Why ANRP Did Not Have A Good Outing In Osun State -By Olanrewaju Osho

The Osun election is purely a case of money politics by the looters of our Commonwealth. APC and PDP invested billions into the election because they have access to our treasury. PDP governors supported their candidates heavily and the candidates has financial power from the Senate and from his very rich family.

APC’s candidate’s campaign was powered by the strength of incumbency. Osinbajo, Tinubu, Buhari were all there to campaign.

Senator Iyiola Omisore spent millions and had the financial muscles to touch all the 300 wards.He had been both a senator and deputy governor. The 4th candidate just decamped from APC. He also spent millions and his city Iwo is heavily populated. The party that came 5th is Olusegun Obasanjo’s 3rd Force. The team was led by Olagunsoye Oyinlola a former governor of Osun State. I met the 4th and 5th party candidates in Living Faith Church last Sunday as they came to canvass for votes. I also went to the church with my best friend who was a Pastor and a candidate of one of the parties to canvass for votes.

Olanrewaju Lawrence Osho

The parties that came first to 5th touched all the 30 LGAs to campaign. The billboards of APC all around Osun costs well over 1 billion naira. PDP’s billboards were massive and must have cost over 500 million naira. Millions were also pumped into electronic media adverts. Party offices were opened by all of them in almost all the 30 LGAs. All these cost a lot of money.

When you look at our Party’s performance, you will wonder whether we have only 532 members. This shows that we either do not have very loyal and committed members in Osun State or they sold out. It could also mean that we do not have party agents at the polling booths to do the final marketing with their mere presence. Whether the same will play out in other elections depends on several factors.
1. The poverty factor. I saw poverty in Osun state to the point that I nearly cried. This makes the people ready to collect money from anyone who is ready to offer it to buy their votes. You can then conclude that keeping the people hungry so that money can be used to whip them in line during the election is a game our wicked leaders have gained mastery of. We will need ingenious panacea for this.
2. The mentality problem. The culture of nothing goes for nothing is still deeply entrenched in the psyche of Nigerians. As soon as you approach voters, the first thing they want from you is money or foodstuffs. ANRP is not a party to this kind of depravity. I am certain that most Osun voters voted for money, not their conscience. If the psyche continues to rule the voting pattern of the electorates, then we have our work cut out for us.
3. Champions of renewal. For a party with our ethos to win elections, we need fanatical champions of renewal who are ready to volunteer for weeks knocking every available door to ‘evangelize’ the voting public and renew their psyche with our ideology. Then we will have a follow up team that will continue to reinforce our message. These also cost money to raise, train and deploy the champions of renewal.
4. Party agents. Every candidate in Osun election needed 300 party agents. These guys will cover all the 300 wards. Each was to be paid #3,000 minimum. That’s 9 million. Was our candidate able to cough out 9 million naira? Did we contribute anything to support him?

5. Lack of ideology by voters. Many of Nigerian voters are unreliable because they are not hooked on any ideology. They are easily swayed by gratification.

Democracy is very shallow in Nigeria because many of the actors see politics as business. One of the party Excos in Osun election were ready to sell their party’s vote few days to the election so that they can make some cash. They did not even mind the millions their candidate has spent legitimately to sell his wonderful program to the people. My friend spent over #2m for their party’s mega rally four days to the election. The crowd of ‘faithful party members” at the rally was over 3,000, but as the result later showed, they didn’t vote for their party at the polls. They voted for money.

ANRP can learn a lot from the Osun polls as we forge ahead to achieve our Renewal mission.

Olanrewaju Lawrence Osho is ANRP Senate candidate for the FCT, he wrote from Abuja.