by Jude Ndukwe

The Ondo State governorship election is just a few days away. While serious candidates from across all political parties are putting finishing touches to their campaigns and preparations, one Jimoh Ibrahim is desperately busy working hard with collaborators to truncate the whole process in a manner akin to that of a street urchin otherwise known as Area Boy in some southwestern states of Nigeria.

Referred to as “Mr Buy and Kill” in some quarters owing to his alleged legendary penchant for buying up successful businesses and running them aground shortly after, Mr Jimoh Ibrahim seems determined to bring the same story to Ondo State. Rather than turn to gold, it is believed that whatever he touches, turns to ash. With such opprobrious antecedents, it is obvious he is playing out the same script in the forthcoming Ondo State gubernatorial election.

The fact that a high court in Ondo State had earlier barred the Senator Ali Modu Sheriff group from conducting the primary which purportedly produced Jimoh Ibrahim as a candidate in the planned election, but they still went ahead with the so-called primary, is enough ground for Jimoh Ibrahim and his co-travelers to know that their primary was an exercise only in futility and that it existed only in the imagination of its authors, just as the result is not worth even the paper it is inked on.

One should ask the Ali Modu Sheriff and Jimoh Ibrahim group why they had to take their puerile exercise of a primary outside Ondo State to far away Banquet Hall of Premier Hotel, Ibadan, Oyo State, without INEC supervision or the PDP national and State executive bodies, if their intentions were pure. The fact that INEC was not represented at that exercise as required by law invalidates its outcome ab initio! To this extent, Jimoh Ibrahim is only a product of back door politics and unconstitutional procedures.

In their desperate bid to scuttle the whole process, they went to court and obtained a questionable order from Justice Okon Abang who is also known for his controversial judgements, purportedly asking INEC to recognize Jimoh as the People’s Democratic Party candidate in the Ondo election.

That order is a nullity and cannot stand as it is on a head-on collision with a previous order from another high court which had earlier barred the exercise that threw up Jimoh Ibrahim. Since nothing can stand on nothing, it is only sensible to consider Jimoh Ibrahim’s latest wild antics as the desperate actions of a drowning man who would hold onto anything even if it is just a straw to survive.

Such antics which are obviously characteristic of Jimoh, include the dubious claim that the acting Director of Legal Services of INEC, Mrs Toyin Babalola demanded a bribe of $1million from him before they would comply with the orders of Justice Okon Abang to have his name on the final list of approved candidates for the election, an allegation which the INEC has since denied.

In debunking these weighty allegations, INEC accused Jimoh Ibrahim of turning up at its headquarters unannounced and headed straight to the office of the acting Director of Legal Services brandishing a copy of the court judgement while insisting that INEC must accept him as the official candidate of the PDP for the Ondo State election. It was clarified that the Director quickly called in three other lawyers in her department to witness the encounter and that at no time during the drama that the woman asked for any bribe.

One can only imagine the bravado and impudence with which Jimoh Ibrahim would have stormed the INEC office in pursuit of vainglory, probably shouting down at every staff he met on his way to the Director’s office with an odious air of superiority and frightening arrogance, as is common with political urchins in our clime.

It is an act of unrestrained charlatanism and brazen illiteracy for a self-proclaimed aspirant to attempt to serve court orders/judgements on INEC by himself when that function is reserved for court bailiffs. That Jimoh even attempted to foist his name on INEC when that should have been done by the national chairman of the party or his designated official shows the level of desperation he has descended to. It also buttresses the fact that Jimoh must have been abandoned by the chairman of his group, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff. The earlier Jimoh knows this, the better for him. It is just that when a dog wants to die, it does not hear its master’s whistle.

Furthermore, following the rejection of his offer to have the Ondo resident electoral commissioner meet with him in London for the obvious purposes of illegally influencing him, Mr Ibrahim turned around, as usual, to falsely accuse Mr Segun Agbaje, the Ondo REC, of some “dirty deals”.

Is this the kind of man aspiring to lead a state like Ondo with highly cerebral minds and fine demeanours?

It is the same Jimoh Ibrahim who had told the world through Trace Magazine edition of June 19, 2016, that he is a member of the Accord Party. This claim has been corroborated by PDP officials in Ondo State from the ward through the state levels that Jimoh Ibrahim is not a member of the PDP. How then can a man who is not a member of a political party suddenly wake up and declare himself a candidate of that party in an election?

Ondo State people must not allow sponsored spoilers to truncate their march to a “Greater Ondo Together” nor must they allow such elements to hinder the “Keep Shining Ondo” train from its progressive goals. They must work for the continued development of the state and its great people by ensuring that only sagacious and fine minds like Eyitayo Jegede SAN, assume governorship positions in the state for the sake of their posterity.

It is highly believed that INEC, having rejected all manner of illegal overtures from desperate politicians, would endeavour to always do the right thing by recognizing Eyitayo Jegede SAN, as the rightful candidate of the PDP in the Ondo election especially as the primary that produced him was adjudged free, fair and in compliance with the laws of the land having been supervised by INEC itself.
The Ondo election is another test of Nigeria’s democratic credentials. INEC cannot afford not to get it right.

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Op–ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija

Jude Ndukwe tweets @stjudendukwe