Bye-Election: Security operatives watch while APC boys descended on youth, aged – Babaoye

In this interview with HEAD POLITICS, MUMINI ABDULKAREEM, a member of Kwara State House of Assembly representing Irepodun constituency, Hon Matthew Babaoye who hails from Oro ward II, same ward with Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, recounts his experience in the recent bye-election for Irepodun/Ekiti/Oke-Ero/Isin federal constituency, the alleged frosty relationship between him and Shamsudeen Bada who beat him to the PDP’s ticket among other issues. Excerpts: 

How will you attend to the complaints of some electorate in the state that security apparatus marred the exercise? 

The Police, DSS, Immigration and all other security agencies who were deployed in large numbers compromised their stands during the election and they were everywhere. In my own area in Oro ward II, the security personnel that were on ground were more than the voters and that was a huge threat to the electorate. Coupled with the fact that the APC boys who they brought for the exercise beat up our party members right in front of the security men who were watching and didn’t do anything. This implies that they’ve already compromised and working for APC on the day of the election. This was a federal might. All the security officers worked against the PDP. This is a statement of fact and I stand to be quoted.

Already, there are postulations from the opposition camp that what happened during the bye-election will be replicated during the 2019 general elections. Do you see this as a test case?    

I don’t think the same scenario will repeat itself during the 2019 general elections because the exercise this time around will be conducted simultaneously across the country except for about three states. The deployment of security will go for all states, it won’t be concentrated in Kwara as we witnessed in this bye-election. Then, there will be more sensitisation, awareness and all other political factors that might be part of the problem the electorate might have been attended to before 2019. The Saraki dynasty is poised to rise higher and it will continue to do so. We are very confident that the PDP will carry the day come next year irrespective of the last result.

Against expectations, you lost your polling unit to the opposition as a sitting member of the state Assembly. Were you rejected or what happened?

I lost by over thirty votes, I scored over forty to the above seventy scored by the APC. What we heard was that the plan of the APC was to obstruct the voting of our people which they did and that they will also pick some of us up at the collation centre so that our presence might trigger our people to disallow them from perpetrating the rigging. The so called defeat could be said to have happened at the time I left the polling unit and I was going round with a bicycle, that was when the exercise was obstructed and they had the edge. I was there in my polling unit initially monitoring things but it got to a point I have to leave when they started creating chaos and problem because you can’t predict what can happen next. I cannot say because I want to man my polling unit alone and not oversee the victory of the entire ward which was paramount to me.

What was your experience like on the day of election?

Although there was no shooting, it was harrowing. I was pointed at by the APC people that I will be taken to Abuja with an aircraft I didn’t pay for on the day of the election and I stood my ground that such will never happen. The SA Security saw me moving round on a bicycle. Unlike before when Alhaji Lai Mohammed will just come to vote and go, in this instance, he was there at his polling booth 006 from the beginning to the end and they have passed message that every other polling booths should be obstructed to their own advantage. They beat old people who were PDP supporters in the process and that gave a kind of phobia to others at home not to come out and many of them stayed back. That election to me was an absurdity. Our members were beaten and even bottles were used on some of them in my ward.

Is it true that because you were denied a second term ticket, you refused to work for the party during the election?

That is absolutely not correct. I would have expected those in the party that constituted the campaign committee to include me. But I don’t know why they exempted serving members of the party in some instances in the campaign team. I couldn’t have known their programmes or what to do except when the election came and I did what I was supposed to do. Go to the records of past elections, the opposition don’t defeat us in the ward and we had a smooth ride in 2015 because we managed the campaign better and they know we were on ground.

How do you respond to the allegation that you might not work for Shamsudeen Bada who beat you to the House of Assembly ticket? 

The generality of people viewing it from outside might be thinking like that but he (Bada) knew I have been working for him in all perspectives. He and other party members can attest to that. We are solidly together. The party is supreme.

Would you subscribe to the notion of some members of the public that the PDP should replace its candidate for the House of Representatives seat in the light of the emergence of APC’s Ajulo-Opin?

Looking at the constituency arrangement, the three other local government areas have enjoyed the federal seat either through the Senate or Reps for more than once in most cases and it is only Oke-Ero that has not enjoyed it. The local government has been showing grievance over this from time immemorial. The indices used in picking the candidate and Oke-Ero means that is the view of our own party and members in the federal constituency and all machinery will be made to work towards actualisation of the project for equity and fairness. With the activities of the party, the candidate is known and will continue to be popular. I see no problem with that arrangement even if they return Ajulo-Opin for the race in 2019, I don’t envisage any problem. But we must adjust all the adjustable areas for political victory.

What is your take on the allegation that some members undermined the party’s success during the bye-election?

I don’t subscribe to that. This is a political party with a leadership and structure that is legendary and unique throughout the country. It is not out of place for some people to have one or two issues, but the party is more than capable to resolve it. Some of us would have wanted a situation where everybody is properly carried along as part of the campaign team. In my case, I was to run for second term after been cleared and expecting affirmation, but the table turned by the afternoon of that day. Here I am working very diligently for the party.

How has your party perceived the outcome of the poll and what efforts are in the pipeline to avert future recurrence?

We are on ground, there is no doubt about that and we have already held a stakeholders meeting to appraise the whole situation on Wednesday in the affected councils. The turnout from my own ward meeting was very impressive despite the fact that we were robbed, which is ordinarily supposed to lower the morale of the people. But they still came out in large numbers and we were all moved. I believe the party will call a stakeholder’s forum where all those needed to be invited will be called in order to chart a course forward and ensure victory in the subsequent elections in the state.