By Idowu Ephraim Faleye +2348132100608
There is a difference between reporting an election and interpreting it through personal feelings, assumptions and political preferences. There is also a difference between asking questions about voters’ choices and judging an entire people based on an assumption that has not been established with evidence. This distinction is important in responding to *Suyi Ayodele’s article, “Adeleke: Victory after victory,”* published in the Nigerian Tribune on August 18, 2027, because beneath the beautiful Yoruba expressions and impressive command of language is an argument that appears to say more about the writer’s interest and bias than about the actual reason Ekiti people voted for Governor Biodun Oyebanji.
The writer suggests that Ekiti voters collected money, bread, spaghetti and other items from the APC and then voted for the party. He presents this as though it were an established explanation for Oyebanji’s victory, yet no evidence was provided to establish how many voters allegedly did this, where it happened, or how the writer knew that those who collected such items actually voted for the APC. An allegation cannot become a fact simply because it is repeated with confidence and wrapped in powerful language. To judge the people of an entire state on such an assumption is not only unfair; it is an insult to the intelligence of the people of the Fountain of Knowledge.
The fundamental question the writer failed to ask is simple: why would an incumbent governor contesting for a second term need to rely solely on inducement when he already had four years of performance and a relationship with the people to campaign with? Every serious incumbent seeking a second term campaigns primarily on his record, his popularity and the confidence he has built among the people. That was true of Ademola Adeleke in Osun, and it was equally true of Biodun Oyebanji in Ekiti. Their political parties may be different, but voters were not simply voting for party labels; they were judging the men who had governed them.
This is where the comparison between Osun and Ekiti becomes important. Adeleke’s victory should not be explained merely by the fact that he contested under the Accord Party, just as Oyebanji’s victory should not be explained merely by the fact that he contested under the APC. Adeleke had become popular enough among his supporters to secure another term, and his supporters believed his administration deserved continuity. In exactly the same way, Oyebanji’s popularity and performance created the political environment that produced his overwhelming victory in Ekiti.
There is an important difference between the two elections which the writer’s argument appears to overlook. The Osun election was closely contested, as reflected in the relatively narrow margin between Adeleke and his closest challenger. That margin shows that there was a serious contest and that a substantial number of voters were persuaded by the opposition. Ekiti was a completely different electoral picture, because Oyebanji did not merely win; he dominated the contest, defeating his closest challengers by a margin so wide that reducing the result to alleged food and cash inducement becomes difficult to sustain.
The scale of Oyebanji’s victory is itself political evidence. He won across the state and left the opposition with a very small share of the total votes compared with his own. When an incumbent receives such overwhelming support, the serious political question should be: what did he do right, what relationship did he build with the people, and why did the opposition fail to persuade them? Instead, the writer appears to have started from a conclusion and then searched for a story capable of supporting it.
That is the major weakness in the article. The writer’s interpretation seems to have been shaped by his apparent hostility towards the APC, and the election was then presented through that political lens. His admiration for Adeleke’s victory and hostility towards the APC are not necessarily wrong in themselves; every writer has the right to political preferences. The problem arises when personal preference becomes the filter through which facts are selected, interpreted and presented.
The article therefore deserves to be read not only for what it says about Ekiti voters, but also for what it reveals about the writer. His choice of language, his emotional reaction and his use of Yoruba wisdom all create a strong narrative in which Osun voters appear politically clever while Ekiti voters appear gullible and easily bought. But that is the writer’s interpretation, not an established reality. The reader must separate the author’s feelings from the evidence and ask whether the facts actually support the conclusion.
This is particularly important because the writer is an accomplished user of Yoruba language and cultural expressions. His ability to draw from Yoruba oracular language, proverbs and familiar expressions gives his writing depth and makes his arguments attractive to readers. But beautiful language can persuade without proving. A powerful metaphor may explain an argument, but it cannot establish an allegation that requires evidence.
When the writer says he “wept bitterly” over the alleged behaviour of Ekiti voters, he is telling us how he feels about what he believes happened. His tears are evidence of his emotional response, not evidence that Ekiti voters sold their votes. There is a clear difference between “I believe this happened” and “I can demonstrate that this happened.” A responsible political commentator must know where one ends and the other begins.
The irony is that the writer appears willing to grant Osun voters the intelligence to collect money from the APC and still vote for Adeleke, yet he denies Ekiti voters the same political independence. If accepting an inducement does not necessarily determine how an Osun voter casts a ballot, why should the mere allegation that Ekiti voters received money, bread or spaghetti be treated as proof that they voted for Oyebanji because of those items? The same standard must apply to both electorates.
More importantly, Ekiti people are not politically inferior to Osun people. They are people with their own understanding of governance, development, leadership and personal experience with their governor. They watched Oyebanji’s administration for four years, assessed what they saw, listened to the opposition and eventually made their decision. To dismiss that collective judgment as the product of a few bags of food or small cash payments is to deny Ekiti voters the very political intelligence that the writer celebrates in Osun voters.
The people of the Fountain of Knowledge therefore have every reason to feel insulted by the sweeping judgment contained in the article. A whole people should not be condemned on the basis of assumption, particularly when the electoral result itself provides a much stronger explanation. The overwhelming support for Oyebanji indicates that something deeper than the writer’s allegation was at work: popularity, performance, trust, political organisation and the desire for continuity.
Nobody is claiming that Oyebanji is perfect or that every Ekiti voter supports everything his administration has done. Elections do not require unanimity. What matters is that the majority reached a clear conclusion about who they wanted to govern them, and the margin of victory showed just how strongly that conclusion was expressed. Democracy requires us to respect that decision even when it does not agree with our personal political preference.
The same respect must be extended to Adeleke. His supporters believe he performed well enough to deserve another term, and they voted accordingly. The fact that he won in a closely contested election does not make his victory less legitimate; rather, it shows the strength of the contest. Likewise, the fact that Oyebanji won by a much wider margin does not make Ekiti voters less intelligent; it demonstrates the strength of his popularity and the level of acceptance his administration enjoyed.
The writer should therefore look again at the election without the emotional and political lens through which he presented it. If he has evidence that Ekiti voters were paid and that such payments determined the election, he should present that evidence. But if he cannot substantiate the allegation, he should not turn an assumption into a judgment against millions of people.
Ekiti people are not asking for special treatment. They are asking for fairness. They demand that the statement portraying them as voters who exchanged their conscience for bread, spaghetti and N3,000 be withdrawn and that the writer apologise to the people whose collective political judgment he has unfairly questioned.
The lesson here is bigger than Oyebanji, Adeleke, APC or PDP. Political writers must remember that their readers are capable of thinking beyond the writer’s preferred narrative. They can admire the language, understand the cultural references and still question the conclusion. The responsibility of the serious commentator is therefore not to tell readers what to think, but to give them enough evidence to make up their own minds.
In the final analysis, Adeleke’s victory and Oyebanji’s victory should teach the same lesson: when an incumbent seeks a second term, popularity and performance become powerful campaign assets. Osun voters judged Adeleke and retained him in a closely fought contest, while Ekiti voters judged Oyebanji and retained him with an overwhelming mandate. The political parties were different, but the democratic principle was the same.
The real danger, therefore, is not that Ekiti people voted for APC. The real danger is the attempt to explain away their decision because it does not fit the writer’s political preference. When personal interest, assumption and bias become the foundation of political interpretation, the writer may produce an engaging article, but he risks losing sight of the people whose political choices he claims to analyse. And when that happens, the duty of the reader is to look beyond the beautiful words, remove the emotional curtain and allow the evidence to speak.
*Idowu Ephraim Faleye writes from Ado-Ekiti, Nigeria+2348132100608*
