Kaduna state 2023 governorship election and PDP’s cry of rigged election

BY EMMANUEL ADO

The first and foremost feature of a credible election is that it must reflect the true will of the people. According to Article 21 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, “the will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of the government; as expressed in periodic and genuine elections”.

Without any doubt,the March 18, 2023, governorship election that Senator Uba Sani, candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), conclusively won, reflected and indeed confirmed the will of Kaduna state people. The vast majority of them evidently wanted the ruling APC, through Uba Sani, to continue its fantastic transformation of the state.

Did Senator Uba Sani win the election,fair and square? Without any hesitation, the answer is a resounding yes. And this fact will further be confirmed when the courts eventually scrutinize the election results as it will most certainly be called upon to adjudicate by the PDP. Just as the APC has indicated its intention to question the results of seven local government areas, especially that of Chikun local government, which scandalously returned over 89,000 votes for Isa Ashiru Kudan of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

In fact the margin of Uba Sani’s victory will increase when over-voting and other electoral infractions by the PDP candidate are rectified by the court.

From the outset, the PDP had only one objective; discredit the outcome of the election if the APC candidate wins, to create the impression of a “stolen” mandate with the hope that its propaganda will trigger violent reactions once Senator Uba Sani was eventually declared winner. Towards this end, it embarked on an aggressive campaign of disinformation towards achieving its objectives, knowing fully well that it had deservedly lost the election.

The impression of a stolen mandate is the tragic creation of the PDP and some of its blind supporters, who presumptuously called the elections in favour of Isa Ashiru Kudan on social media platforms, despite knowing from the figures submitted by its agents that it had in fact lost the election. Unfortunately the PDP, without any evidence whatsoever, has continued its propaganda to discredit the election,to create doubts about the outcome that is not in doubt.

If not for the intervention of the Almighty God, the show of force by the security agencies and the live broadcast of the compilation of the results from the 23 local government councils on several television networks, those who had initially swallowed the PDP-sustained propaganda hook, line and sinker on the social media that its candidate had won the election,would have gone on rampage.

The only foundation that the PDP built its false hope of winning on, was the fact that Atiku Abubakar won the presidential elections in Kaduna state,which he ran on the divisive “na ka na ka campaign (power must remain in the North), which adversely worked against the APC in the north and the Muslim/Muslim ticket of Bola Tinubu, which equally worked against the party in the Southern Kaduna. Southern Kaduna, a traditional PDP stronghold eventually embraced the Labour Party.

Thankfully, Isa Ashiru and his supporters, being good students of history, remembered the 2019 elections in Bauchi state,which has similarities with the 2023 elections in Kaduna state.

Muhammadu Buhari, in 2019, roundly defeated Atiku Abubakar in Bauchi state by 798,428 to 209,313 votes; the same way Atiku Abubakar defeated Bola Tinubu, in the 2023 elections in Kaduna state. Just as Bala Mohammed, the governorship candidate of the PDP,went on to defeat Abubakar Mohammed, the APC candidate, so did Uba Sani, the APC candidate went on to defeat Isa Ashiru Kudan,the PDP candidate, even though some armchair political analysts had written off Uba Sani, like they had written off Bala Mohammed based on the outcome of the presidential elections in 2019.

So, while the good people of Bauchi state clearly showed their preference for Buhari to be the president,they trusted Bala Mohammed as a safer hand to pilot the affairs of Bauchi State, instead of Abubakar Mohammed,who they sent on early retirement. Similarly,while the good people of Kaduna State preferred Atiku Abubakar to be their president, they overwhelmingly preferred Uba Sani to be their governor.

It would have been the height of political naivety for the PDP to have banked solely on the results of the February 25 presidential election,knowing fully well that politics being local, has its own dynamics and that several other factors will always come into play in the governorship polls. And they did.

The PDP, contrary to its public posturing and mischievous disinformation, was realistic about its narrow chances of winning the election. The vehement insistence of the PDP bigwigs that Jonathan Asake, the governorship candidate of the Labour Party must step down for Isa Ashiru Kudan was borne out of that cold fact, that their candidate stood no chance of winning the election. So, for the PDP, Jonathan Asake stepping down was crucial.

Without doubt, the PDP actually factored these reality that elections are local into their calculation, and that the Labour Party was going to hurt it more than the APC. This fact informed the intimidation and cruel harassment of Jonathan Asake, and his supporters. The only snag was that the PDP refused to properly communicate these facts to its supporters,that the defeat of the “evil APC”, wasn’t going to be possible without Asake stepping down.

The PDP knew it stood no chance and it didn’t run on any programme, because its 16 years in power wasn’t too glorious.

The people of Kaduna state, including the millions who pass through the state, have seen the difference between 2015 and 2023 (the Nasir El-Rufai years) when they made enlightened choices -between progressive Reforms and “routine governance”; between development and stagnation. In eight years,the APC delivered more projects, both in physical projects and intangibles (reforms), than the PDP did in 16 years, in spite of more resources accruing to itbetween 1999 and 2015.

Again in terms of the quality of candidates, the APC candidate for the 2023 contest had an overwhelming edge over the PDP candidate. While both have been in the National Assembly, with Isa Ashiru Kudan spending eight years as a member of the House of Representatives,and Uba Sani four years in the senate. Uba Sani made strong state-wide impact, while Isa Ashiru Kudan was unfortunately found wanting. Isa Ashiru Kudan, despite being a deputy chairman of the appropriations committee, attracted no projects to the state, unlike Uba who attracted the N5 billion Engineering Complex to the state university and a N100 million ICT Center to the College of Education, Kafanchan, amongst other impactful projects. He also initiated two consequential bills that have since been signed into law.

The difference in accomplishments between Isa Ashiru Kudan and Uba Sani was too glaringly obvious for the people to ignore.

Even though the PDP was unsuccessful in its attempt to undermine the integrity of the election, it is sad that it even attempted to create a climate of uncertainty around the election. It is amazing that the PDP, like Donald Trump, while claiming victory and shouting that the election was about being stolen, was actively fishing for the votes in Kudan, Lere and Birnin Gwari, to fraudulently swing the election in its favour.

The PDP tried in vain to present two different sets of results for Kudan,the home local government area of Isa Ashiru Kudan, with the objective of declaring the election inconclusive,thus forcing a rerun. But it failed.

By its various activities since and after the election, the PDP has confirmed that they are sore losers. When they win, like its presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar decisively won the February 25, 2023, presidential elections in Kaduna state, the election was free and fair. Fast track to March 18, 2023, when Isa Ashiru Kudan, its governorship candidate lost the governorship election, it has tragically tried to tag it fraudulent. The PDP is no doubt behaving like the proverbial chicken that scattered its mother’s funeral, and crying wolf where there is none.

The reactions of Isa Ashiru Kudan, the Kaduna state governorship candidate of the PDP, and that of some of its members, are understandable. For Isa Ashiru Kudan, it is the end of the road for his aspiration from 2014-2023 to govern Kaduna State, which has finally evaporated. And for the ‘traditional rent-seeking politicians’, who are only used to contracting and appointments as the sole purpose of supporting or of being in government, the defeat of Isa Ashiru meant life in the wilderness for another four years which has been worsened by the failure of the PDP to capture power at the center.

At the heart of democratic governance is the conduct of free and free elections. And the acceptance that losing is part of the electoral process. It is thus very important for losers to accept the outcome.

The PDP needs to recommit to democracy, even though a leopard doesn’t change its spots. It must learn to accept the will of the people and that winning an election doesn’t make it fair, nor does losing make it fraudulent. It must stop its baseless claims about a stolen election. It has a duty to erase the erroneous impression it had created amongst its supporters that it won the elections.