Osun defied the narratives by giving the rest of Nigeria a ray of hope, argues AYODELE OKUNFOLAMI
Because Andy Burnham was interested in taking over from the then troubled Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, he had to return to parliament. This meant he had to contest the vacant Makerfield seat in a by-election that he won. Burnham had earlier resigned as Mayor of Manchester to take advantage of the election meaning that the Manchester Mayoral position was now up for grabs. The by-election for mayor took place July 30th and Bev Craig was declared winner.
I want to take for granted that the reader is aware why Osun State had to go to the polls outside the regular general election cycle in Nigeria. Governor Ademola Adeleke regained his seat after a fiercely fought election. The buildup to the elections was dirty, messy and bloody. Federal might was deployed (don’t mind the Minister of the FCT) in the closure of local government accounts and other state accounts, bias police arrests, overwhelming presence of governors and senators of the ruling party, and violence that led to more than 40 election-related deaths.
Despite the feared perils and historical mistrust of the process, 44% of Osun voters came out to cast their vote compared to 24% of Mancunians that came out to vote. The Osun voter, like every other Nigerian voter, has only six hours (8am to 2pm) to vote on a Saturday or a designated public holiday while Election Day in the UK is usually on Thursdays, they have 13 hours to vote (7am to 10pm) and this is besides the option to vote by mail. Altogether, the Greater Manchester resident had about two weeks to vote yet, they have a poorer turnout than Osun.
Ironically, the Manchester percentage is lower than the UK average while Osun is higher than the Nigerian average, but I have chosen to pick the positives from Osun end. I can’t say why Mancunians were less interested in coming out to vote for their mayor, but we can learn from the Osun electorate.
The first thing I would like us to take from Osun is their resilience. One could have lazily taken the easy path of voter apathy with the predictable excuse of votes not counting, coming out to vote is risky, or that things remain the same however the votes go but Osun said no. They defied the narratives giving the rest of Nigeria a ray of hope.
What I can deduce from this is that it is not because we don’t vote remotely, electronically or safely that prevents us from exercising our civic responsibility, but it is because the political options before us have neither been appealing nor enticing enough to cost us all the trouble. Adeleke went all out to campaign. He didn’t just fold his arms and blame his loss to a flawed and helpless process. He carried people from Osun and beyond with him. Politicians that want people to vote for them should be ready to do the work.
Another goal Osun scored over Manchester was the timeliness of the result. That was surprising. Despite Osun state being nine times bigger in geographical mass area, twice the voting population, more rural and bucolic than Greater Manchester, yet Adeleke was declared winner less than 18 hours after polls closed. Compare that with the Manchester polls that had to go for a runoff. The first round of votes was not concluded 24 hours after polls closed. It was until Saturday afternoon that the returning officer announced Craig as the newly elected mayor. We need to clap for ourselves, build on it and not always badmouth ourselves. Meanwhile, the UK voting system is strictly manual. You go to the polling unit and vote with your hand on paper and it is counted as crudely as ours.
However, I want to point something from this Manchester election that we can learn from. The use of the Supplementary Vote System. In this system, the voter is given two electoral options on one ballot paper. The first being his preferred option, the second being an entirely different candidate from the first. The second vote is considered if after the initial count doesn’t produce a candidate with over 50% of the votes, all but the top two candidates are eliminated and the votes for the excluded candidates are transferred to their second preference if cast for either of the two remaining candidates. After all the second preference votes are counted and added to the first-choice tallies, the candidate among the remaining two who has the most votes is declared the winner and elected.
With the 2027 race expected to be close, I think Nigeria can adapt this voting method in future Electoral Acts amendments to save us cost in (re)printing ballot papers, the overall logistics of deployment of election materials and personnel, and the shutting of the economy again to accommodate a runoff election. Elections in Nigeria is criminally more expensive compared to that of the UK. The UK can afford to change Prime Ministers as often as they want because the cost of general elections does not cost them an arm. The UK does not need to spend almost N210 billion on bimodal voter accreditation system to verify a voter because they have a standardised housing system with residents duly registered in the state used as automatically used as the voters register.
Graeter Manchester, as I observed, did not need to deploy over 15,000 police officers as was needed in Osun because election is a regular civic exercise. With a pollution of less than 2.8 million people regularly watched by over 8,200 police officers, the election came and went with voters not scared of hoodlums or thuggery. There was no need to post police to every polling unit adding to the already over bloated budget of INEC.
The Osun verdict went well both from the electoral umpire and the electorate alike. It is up to the Nigerians as whole to ensure it is not a one off nor a step forward and many steps backwards. The politicians especially need to do more in their conduct and utterances to ensure we can build on this mercy drops that Osun bestowed on us.
Okunfolami writes from
Festac, Lagos. @ayookunfolami