Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has revealed that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) lost a local government election in Ogun State in 1998 because he refused to support efforts to bribe police and Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) officials.
On Monday, November 20, at a high-level consultation on ‘Rethinking Western Liberal Democracy in Africa,’ Obasanjo claimed that party leaders supported giving funding to the police and INEC. However, he rejected the plan, claiming that these officials were already government employees paid on a monthly basis.
Recounting the experience, Obasanjo underscored the importance of what he termed the ‘Nigerian factor’ in elections. He stated that during the first local government election, his party suffered defeat because he failed to accept the so-called ‘Nigerian factor’ in preparing.
“When things go wrong, you said the Nigerian factor. The first thing I learned in politics was this thing called the Nigerian factor.
“In 1998, we had the first local government election. We had parties, and here in Abeokuta, we met in my office and they came up and said, ‘Look, this is money for INEC, money for police.’ At a stage, I said, ‘What nonsense! Is the police not being paid, and INEC too?’
“They said ‘that’s how we do it. I said ‘You cannot do that.’ So, they didn’t do that. And of course, we lost all the local governments. We lost all. And then they came to me and said, ‘Baba, you see? If you had allowed us to do it the way we used to do it, we would have won. And I felt guilty.
“During the next election, which was the State Assembly, I just stayed in my house. I said ‘Well, do whatever you want to do, I will not be part of it’. So, I didn’t even go. But, the result was the same. One of the people who got money didn’t even distribute it to where he was supposed to distribute it,” Obasanjo recounted.
