BY Kunle Daramola
Adewole Adebayo, 2023 presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), says the outcome of Edo election shows that Nigerians have not reached their breaking point under the All Progressives Congress (APC).
On September 22, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Monday Okpebholo of the APC as the winner, with 291,667 votes, defeating Asue Ighodalo of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who garnered 247,655 votes. Labour Party’s (LP) Olumide Akpata finished third with 22,763 votes.
Samson Itodo, executive director of Yiaga Africa, a civil society organisation (CSO), said major political parties engaged in vote buying during the election.
Speaking with Rudolf Okonkwo on 90MinutesAfrica, Adebayo likened the vote buying in Edo to that of the 2022 Ekiti governorship election.
“I have seen that I was too worried that APC was punishing Nigerians. I was worried because I thought, how can a people be so unfortunate to have a government that is giving them all kinds of torture,” he said.
“But when I saw how people voted in the Edo state election, I realised that I was exaggerating the pain of the people. So I think maybe Nigerians have not reached the limit of their shock absorber yet.”
While commending INEC for improving on logistics and ensuring fewer incidents of violence, Adebayo acknowledged that local political dynamics influenced voters more than national issues.
“At least for the majority of the processes, INEC improved and they gave an opportunity for anybody who has any voter to bring them out,” he said.
“For the most part, no violence. Nobody was sent away from the polling unit and most of the results —not all— reflected how people voted.
“But I think a lot of money also exchanged hands and the majority of the people did not use the sins of APC to punish them at all. They have other local issues, dealing with Obaseki and Oshiomhole and Shuaibu, those were things they were paying attention to.”
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