2015 candidates one year after (Photos)
LEKE BAIYEWU examines what has become of some candidates
of some political parties who lost in the 2015 general elections
One year after the last general elections in Nigeria, candidates of
the various political parties who participated in the polls now have
various stories to tell. While some candidates won out rightly,
some lost gallantly and others had their fates twisted at various
elections petitions tribunals across the country.
Some of these politicians have found their way into various public
offices where they are serving the country in other capacities.
The presidential and National Assembly elections were held on
March 28, 2015 while the governorship and state House of
Assembly polls were held on April 11 of the same year.
The biggest political parties in the general polls were the Peoples
Democratic Party and the All Progressives Congress.
The 2015 presidential election was a straight fight between the
incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan of the PDP and
Muhammadu Buhari of the APC. Buhari defeated Jonathan, the
first time a sitting president would be unseated in the political
history of the country.
While Jonathan’s loyalists were still protesting against the
conduct of the exercise by the Independent National Electoral
Commission and its declaration of Buhari as the winner, Jonathan
had congratulated his opponent on his victory.
Perhaps, this was why no presidential candidate or party
challenged Buhari’s victory in court.
Several political observers had hailed Jonathan, while describing
his concession of defeat as not only creating the anti-climax
needed for the already tensed polity but also preventing a repeat
of the bloodshed that followed the 2011 presidential election
when his opponent lost for the third time. Buhari had referenced
Jonathan in his inaugural speech and subsequent speeches for
allowing peace to reign by accepting defeat.
By that action, Jonathan seems to have won more hearts to
himself, attending conferences and receiving continental and
global awards.
Jonathan had won the Martin Luther King Human Rights Award,
the first African leader said to have achieved the feat. Also,
Jonathan beat former Lagos State Governor and National Leader
of the ruling APC, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and a former Secretary
General of the United Nations, Mr. Koffi Anan, to the African
Leadership Magazine Person of the Year 2015. Others he
defeated to win the award were the founder, ECONET Wireless,
Mr. Strive Masiyiwa; Chairman, Heirs Holding, Mr. Tony Elumulelu;
and President, African Development Bank, Mr. Akinwumi Adesina.
Jonathan had joined the likes of Liberian President and Nobel
Prize winner, Helen Johnson-Sirleaf; former Ghanaian President,
John Kuffour; Founder of Mo Ibrahim Foundation, Dr. Mo Ibrahim;
Chairman, Honeywell Group, Oba Otudeko and lawn tennis
superstar, Serena Williams, as recipients of the award.
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| Peterside, Alhassan |
In a letter to Jonathan, a former Pro Tempore President of the
Liberian Senate and Chairman of the 2015 African Leadership
Person of the Year Selection Committee, Cletus Wortoson, wrote,
“There is no one best suited at the moment than Your Excellency
to advise the continent’s leaders on the merits of good
governance and enduring democracy. Your popular mantra of ‘one
man one vote’ and ‘my ambition is not worth the blood of any
Nigerian’ is a message that must be preached loud and clear on
the continent, hence our endorsement.”
Unlike Jonathan, the majority of – if not all – governorship
contestants who lost in the general elections challenged the
victory of their opponents in court.
But no governor who won his election in 2015 lost his seat
eventually. None of them was sacked by the Supreme Court.
Although state elections petitions tribunals and the Court of
Appeal had sacked the winners of the elections in Rivers, Akwa
Ibom, Rivers, Abia and Taraba states in separate judgments, the
apex court had affirmed their victories at the polls.
The development, observers believe, is a departure from what
obtained in the past where purported electoral victories were
upturned by the apex court after an illegal occupant had occupied
the office for years. This time around, the electoral disputes
caused by the 2015 polls were resolved within one year.
Nevertheless, some of those who lost out both at the polls and at
the courts are still licking their wounds.
In the case of the PDP governorship candidate in Lagos State,
Mr. Jimi Agbaje, the last general elections turned him into a
debtor. While addressing PDP members at the party’s secretariat
on March 1, 2016, the governorship candidate insisted that he
won the election even though he challenged the victory of
Governor Akinwunmi Ambode of the APC up to the Supreme
Court and lost.
Agbaje said, “Some members were annoyed because the monies
meant for the elections (which were allocated to the Lagos
chapter of the PDP by the national leadership of the party) were
not given to them to prosecute the last polls. I am angry too
because the PDP won the last election in the state but was
denied victory. I finish election, na gbese I carry for head .”
In Abia State, the governorship candidate of the All Progressives
Grand Alliance in Abia State, Dr. Alex Otti, also disagreed with the
Supreme Court that Governor Okezie Ikpeazu of the PDP won the
election in the state.
Otti, while speaking at a thanksgiving rally organised by the state
chapter of the APGA in Aba, Abia’s commercial hub, in February
noted that having accepted the Supreme Court judgment without
minding its flaws, he still wanted the governor to succeed for the
collective interest of Abia people. He however stated that he
wouldn’t congratulate Ikpeazu.
He said in parts, “To Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu, let me state
unequivocally that we have nothing against him as a person but
the system that imposed him against all democratic norms and
practices, which attached more value to his ambition than to the
lives of innocent Abians.
“While we have accepted the unpopular judgment that injures the
sensibilities of Abians, we cannot congratulate you as that would
amount to endorsement of criminality. So, rather than arrogantly
demanding for unjust and undeserved congratulatory message
from me and my party, the PDP should rather express remorse,
seek repentance, and be humble enough to seek for forgiveness
from God and Abians.”
Another governorship election that attracted attention was that of
Oyo State where no fewer than five political heavyweights
contested against one another. They were Governor Abiola
Ajimobi of the APC who sought a second term, a jinx he
eventually broke in the state; former Governor Rasheed Ladoja of
the Accord Party; former Governor Adebayo Alao-Akala, who
dumped the PDP at the last minute to pick the Labour Party’s
ticket; Sen. Teslim Folarin of the PDP; and Mr. Seyi Makinde of
the Social Democratic Party.
After losing the election and failing to get the mandate through
the court, Alao-Akala in December 2015 dumped the LP for the
APC – the ruling party – one year after defecting from the PDP to
the LP. This means that the ex-governor has been in three parties
in one year.
According to those who have monitored the activities of the
candidates over the year, those in the APC have been duly
“compensated” by virtue of being in the party in power at the
federal level, unlike their PDP counterparts.
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| Agbaje, Otti |
candidate in Taraba State, Aisha Alhassan, as Minister of Women
Affairs when the Supreme Court was attending to the appeal filed
by Governor Darius Ishaku against the judgments of the state
tribunal and the Court of Appeal which nullified his victory.
Although the apex court declared Ishaku as duly elected governor,
Alhassan maintains her ministerial appointment.
It is a similar case in Rivers where the Supreme Court upheld the
election of Governor Nyesom Wike of the PDP after the lower
courts had nullified same. President Buhari had appointed his
APC opponent, Mr. Dakuku Peterside, as the Director General of
the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, an
agency under the Ministry of Transport, which the immediate past
governor of the state, Rotimi Amaechi, oversees.
Although the 2014 governorship election in Ekiti State was
staggered and held much before the 2015 general elections, the
APC candidate in the poll, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, had also been
“compensated.” The technocrat, who was seeking a second term
but was defeated by Governor Ayodele Fayose of the PDP, had
since been named by the President as the Minister of Solid
Minerals.
Speaking to SUNDAY PUNCH, the Chairman of the PDP in Ogun
State, Mr. Adebayo Dayo, compared the party’s candidate with
Governor Ibikunle Amosun. He said Mr. Gboyega Nasir Isiaka was
more experienced to run the state than the incumbent governor.
Isiaka is from Ogun West Senatorial District which has not
produced a governor since the state was created 40 years ago.
He is a close political ally of former Governor Gbenga Daniel. In
an attempt to succeed Daniel, Isiaka had earlier contested
against Amosun in 2011 and lost.However, the Publicity Secretary
of the APC in Lagos, Mr. Joe Igbokwe, said there was no way
Agbaje could have outperformed Ambode as governor. He noted
that the APC had a blueprint in 1999 and since then the party
had been presenting “good men” in Lagos; from Sen. Bola Tinubu
to Mr. Babatunde Fashola (SAN) and now Ambode.
“When we presented Ambode, some people wrote him off. Now,
they have swallowed their vomit. The man is everywhere. Lagos
has never been in short supply of good governors,” Igbokwe
added.
Nevertheless, the PDP has insisted that despite losing the 2015
general elections, the party offered its best to Nigerians. The
National Secretary of the party, Prof. Wale Oladipo, stated that it
was the electorate who wanted a change and not that the PDP
had nothing to offer them.
He said, “As of the time we were fielding our candidates, we were
guided by our (PDP) constitution and, more importantly, the
constitution of Nigeria. Jonathan was the incumbent President
and he wanted to go for a deserved second term. The party had
no choice, we had to field him. It is not about winning at all cost.
We have learnt a few lessons from that and we have moved on.
We have reorganised our party and we are providing credible and
non-cantankerous opposition.
“The PDP provided quality leadership for 16 years but the
electorate believed another party and candidate could do better
and that was why they voted for a change. No matter the quality
of our candidates, Nigerians wanted a change from what we were
providing and they had gotten the change.
“The constitution of the country and that of the party were
followed to the letter. If the process didn’t throw up the best
candidate in any state, so be it. The most important thing is to
follow the law. You don’t make your own law and start bending it
to accommodate some people or to win an election by all
means.”
Prof. Dauda Saleh of the Department of Political Science and
International Relations of the University of Abuja, blamed the
persistent nature of maladministration in the country on the failure
of the political parties to present the best candidates for public
offices.
According to him, the choice of candidates is influenced by
money and the best candidates do not emerge to fly the party’s
ticket.
Saleh said, “The parties have not been able to bring out credible
candidates because they are not ideologically-based and because
they play money politics. What makes people important is not
their integrity and character but money. At the end of the day,
what you will have is still the old people dressing in new garbs.
This has impacted on the quality of governance in this country
negatively. As long as we do not have credible electoral process
from the party level, we will continue to be faced with problems
of poor leadership in this country.
“If you look at what is happening in America now, the candidates
are not spending their personal money; they depend solely on
donations from people, some of who give as little as $7 to
support political parties and their candidates. In our own
environment here, the parties are hijacked by moneybags and
people defect on the basis that they were not fielded by their
party; they move to another party without any conviction. These
are some of the things that will make rain to continue to beat us
in this country for a very long time to come.”
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