When in February this year, the head of opposition in Kwara State and leader of a group known as The Kwara Patriots (TKP), Chief Stephen Wole Oke said opposition was dead in the state, one has no reason to think it was not so.

The reason is this; Oke is one name that is synonymous with opposition. He is a leftist of the highest order, who does not compromise even in the face of hardships. He had done so much that even the most vicious regime of General Sanni Abacha could not do anything about him. So, when he talks on a matter on which he is an authority, one does not doubt him. When he said that there would be no more opposition in Kwara State irrespective of the situation, nobody doubted him. After all, the master of the game himself has spoken. However, the situation in the state changed with the emergence of governorship candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) for the April 26 poll. Even opposition has not ceased since the conclusion of the governorship poll. Before now in Kwara State, opposition are only known at election time when people who are never known to be citizens of the state will emerge from the moon and swell up the number of aspirants. And as soon as election is over, these seasonal home-boys disappear like the steam again.
This certainly must be responsible for the entrenchment of the dynasty of Olusola Saraki, the man who single-handedly dominated the political affairs of Kwara State for 47 years. His son, Bukola has however succeeded him and it will surely be for God-known how long. The simple summary of the affairs now is that an opposition has planted itself in the state and it is the ACN. Never in history of the state has there been any like it in the manner that it is doing now. This party has positioned itself to criticise the smallest action of the less than one month old regime aside the litigations in court over the election that brought the government to office. First, the two parties had been at each other’s throat over the examination and vetting of election documents by forensic experts for the purpose of determining the governorship election petition that ACN put before the Governorship Election Petition Tribunal to fight the conduct and the outcome of the April 26 exercise while the PDP on its part had been finding ways to counter every legal move the ACN makes. It has been a game of wit for now.

But, in a way to show that the former was out to put PDP and its government on its toes, ACN now engages in a fight that is fought in and outside the courts. It is psychological in nature. The ACN was the first to find the favour of the tribunal to obtain an order compelling the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and PDP to allow it examine, scan and inspect all election documents used for the April 26 election and at the same time bring in forensic experts to do the exercise. Dramatically, the PDP also rushed to the same tribunal to obtain the same order to do just the same thing that the opposition had requested to do. As if that was not enough, the same PDP still went ahead to obtain another order to ask that it be allowed to be present at every point of examination the ACN does.

The tribunal’s grant of the request gave the PDP an edge in the legal tussle. However, the PDP could not celebrate over the edge it has for long before the ACN, in a way that shocks every one, came with a development in which it caused the Election Petition Tribunal to commence a process of contempt of court against the PDP and Governor Fatah Ahmed, the incumbent helmsman on the ground that the latter had allegedly caused hindrance to the process of carrying out its planned inspection of the election documents. The way it is, this development may at the end make the constitutional time frame of 180 days to determine such matters before the tribunal fail.

Taking into consideration, how cumbersome it would be for the tribunal to determine the case before it, having to carry out the requested inspections of materials in about 200 wards and 18 local government areas of the state. As if to find a way out of the logjam, the two parties sometimes ago held a meeting with the INEC to decide the mode of their intentions centring on when they would do it, where and the required logistics for the examination. National Mirror gathered that this meeting ended in a deadlock. It was said that the events that actually led to the meeting was the ACN’s first accusation of collusion between the INEC and the PDP to doctor the electoral documents ahead of the arrival of the forensic experts with the fears that this could jeopardise fair deals on its petition before the tribunal.

However, Abdulwahab Bamidele, a member of the PDP legal team told journalists in Ilorin that there was a logjam on the way forward on the modality of the examination of the documents which the two parties had got the grace of the court to enjoy. According to him, while the ACN is expecting its experts to arrive the country at a time, the PDP team would not be arriving thereby creating a logjam of some sort. Ever since, it has been one buck passing or the other, between the two opposing sides. The situation now has also been that of a government that now has an opposition which is a thorn in its flesh. Every step taken by the very new regime is given a tackle and sharp criticism.

Contrary to Oke’s assertion that opposition is dead and buried, the opposite is the case and from the look of things, the ACN has positioned itself as a veritable and quality opposition to the ruling PDP. Every day, journalists in Ilorin are awash with statements from the party bringing one calculated allegation or the other against the government. This is the second battle the party is fighting aside the one in the court. Right now, the fate of both sides hang on the outcome of the tribunal and the interpretation of the new electoral law on one hand, and the ability of ACN to sustain the role of the opposition which it has indirectly assigned itself. If it does this for the next four years, it may be a new life in Kwara State and a departure from the latitudes that previous regimes had enjoyed whereby they are said to rule without checks.