AS the 2027 general elections draw nearer, the Eburu of Iba, Osun State, Oba Adekunle Adeogun Okunoye has stated that traditional rulers cannot afford to fold their arms and watch voters’ apathy during the exercise.
In his capacity as Chairman, Board of Trustees of the Centre for Rural Affairs and Community Development, Oba Okunoye said gone are the days when royal fathers were confined to their palaces when they should encourage their subjects to troop out and cast their votes.
‘Our current reality as traditional rulers, who must be interested in development of our domains, is that we have to rise and complement government efforts in mobilising our people before and during every election to record massive participation of eligible voters. This is not about partisanship but our responsibility to our people to do what is right as citizens of this country,’ he said.
The professor acknowledged the nation’s constitution which gives authority to public office holders over traditional institution and said working for government success should guarantee fair distribution of development and political appointment to domains.
He emphasised that the presence of indigenes in administration boosts chances of towns and communities to enjoy benefits of the administration, hence his call on his fellow monarchs to play their part in influencing more participation from voter registration to elections.
The Pro-chancellor of the Atiba University also acknowledged the fact that bigger cities are more fortunate than rural kings in the area of enjoying government patronage ‘Thus, bigger towns monarchs tend to enjoy more freedom in associating with politicians than monarchs from rural communities.’
Oba Okunoye reminded politicians that voters now support candidates according to development brought to their communities, adding that political parties can no longer rely on vote buying at the expense of developmental projects, which, he stresses, would make candidates popular and their campaign easy ‘because people can feel the government presence.
‘Indigenes know exactly how the given development was attracted, and politicians involved will surely become popular and even more influential on votes in that particular domain.
‘Also, a traditional ruler who can nominate and get a few indigenes to get political appointments could also have influence and bargaining chips to convince his people. There is a high tendency that the appointees will be supporting the monarch financially, which will be utilised to support community people and thus earn their respect,’ he reasoned.
Oba Okunoye added, ‘Unfortunately, such opportunities I elaborated above are not evenly available across domains. Thus, we can’t expect traditional rulers to have equal influence. Yet, the sphere of influence of traditional rulers is still significant, and if provided with similar necessary resources like politicians, they could definitely convince their subjects. I am not ignorant of the effect of financial inducement on voting and its effect on the extent to which a traditional ruler can educate his subjects on issue-driven voting decisions.’
He further said, ‘Let’s divide our society into card-carrying members of political parties and non-card-carrying members. The political class controls the card-carrying members while the rest are shared among religious and traditional communities. Careful examination of voting statistics will reveal the reason for constantly less than 50% voting rate.
‘Typical voters are primarily card-carrying members, and they can mobilise only a few people. Most non-card-carrying members of the communities don’t vote for various reasons. First and foremost reason is a lack of knowledge of the importance of voting. Most of the non-card-carrying members are not reached and mobilized to vote. The political class couldn’t cover the entire populace despite the resources at their disposal to do that. The efforts of INEC and NGOs with interest in civic education hasn’t yielded much result, to increase voting rate. Also, logistics and fear of violence contribute to the apathy by non-card carrying members.’
The Eburu emphasised that good governance starts with choice of right and best candidates by majority of the populace, saying that situation where significant percentage refused to vote, the election might produce what he called mere winners, concluding that royal fathers can best be used as agent of advocacy and social change in raising awareness of their subjects on importance of voting and for right and best candidates.
‘Our expected non-partisan status perfectly qualifies us as a watchdog to evaluate and monitor voting, report vote buying and expose corruption in the electioneering value chain,’ he said.