraud.”

Adaramola displayed some of the branded shirts and caps allegedly produced by the opposition to impersonate LP members.

He said, “They are also mobilising 5,000 persons from each of the local government councils in all the ACN controlled states in the South-West and Edo for their proposed rally, which will be held in Akure anytime from the middle of September.”

However, Ajanaku denied allegations that his party was planning to mobilise people from other states to campaign for the ACN governorship candidate in the state, saying, “The Labour Party is crying wolf where there is none.

“We want to state categorically that the ACN is a party on the ground in Ondo State and would not need to mobilise people from other states to successfully win the coming election,” he stated, adding, “If ACN leaders and supporters from the South-West states have decided to come to show solidarity for Barrister Rotimi Akeredolu in his campaign effort, so be it. After all, there is freedom of association in Nigeria as guaranteed by the constitution.”

 Keen watchers of events as they unfold in the Sunshine State are, however, of the opinion that security operatives have a critical role to play as all the parties seem to have seriously oiled their propaganda machines in a bid to curry the favour and support of the electorate as the Oct. 20 governorship election date approaches.

 Culled from punchng