Oni’s Petition and Ekiti’s Politics of Vengeance

Victor Ogunje examines the move by the Social Democratic Party’s candidate in the recent gubernatorial election in Ekiti State, Segun Oni, to appeal the victory of Biodun Oyebanji of the All Progressives Congress at the poll

On July 6, 2022, former governor Segun Oni and the candidate of the Social Democratic Party in the recent Ekiti State governorship election, filed a petition at the Election Petitions Tribunal to upturn the victory of Biodun Oyebanji and All Progressives Congress candidate in the keenly contested electoral battle.

Oyebanji, a former Secretary to the State government and  experienced politician with full grasp of Ekiti politics, having been part of government since 1999, garnered a total of 187,045 votes to defeat Oni, his closest challenger, who polled 82, 209 ballots to rank second in the highly pulsating poll.

As constituted by the Appeal Court President, Hon Justice Dongban-Mensem, the Tribunal panel, is to be chaired by Justice Wilfred Kpochi, while  Justices Sa’ad Zadawa and Jacob Atsen, are members.

The current litigation, which pundits presumed will be fierce because of the existing  enmity between the personalities involved, was being taken in some quarters as more of a game of vengeance, grudge and belligerence, with full periscoping of  the  past political  events in the state. 

In retrospect, Oni was booted out of government as a governor on October 15, 2010, owing to a long-drawn electoral battle waged against him by the then Action Congress. Since that free fall into obscurity, Oni had found it difficult to rise politically. This was a  further testimony to the deep-seated acrimony between him and Governor Kayode Fayemi, who spearheaded the catastrophic litigation.

Looking at the trajectory of elections in Ekiti since 2007, Oni could be said to be returning to a familiar terrain. Then, Oni as a governor traversed all the hierarchies of courts twice when his victory was being challenged by Fayemi, who was the AC candidate for that election.

The first litigation began on May 14, 2007 and the November 8, 2007 verdict of the Justice Bukar Bwala-led five-man panel of Tribunal Judges threw away Fayemi’s petition on the potent ground that he vehemently  failed to prove his case beyond reasonable doubt.

But the undaunted Fayemi proceeded on appeal and reprieve came his way on February 17, 2009, when Justice Mohammed Dattijo-led Appeal Court in Ilorin, Kwara State, upturned  Oni’s election and subsequently ordered a partial rerun  in 10 out of the 16 local government areas of the state.

The sordid scenario that dogged the outcome of the April 26 and May 5 , 2009 rerun in Ido/Osi launched Ekiti to prominence, though in a negative fashion. The word “Ido/Osi” then became registered as one of  the country’s electoral lexicons for “rigging”.

Eventually, Oni won the poll and returned as  Ekiti Governor on May 8, 2009, with high expectations that he would be spared of all legal distractions to complete his tenure on May 29, 2011. But his hope was dashed as Fayemi again filed a petition against the rerun and the electoral battle and enmity, that had become a  vicious cycle resonated again.

The second petition ended up being the most diligently prosecuted suit in Nigeria’s history. This eventually brought about a split judgement of August 10,2009 where Oni narrowly survived the hammer.

The judgement delivered by Justice James Barka and two other Tribunal Judges, dismissed Fayemi’s  petition and returned Oni as the validly elected governor. But Justices A. Adebara and Obande Ogbuinya found probative value in Fayemi’s petition and declared him the actual winner. This contrasting judgements created frenzy moods in the two camps and across all the strata of Ekiti.

The matter was later laid to rest at the Court of Appeal in Ilorin on October 15, 2010, when the then President of the Court of Appeal,Justice Isa Ayo Salami and  others  in their unanimous  verdict removed Oni as a governor and declared Fayemi as winner of the rerun.

Looking at the synopsis of Oni’s political history and his  serial battles with the progressive party, one should be able to decipher that this present petition could be  a payback for the ruling party.

Since these battles ended, those in Oni’s camp had always perceived Fayemi as an enemy. Even when the former governor showed interest to work with Fayemi in 2014 to secure a second term, he did so owing to intervention of some powerful forces in APC in the Southwest enclave. Whatever happens during Oni’s stint with the APC as the Deputy National Chairman (South) didn’t erase the vestiges of bad blood between the two political juggernauts.

This also manifested in the ferocious way Oni pursued the  case he instituted against Fayemi after the March 26, 2018 APC governorship primary won by the incumbent governor up to the Supreme Court. Oni told the court to declare him the valid candidate on the premise that Fayemi was ineligible to contest, having  failed to resign 30 days to the primary as demanded by law as a serving Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

He also contended that Fayemi’s  indictment by Justice Silas Oyewole-led judicial panel of inquiry set up by former Governor Ayodele Fayose for alleged financial impropriety, was another ground that rendered Fayemi unfit to contest. But the court found the position implausible and dismissed same.

All these underscored that the two personalities had always posed as arch rivals and enemies and would be hard for their paths to cross. Oyebanji, being  Fayemi’s  political scion, is now drinking from the sour chalice  the political acrimony between the duo former governors had assumed.

In the suit filed by his lawyer, Obafemi Adewale (SAN), Oni averred that the 2022 election violated the provisions of the Electoral Act and the 1999 Constitution, as amended, with alleged cases of widespread vote- buying and muzzling of opposition figures that vitiated  the election.

Oni also described the primary that produced Oyebanji as candidate as being fraught with irregularities. He opined that the governor-elect was not validly elected to fly the party’s flag on the premise that the Governor Mai Mala Buni-led National Caretaker Committee of the party was a contraption and a flagrant negation of the APC constitition.

On these bases, Oni wanted the victory upturned in his favour. Alternatively, the SDP candidate sought the relief of the tribunal for outright nullification of the election and ordering of rerun.

 Now, Oni’s case has begun with a boost. The tonic was that, he had been granted unfettered access to election materials under the custody of the Independent National Electoral Commission.

In a motion ex parte brought before the Tribunal, Oni craved for “a leave to effect the service on the 1st, 3rd and 5th respondents by substituted means and should be done through the National Secretary or any other officer of the APC at No. 40, Blantyre Crescent, Wuse Zone 2, Abuja.This was given following Oni’s difficulty to serve the respondents in the case.

Similarly, the tribunal granted an order permitting the applicant access to certified true copies of election materials and conduct manual/physical inspection of all electoral materials used in the conduct of the governorship election.

Immediately the case was filed, the social media was awash with all manners of commentaries and deluge of attacks against Oni. The general feeling was that, the former governor was out for a vindictive mission. Some believed that the election was free, fair and credible enough to be acceptable to all parties and candidates.

However, in a swift reaction, Oni clarified that his intention to challenge the victory of Biodun Oyebanji in court was not borne out of enmity and act of belligerence.

He contended that his determination to correct anomalies in the electoral system and give the ultimate power to the people to decide who governs them spurred him to drag Oyebanji to the Election Petition Tribunal.

“This is not a vengeance mission or act intended to cause confusion in the system. But we must learn how to do things rightly in this country. Those of us who can’t keep quiet to criminalities must rise up and defend the system, so it is not borne out of enmity.

“It falls within my right to go to court and that I have done within the ambits of the law. I can’t ask my people to resort to self help. But Court is there to interprete the laws and our actions and I believe it will dispense justice favorably in this case”, Oni said.

But Human Rights Lawyer and member of the Ekiti State House of Assembly, Hon. Adeoye Aribasoye, viewed the action from  a different prism saying it was laced with blood and venom contaray to Oni’s justification.

Aribasoye advised the former governor to withdraw his petition and save his political future. He posited that Oni challenging a widely adjudged free and fair election won by the candidate of the APC, was tantamount to a mission to “political suicide”, saying no politician can try the will of the people and survive it.

The lawmaker condemned the action and likened it to testing the will of Ekiti voters. He advised Oni to always  act more like a statesman in his political  pursuits, rather than being narrow-minded.

According to the legislator: “Former governor Segun Oni must always think about his status in Ekiti State and act in a manner commensurate and befitting of that status. He shouldn’t make himself a ready and available instrument of destabilisation when issue like this happens.

“The former governor knew that he lost that election and that was why there wasn’t any reason for people to stage any protest on June 19 when Biodun Oyebanji was pronounced the winner of the election.

“Let me take the former governor on a political voyage to 2007 when election was rigged in his favour. He could remember then that Ekiti people trooped out for three and half years protesting against how Governor Kayode Fayemi of the Action Congress was rigged out.

“That corroborated the fact that Ekiti hated cheating under any guise and they would have done same if former governor Oni was actually  rigged out in the June 18 election. Biodun Oyebanji won fair and square and that accounted for the serenity after the declaration”.

Another APC chieftain, Dr. Olusegun Osinkolu, while poohpoohing Oni’s action stated that nothing must be done by any patriotic Ekiti person to stall Oyebanji’s performance. He urged the former governor to act as a statesman and allow the verdict of the people to stand without heating up the polity.

Reprieve, however, came the way of Oyebanji as the  People’s Democratic Party (PDP) candidate in the poll, Hon. Bisi Kolawole, declared  support for the governor-elect, saying he did this in the interest of Ekiti populace. With this, it became a fait accompli that the PDP won’t go to the Tribunal and this was a soothing balm for the APC.

Kolawole said the fact that he contested against Oyebanji in the election should not be reason to become an enemy of the actual winner.

He said: “Until June 18, we were candidates of two different parties but one of us, another respected Ekiti man won the election. In the interest of the state and our people, we must all rally round him, offer necessary advice and move Ekiti forward.

“I am happy that you said you will be magnanimous with victory. It is only God that appoints a king and gives victory to whom he wishes.

“Being from different political parties should not disturb us from working together. This is all about Ekiti and Ekiti is bigger than any political party”.

However, litigation is not won by emotion. It requires diligent interrogation of a process with evidence that can satisfy and sway the court. Oni is now left with a huge burden of proving beyond doubt how the alleged vote buying had substantially affected the outcome of the poll.

Again, he would have to prove that the governor of Yobe State, Mai Mala Buni, who conducted the primary was truly an illegal occupant of the seat and that all actions taken while superintending over the party was illegal,null and void. The former governor will gleefully have his way if he could discharge these onerous task.

With the way things are, ardent observers of the politics are beginning to express misgivings about the current turn of events. The fear emanated from the pedestal of the promises Oyebanji had made to Ekiti populace to hit the ground running when he assumes office.

The questions that are reverberating on the lips of the people are ; would Oyebanji be able to manifest these promises with litigation hanging on his neck? Won’t this constitute a huge distraction to him? Time shall tell whether he will hit the ground running as promised or will get stuck depending on how the pendulum swings.