African Action Congress (AAC) governorship candidate in the Osun State election, Olajide Esan, has alleged that Governor Ademola Adeleke’s victory was driven by inducement rather than what he had to offer the electorate.
Speaking during an interview with ARISE NEWS on Wednesday, Esan on the outcome and conduct of the election, said the process did not reflect the will of the people, arguing that poverty and hardship had influenced how many voters made their choices.
“Adeleke won the election, not really based on what he has to offer, but the capacity to promote inducement.”
He said many Nigerians were effectively trapped by economic hardship and were therefore vulnerable to politicians who could offer immediate financial assistance during elections.
“So it’s kind of, I say, like Nigerians are trapped because they are not really voting for who they want, but they are voting for who can, you know, buy their food, have the money to, I mean, to decide where election is going to go.”
Esan said the broader electoral system in Nigeria had failed to consistently produce outcomes that reflected voters’ genuine preferences. “I wouldn’t say I’m satisfied with the outcome because the way elections have been in this country doesn’t really reflect the will of the people because of the situation that people in Nigeria are in today.”
He criticised what he described as the political establishment, saying major parties were driven by an ideology that had contributed to the country’s problems. “Because the two parties, you call major party, represent the same political ideology that has brought Nigeria to its knees.”
Esan argued that his poor showing in the Osun election could not be attributed solely to a lack of effort by the AAC, saying the party had conducted rallies and programmes across the state. “We do our rally. We do different programmes in the Australian state. We go all across the local governments in the Australian state from word to word and all that.”
He said the party’s main shortcoming was voter education, citing an instance in which members of the same family appeared to have voted differently from what the party expected.
“First of all, the lesson I’ve learned was that we didn’t do enough in the area of voter education because there were a lot of people, like there was a family of six who voted for us. But at the end of the day, we realised that only one of them did vote for AAC or that voted for AA.”
Esan said he viewed the election as a contest against the political establishment and what he described as the ignorance of voters, rather than simply against other candidates.
“I didn’t contest against our political party. I contested against the current establishment, the ignorance of our people.”
He maintained that he believed his manifesto and policy proposals were stronger than those of the other candidates. “Because of the fact that of all the candidates, I can say that I have the best manifesto and I have the best plan for show people.”
Esan criticised the quality of political leadership in Nigeria, describing those in positions of authority as businessmen masquerading as leaders. “But people who are in charge of leadership today are more businessmen pretending to be leaders.”
According to him, such leaders exploit existing problems rather than solving them, while the growing number of unemployed young people was a worrying indication of the country’s future.
“They are there to take advantage of every opportunity. They are there to take advantage of existing problems and to, you know, add to the existing ones, even if, like I’ve said, even if you consider the growing population of people who are not resourceful, jobless youth, that’s a negative indication that there’s no great future for this country.”
Esan said he received 1,558 votes but alleged that the AAC’s representation at some polling units was compromised by individuals he claimed were impersonating the party’s agents.
“I would say that I got 1,558 because there were a lot of, because there were a lot of polling units where they planted people to act as our party agent.”
He alleged that supporters of the APC and PDP used Accord Party uniforms in the process.
“Both APC and, I mean, both APC and PDP in Accord uniform.”
Esan further alleged that fake AAC party tags were produced and used by individuals who were not authorised by the party. “Places where we didn’t have party agent, they made fake party tax, and those people used it to act as our party agent, because they know that we don’t negotiate.”
He said the party had more than 2,000 agents available but deliberately limited the number of tags released because of concerns that agents could be compromised. “Yeah, we had about, we had over 2,000, but the thing is that because of the fact that these people were looking for ways to buy out party agent, we decided not to release the party tax.”
“We only released about 10% for people we can easily identify with, we can easily trust.”
Mr Esan also raised concerns about the voter register, questioning how the same voter’s name could allegedly appear across different polling units. “I don’t understand why a single voter’s name would be in any voter’s register across different polling units, that once they have a voter’s card, they can go to different polling units to vote.”
He said the alleged irregularities needed to be addressed ahead of future elections. “So all these things, definitely, all these things have to be, because they are pending.”
Mr Esan said Nigeria’s political system was dominated by an elite culture in which candidates sought power rather than public service. “The people we have now represent the same establishment, the same circle of elite culture.”
“And when they’re contesting, they are not contesting to serve the people, they are contesting for who to be in charge or who to take the biggest meat.”
He said elections had increasingly become exercises in deception and called for Nigerians to take leadership and political participation more seriously. “So most of the election processes are more of deception and we, as a society, have to come to the realisation that when we don’t take leadership seriously, this country is going nowhere.”
Esan said his political movement wanted governance to become more participatory, with citizens playing a greater role in decision-making. “And that is why it’s part of our plan to make leadership participatory, to make governors participatory, so every member of our society can get themselves involved.”
He also proposed changes to ballot papers to make it easier for voters to identify candidates.
“If it’s possible, I would like IMEG to start having, even if they can’t put the candidate’s picture, they can put the candidate’s name maybe on one side, so that you can know who they are voting for.”
Esan said party agents also needed to properly represent the interests of their respective parties. “There were a lot of party agents, you can see about one, two, three party agents represent the same political parties. That they came to manage the interests of one political party, but not the interests of their own political party.”
On the mobilisation of AAC agents, Mr Esan said the party gave some agents about N5,000 to support their movement on election day, while stressing that many of them were volunteers.
“That is about 5,000 Naira, not all of them, we didn’t send all of them out and the thing is that, that is, the money paid as a kind of sacrifice, because it’s our collective, it’s only our volunteers.”
Erizia Rubyjeana
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