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A few years ago, while on a visit to Iye-Ekiti, a distant thought breezed through my head. I imagined what could rupture the town’s serenity. I muttered a word of prayer against the thought and against what I had just imagined. This occasion was shortly after a press conference held at the police command headquarters in Ado Ekiti, by then Commissioner of Police in the state. In that press conference outing, the Ekiti State Police Command also paraded some suspects they had arrested for various sins and offences. At that period in Nigeria’s national life, it was still routine and common for police commands or formations to parade and display suspects. It was always a harvest to show how hard they had been working. We remember that the suspects were also often paraded along with some of the weapons they might have allegedly used in the crimes they were arrested for.
While in Iye-Ekiti, the headquarters of Ilejemeje Local Government Area of Ekiti State, I just simply glossed over the thought of security in that Northern Ekiti town. Then the thought about the police headquarters… That momentary thought was triggered by the sight and the suspects at the state police command headquarters a few days earlier. One of the suspects that were paraded was a man who looked at odds with what we had expected as ‘hardened criminals’. The man stood out by looking and being completely out of place in the lot. To add to the curiosity of that moment which has built, and which has caused some questions, he was standing alone at one corner of the compound. He stood in handcuffs, and also had a cutlass placed beside him. He looked like he had been taken straight from his work station in a farm to the police station.
The journalists were right. He was arrested in the farm where he was working. His offence? The police simply said, “he killed somebody.” We would not know if it was murder, manslaughter, homicide, wrongful killing or any of those words with which ‘learned’ people situated such incidents. But a man had died in an incident he was involved in. “We were fighting. I punched him. He slumped and he died in the process.” He claimed that he engaged the victim in fisticuffs because the victim was always grazing his cattle in his farm. He said co-labourers in the other farms knew it, and that he had evidence. From how the man from one of the Middle Belt states of Nigeria, and his matter were being handled by the police, it was easy to think that they had seen the truth in what the suspect was saying. But the law must always have its way…
How could a man lead his cows to eat crops in another person’s farm? What gave him such audacity? Why are the other farmers not rising against the incidences? What could have been done to prevent the loss of life? And, why engage in self-help? Piles and piles of examples of such reports form the basis for the terms “farmer-herder clashes” or the “pastoralists/farmers” skirmishes in Nigeria. The thoughts ran through my mind and I thought about the serenity of Iye-Ekiti and how I would love the town, nay the local government area to have its peace.
That was before the colour of insecurity in the state and Nigeria became more and more confusing and indescribable; when the clouds that have now completely covered our peace in these parts were a distant rumbling. Then, it was unheard of that some gun-wielding people would come into town, seize men, women and children and disappear into the forest with the people. Many thought that what we had in our hands was kidnapping for ransom, but there are now more questions than answers to the real motive of the mass kidnappers.
Eda-Oniyo is one of the principal towns in Ilejemeje Local Government Area. Today, a governorship election is holding in Ekiti State and eligible citizens of the state will be expected to go out to cast their ballots. It is sad that some citizens of the state were abducted from a church there in April, and they are still in captivity. The Iye-Ekiti incident that still lives in my head was one resolved example of crime. The Eda-Oniyo abduction incident is still one ugly puzzle. It is a sad stain on a state which has been growing in leaps and bounds.
Regardless of this snag and the blight at Eda Oniyo, people should still go out to vote. We must not let the evil people among us appear to be winning; we must not give them that mileage. You must vote because a government must be in place for the state to effectively plan for its people. Ekiti electorate, please go all out today and choose your next governor. Vote your choice and make the opportunity count.
For first-time voters, make this privilege an avenue through which the state can move forward. Make it an occasion for which the state and you yourself would be proud. Do your civic duty therefore, and please yourself by voting your conscience. Make yourself proud, stand to be counted because not every eligible voter has this privilege. Do not perform this important civic duty because you were coerced to do so, but do it conscientiously because you have to. Vote the candidate of your choice, go home satisfied that you have done the right thing, while hoping that your preferred candidate wins the ballot.
The first-time voters are among those who would be swayed by the numerous contents that flood their social media handles. These young impressionable minds would see the good, the bad and the ugly trends. They would form opinions and hold views. The adults who populated institutions such as the political parties, security agencies, the electoral umpire as well as the other stakeholders in the election, must help Ekiti State and the country by behaving well and by doing well their duties, because the general election is coming in some months’ time. Do not repulse the younger generation by what we do in today’s election. Let’s just decide to show good examples in our respective lines of duty. I’m sure that all of us are tired of all the labelling. The young people themselves would like to follow good examples. Anyone among them who chooses to do otherwise should face the consequences of such action.
For the first time in a long number of years, and in many election cycles, Ekiti will be voting in a governorship election with little or non-existent amount of tension. Let us hope that this would remain till the election is concluded and the people’s choice is declared winner. The one million, fifty-nine thousand, three hundred and sixty registered voters are not all expected to troop out today. A lot must have happened to shuffle that number in a variety of ways, including those who might have decided against their own earlier decision to partake in the registration exercise. INEC said that one million, twenty-eight thousand, nine hundred and twenty-nine of the registered voters collected their permanent voter cards.
What would the turnout be like today? Shall we expect up to half a million voters to cast their ballots? Could we have more than that, say seventy percent of the total number of those who collected their PVCs? Or, am I dreaming? Ekiti can make it happen, and this would set the tone for what to expect of INEC in the general election. However, it is not sounding very encouraging that Ekiti has not recorded more than fifty percent turnout of voters since 1999, according to some data. Let’s hope and pray for free and fair election in Ekiti. Let’s hope for a smooth and rancour-free exercise. It can be done.
