On June 18, about 12 weeks from today, the people of Ekiti State will go to the polls to choose their next Governor.
This will be the state’s 6th gubernatorial election since the return to democratic rule in 1999.
Kayode Fayemi of the All Progressives Congress (APC) won the last governorship race in the state, having polled a total of 197,459 votes, defeating his closest contender, Kolapo Olusola of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who polled 178,121 votes.
Fayemi of APC recorded 51.3% and Olushola of the PDP recorded 46.3% of the total votes cast.
The 33 other aspirants secured just 2.4% of the total votes cast in the Ekiti 2018 guber election. The candidates of the APC and PDP were clearly the major contenders in the race.
The 2022 election is around the corner, and we take a look at how the state has fared with regards to electoral participation (voter turnout), candidates vying for the highest seat in the state, and some of the issues in the previous election that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) should pay attention to as it commits to conducting a free and credible election in the state.
Number of Registered Voters Vs Turnout in Ekiti 2003, 2014, and 2018 Governorship Election
The level of electoral participation in the last three (with the exception of 2007) gubernatorial elections in the state was below 50%.
In the 2003 election, Ekiti state recorded 981,753 registered voters but only 43.47% of the total registered voters came out to vote on the election day.
In 2014 there was a higher voter turnout, although the number of registered voters dropped. A total of 360,455, representing 49.12% of the 733,766 registered voters voted in the election. This is the highest turnout in the election cycles under review.
The number of registered voters picked up again in 2018 but not the voter turnout. According to INEC, there were 909,585 registered voters in the state in 2018, however, the election recorded only 44.36% turnout.
The number of registered voters in the upcoming election will likely be over one million as the latest data from INEC on the ongoing continuous voter registration (CVR) shows that 110,256 persons have completed their registration in the state. However, what is not clear yet is if the increase in registered voters would translate to an increase in the turnout rate.
Candidates for the 2022 Ekiti Governorship Race
According to the final list of candidates released by INEC, 16 candidates are in the race for the 2022 Ekiti governorship election. Out of the 16 candidates vying for the position, only 2 are women.
The two women in the race are; Elebute-Halle Josephine Kemi of the Action Democratic Party (ADP) and Christiana Modupe Olatawura, the candidate of the Action Peoples Party (APP).
The total number of candidates that will participate in the upcoming governorship election dropped compared to the last election in the state. In the 2018 election, there were 35 candidates in total, and they were all male.
Of the 35 candidates in the last election, 25 of them representing (71%) picked males as their deputy governorship aspirants, while 10 selected females as their deputies which accounted for (29%) of female representation.
In the 2022 governorship race, there are 7 female deputy governorship aspirants and 9 males.
Neither of the two leading parties has female candidates or deputies.
Some of the Issues Reported in the Previous Election that INEC Should Note
In order to win an election, many politicians resort to vote-buying, which unfortunately has become a key component of Nigeria’s monetized political system. No thanks to the increasing poverty in the giant of Africa.
In a statement signed by the Nigerian Human Rights Commission (NHRC) about Ekiti state 2018 governorship election, the Commission noted that there was widespread vote-buying in the election, noting that workers in the state were paid the sum of N3,000 on the eve of the election which NHRC described as a bribe so that they could vote for the state government’s preferred candidate.
It further noted that the state government paid N7,000 each to pensioners on the eve of the election, which appears to be an inducement since it was not listed as part of their legal entitlement.
The opposition party was not left out, as it was reported that it paid between the sum of N5,000 and N10,000 to voters.
The widespread vote-buying in the election was also noted by the Transition Monitoring Group (TMG), Nigeria. The group in its report noted that there was a systemic case of vote-buying and financial inducement of voters in the Ekiti 2018 governorship election.
Apart from the fact that vote-buying is bad for the country’s democracy, as TMG said, it negatively impacts the credibility of an election and is a criminal offense as stated in Section 22 of the Electoral Act, 2022.
As the people of Ekiti state prepare for the upcoming election, INEC will need to pay attention to the issue of vote-buying that was reported in the previous election and apply the appropriate sanctions as stated in the Electoral Act on anyone or political party found culpable.
There were also reports of Card Reader malfunction in the Ekiti state 2018 guber election. According to the TMG report, there were complaints of authentication of fingerprints of electorates in some polling units which led to slow voting.
Olakunle and Oluwaseun also noted this in their report on the election.
Although INEC has a new device now, the Bi-Modal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), that it may deploy in the Ekiti election, there have been reports of the BVAS malfunctioning in the elections where it has been deployed so far.
INEC may also need to take into consideration this issue and find a lasting solution to device malfunctions as eligible voters in Ekiti gear up for the governorship election on June 18.