Osun Governorship Election: Adeleke Won; APC Defeated, but the Challenges Facing Working People, Youth and the Poor Remain
The Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM), Osun State, watched with keen interest the recently concluded governorship election in Osun State, in which the incumbent Governor, Ademola Adeleke of the Accord Party, emerged victorious. He got over 511,067 votes to defeat his main rival, Bola Oyebamiji of the All Progressives Congress (APC), who polled 444,815 votes. Other candidates included Najeem Salaam of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) and Jide Esan of the African Action Congress (AAC), who secured marginal votes.
The election was marred by lethal violence, particularly in the period preceding the election, with the police playing an obviously pernicious role. Not fewer than ten people were killed before the election, while the entire state was thrown into unwarranted apprehension. Furthermore, the election witnessed extensive monetisation, particularly through vote trading by the two major parties, the Accord Party and the APC, both before and during the election.
For instance, there were reports that the Accord Party gave N10,000 to each voter some days before the election, while the APC was reported to have committed between N30,000 and N50,000 for each vote on election day. This underscores the lack of confidence of both parties in their ability to convince voters of the genuineness of their programmes. Moreover, it demonstrates the weaponisation of poverty by bourgeois politicians and parties, who created the poverty in the first place. In a country where more than 60 percent of the population live on less than $3 – around N4,050 – a day, using financial inducements to win elections represents the dehumanisation of citizens.
No doubt, the election is seen by a large section of the population as a firm rejection of the APC and its brigandage and violent approach to elections, not to mention its overtly anti-worker policies. For instance, the APC had earlier used federal institutions such as the police and the Office of the Attorney-General of the Federation to illegally hijack the local government structures in the state. A few weeks before the election, the party’s thugs violently hijacked commercial motor parks across the state with the backing of the police. A few days before the election, a serving federal senator of the APC was seen openly calling for the killing of members of the Accord Party.
This was in addition to the wanton arrests carried out by the police, including the arrest of the Secretary to the State Government and a serving commissioner. All of these clearly exposed the APC as a very dangerous party to the people of the state. Not a few people saw an APC victory as a threat to their lives and living conditions. Therefore, vote trading or not, many people naturally came out to vote against the APC in order to protect their lives and livelihoods. However, members of Accord party were also culpable in the pre-election violence.
Yet, we in the DSM do not believe that the re-election of Ademola Adeleke represents any fundamental progress for the state. No doubt, Adeleke’s first term might have represented some marginal difference from the APC. For instance, some road projects were undertaken, opening up many previously forgotten communities. The government also paid some arrears of salaries and pensions owed to workers under the previous APC administrations of Rauf Aregbesola and Gboyega Oyetola. Also, the government implemented the then-legislated N70,000 minimum wage, resulting in a significant salary increase across the board. This marked a significant difference from the situation under the APC administrations, which not only denied workers and retirees their entitlements but also went further, under Oyetola, to claim that his government did not owe workers and retirees.
However, we in the DSM do not believe that there is any fundamental difference in principle and philosophy between the two parties. Many of the projects undertaken by the Adeleke administration were inflated. For example, the less-than-one-kilometre Lagere Flyover in Ile-Ife was constructed at about N15 billion, while the Okefia Flyover, with a length of less than 500 metres, was constructed for over N10 billion.
This is aside from other projects, such as the 9-kilometre Akoda-to-Oke-Gada road dualisation in Ede, which cost over N23 billion (about N2.6 billion per kilometre), and the 2.2-kilometre Old Garage-to-Lameco road dualisation in Osogbo, which cost over N5.8 billion (N2.6 billion per kilometre). The implication is that road projects are being used to enrich a few contractors and their political acolytes. More than this, inflated project costs divert funds that should have been used to undertake many other projects into private pockets. This explains why, despite the reconstruction of some roads, many other roads in towns across the state remain in terrible condition.
Moreover, in terms of workers’ welfare, the government has effected payment of less than ten out of the thirty months’ arrears of half salaries and pensions. If it takes the government four years to pay one-third of the arrears, how long will it take to offset the entire arrears? It should also be noted that inflation has devalued the arrears. In addition, gratuities owed to retirees are being paid in instalments, with less than half being paid over four years. All of these undermine the purchasing value of these payments. On the other hand, the government is heavily paying contractors owed by previous administrations, even when some of the projects are being completed by the current government.
Beyond roads and salaries are other critical sectors such as education, healthcare and agriculture. For a state that earns more than N12 billion monthly, the current condition of public schools, from primary to tertiary level, is definitely condemnable. There remains a serious shortage of teachers and non-teaching staff in public primary and secondary schools, while facilities such as functional laboratories, libraries, workshops and even sanitary facilities are either non-existent or in deplorable conditions. Currently, pupils and students in primary and secondary schools are being forced to pay some levies ranging from N3,000 to N8,000. Aside the fact that this is against law that allows for free education up to junior secondary school, this commercialization of education has led to some students and pupils dropping out of school.
The tertiary institutions remain in the terrible conditions left by previous administrations, with most of them now desolate as a result of underfunding and high school fees. For instance, fees at the new University of Ilesa range from N800,000 to N2 million. Yet, the university is still using the old facilities of the defunct College of Education. Workers’ and students’ unionism in the institution is prohibited by the statute establishing the university.
The situation in the health sector is no different. While the state government claims to have committed billions of naira to rebuilding primary healthcare centres and state hospitals, the reality is that most of these health institutions still lack basic medical materials and adequate staff. In terms of water and sanitation, the state is still lagging behind. Most communities continue to rely on unsafe sources of water, while the state’s Water Corporation is in a comatose condition. Existing waste collection and management systems are dysfunctional due to poor funding. In the agricultural sector, the best that the Adeleke administration has done in the last four years under its so-called agricultural revolution is the procurement of thirty (30) tractors for the thirty local governments in a state where there are thousands of active farmers.
Therefore, while we recognise that a significant section of the population considers the defeat of the APC a positive development, given its overtly anti-people and perniciously violent approach during the election, we call for caution. We call on workers, youth and other sections of the working people in Osun State not to be carried away by the defeat of the APC or the victory of Ademola Adeleke and the Accord Party. Rather, they should use the opportunity to rebuild their mass organisations, including trade unions, students’ unions, community movements and youth movements, as fighting platforms to demand improvements in their living conditions and genuine development of the state.
Working people, youth and other oppressed people in Osun State cannot afford to place their trust in Adeleke or the Accord Party for a better life; they have to fight for it themselves. Nothing underscores this more than the fact that the first political pronouncement of Governor Adeleke after the election was to pledge his commitment to the re-election of President Bola Tinubu, who has presided over the worst attacks on the living conditions of the people.
This shows that Governor Adeleke and his government consider the people secondary to their political alliance. It also reflects the reality that he is not fundamentally different from Tinubu in terms of principles and ideology. We call on working people and youth to reject this endorsement of Tinubu by Adeleke, as it does not represent the interests of working people, youth and the oppressed in Osun State or Nigeria.
In conclusion, the DSM calls for the building of a mass party of workers, youth, the wider working people and the poor as an alternative to the main capitalist parties, not in Osun State but also more importantly nationally. Only such a party, with clear socialist programmes and a genuine democratic culture, can begin to liberate the working people and the poor from the pangs of poverty, suffering and hardship.
This is the task before the labour movement, civil society groups, youth and the oppressed in general.
Alfred Adegoke
DSM State Coordinator
Kola Ibrahim
DSM State Secretary