Two career events took place on Septenber 21, 2024. The first one was the Edo Governorship Election while the second was the epic fight between Anthony Joshua and Daniel Dubois for the IBF title.

Dubois defeated Joshua in grand style to retain his IBF crown by flooring Joshua in each of the first four rounds and finally ended the fight in the fifth round with a firm counter right punch that sent Joshua to the canvas.

Joshua courageously smiled during his post-fight press intèrview accepting defeat because of mistakes that he made in the fight. He felt no grudges towards Dubois. No complain. No antagonism for the fight referee. Behold, he was a good loser.

But this is not the case with the PDP. The party has refused to eat the humble pie of defeat in the hands of the APC opposition party and is crying blue murder.

The discerning mind is not deceived or surprised by the antics of the PDP and Governor Godwin Obaseki threatening court action. What is playing out are two folds.

Firstly, the governor's behavior is a symptom of someone with Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome.

Ìt is out of pathological addictive, perfectionist, overconfidence that PDP will win the 2024 Governorship election with a landslide. But his party lost to the APC with a sizable margin of 44, 395 votes. He is alarmed by the election outcome. He never expected it.

It is because he does not understand a law of existentialism that since what is possible is probable, then an expected possibility can become an unwholesome, painful impossibility. Yes, bereft of this law, he spent countless times in 2022 boasting ùnfailingly of PDP successes in elections in Edo State.

Listen to him on several occasions in 2022, before the local government election as well as the heated governorship election: "We don't see how PDP will lose power again in Edo State.

"We have retired godfathers from Edo politics hindering us from delivering democratic dividends to voters.

"PDP is on recruitment drive for new members. By February 2022 about 10 percent of Edo population will be PDP."

From the foregoing, you can see that Obaseki is addicted to the psychosomatic victory drug of winning elections for PDP. Hence, he developed a Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder from losing the September 21, 2024 Governorship Election.

Secondly, unknown to most people, Obaseki is also fixated with the notion that to win any election in Nigeria; you must rig it openly or covertly using brute violence without any apologies to stakeholders of democracy in Nigeria and across the globe.

To achieve his strategic objective therefore, of rigging elections for the PDP in Edo State, he announced his avowed plan to set up an election fighting war machine in the state during a PDP state executive meeting in Benin on May 10, 2024.

Obaseki did not disclose details of his election war machine to all party members.

Nevertheless; they became known with the passage of time.

According to sources, these are the core elements of the fearsome machine. It had soft non kinetic as well as hard kinetic components put together. The non kinetic part involves the:

■ Acquisition of slush billions of naira in easily available form for use in supporting party secretariats and its officials on duty to keep members and recruit undecided voters into the PDP fold.

■ Embarking on aggressive peddling of lies, falsehood and propaganda to de-market the APC and make voters and Nigerians to see the party as unfit to govern at the local, state snd federal levels.

■ Ignoring of public complaints against the activities of loyal unions, Odion Olaye and other nonstate actors engaged in revenue collectors who are natural allies of the PDP in the state.

■ Doling out money to individuals, religious organizations and other identified groups in society so as to curry their favour and support.

■ Engaging in massive use of the state'owned Edo Broadcasting Service, Nigerian Observer as well as other independent media outfits to market the PDP as the best party that should be ruling Edo State and Nigeria.

■ The manipulation of sports as a tool for mobilizing support for the PDP given that Edo people ĺove sports especially football.

■ Deploying of public spaces for promoting the party while limiting their use to opposition parties.

On the other hand, here are the hard kinetic component of Obaseki's election war machine according to a mole; it is the use of threats, hostile and belligerent language of deploying state might on 'troublemakers' in the more visible APC to cow its members into docile submission.

Also, the mole informed me the kinetic plan entailed completing the proposed Crime Command And Control Center project located in Government House, Benin. Lest one forgets, the agenda equally involve the creation of a lethal Edo Vigilante Security Corps that in only under Obaseki's strict control and daily supervision.

Obaseki's war machine didn't come full stream for use during the local government election in Edo State on September 4, 2023.

At the time, the soft, non kinetic component of the war machine was rolled out but the Edo Vigilante Corps were yet to reach their epic performance being still a ragtag assemblage of uncouth youths awaiting consolidated full paramilitary training at Ogida Police Gròunds. All the same, the outfit performed well for 0baseki. The outfit enabled him to scare away opposition voters. So he won all the 18 local government areas.

Meanwhile, ahead of the September 21, 2024 the PDP administration of Obaseki set in motion the fast, smart implementation of his vote buying, rigging agenda in the surreptitious, disguised way of allocating greek gifts to workers as well as Edo indigenes and residents.

How? Let me selectively explain with a few examples so as not to waste space. On April 29, 2024 Obaseki approved a minimum wage of N70,000 for only core servants not all the civil servants. The completed Labour House Complex on Temboga axis of Benin Metropolis was commissioned and handed over to the Edo State chapter of Nigeria Laboùr Çongress, on April 29, 2024. A bus was donated to the Edo State Chapter of the Nigerian Union of Journalists on March 29, 2024.

Oredo local government flagged off, what its chairman Dr Tom Obaseki branded a Farmers's Market "to enhance food security; welfare of citizens and boost growth as well as development in the council area." Also, he gave out food palliatives to Oredo electorate.

In the same spirit, the governor on May 3, 2024 launched a Food Support Programme in the state.

On the 26th May, 2024 to buy christian votes the governor in company of his wife and Asue Ighodalo paid a visit to Dr. Abraham Chigbundu, a topnotcher in Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), to join in his 70th birthday celebration.

The next electoral stop of the governor was Iguobazuwa in May 2024. There, he promised to set up a water transportation system in the riverine area of Edo State. Hmmmm, after over 7 years in office and 4 months to the September 21, 2024 governorship election it is now he was remembering the people need riverine transportation!

Much more soft approach in Obaseki's disguised vote purchasing and rigging runs. His wife launcbed a dubious scheme to give out 500,000 subsidized pre-paid meters to Edo people who get more darkness than light. Also, Obaseki gleefully announced that it is the first subnational government to procure a licence from the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission to generate, transmit and distribute power at a time the MOU with Ossiomo Power Company is in shambles.

To tell Edo voters that he is working hard to meet their electricity needs, he despatched a bill to the assembly for an enabling legislation to actualize the power dream.

Don't forget, too, that Obaseki took his vote buying to CAN and muslim faithfuls the sum of N2 billion for use in purchasing rice for distribution to their members.

Come the 12th of August, 2024 the PDP and Obaseki commissioned BusinessDay newspaper to release a sponsored laughable vox pop on the candidates in the race to Osadebey Avenue, Benin City. According to the report Asue Ighodalo, the PDP candidate, will win the contest because he won the poll with 68 per cent beating Senator Monday Okpebholo of the APC and Labour Party's candidate Olumide Akpata to second place (18 percent) and third place (I4 percrnt) respectively. A small sample size of 1179 respondents from a a population of about 2.2 million were sampled in the scandalous study that defied all the accepted norms and practices of research statistics and methodology.

This false public opinion poll was cooked up to rationalise the arranged, rigged figures the PDP will present to the whole world that Asue Ighodalo won the election when conducted. Furthermore, to make the general public believe the packaged untruths of Asue Ighodalo's purported victory òn September 21, 2024 they repeated the opinion poll in mass media channels daily exploiting the psychological principle of autosuggestions which teaches that public exposure to message content over time mislead people to uphold them as fundamental irrevocable sublime truths.

This tells you how diabolically crooked Obaseki and his rigging merchants are!!

So far, all I have enumerated are the soft side of Obaseki's war machine to rig the governorship election.

Now to the hard, kinertic component of the planned rigging.

Deep inside investigations reveal that the hard elements of the rigging war machine included the following:

■ Quickly setting up on December 8, 2023 of the Crime Command And Control Center at Government House Benin with CCTV cameras in strategic areas of Benin City primarily to monitor the opposition parties so as to cripple them. The decision to establish the center was taken far back as January 16th, 2019 when Wabaizigan Security Architecture center was launched on January 16, 2019 to fight crime. Four years later when the center was finally built it was basically for destabilizing the opposition ahead of the governorship election. Edo State belongs to the PDP, no other party according to Obaseki.

■ The banning of Okaigheles, youth leaders in Edo South communities and setting up a special task force under the DSS to enforce the ban knowing that the Okaigheles will hinder the actualization of the rigging plan of the PDP.

■ Impeachment of troublesome, disloyal Philip Shaibu already lost to the APC ruling party to keep him away from the inner workings of the PDP rigging war machine. This apart, his reinstatement by any court of law will be vehemeñtly resisted. Trust, this led to the shooting incident on Airport Road, Benin City during which gun men attacked the convoy of Senator Monday Okpebholo and Philip enroute to assuming duty following a court judgement.

■ The surprise impeachment of hardworking Eghe Ogbemudia, the chairman of Egor Local Government Council because she was unable to key in fully into the PDP war plan to rig the governorship election. Later, she returned to her job through the backdoor unannounced.

■ The ragtag Edo State Vigilante members were screened and those considered fit were sent for special training for secret transformation into Edo State Police Force that was assigned the name Edo State Security Network (ESSN) under Rtrd Col Kole Omomia leadership. The new outfit was indoctrinated on its primary responsibility to act as the arrowhead of Obaseki's rigging war machine and work with the PDP and Obaseki to defeat the APC in particular in the election. Before the Airport Road incident in which a mobile police officer was killed, the fully-armed ESSN was ready for the election, no doubt.

However, after the event, the PDP and Obaseki discovered a dire need to strengthen the ESSN with an additional legislation to enable it to be a parallel security outfit that is co-equal and independent of the operational command of Edo Police Command. Otherwise, the ESSN would lack the capacity to be used in their rigging plan. This reasoning led Edo Assembly to pass an amendment bill upgrading the powers of ESSN and thereafter to be officially addressed as Edo State Security Corps. And, so, it can now bear arms and be on duty also on election day just like the national security agencies.

■ The use of threats as well as do-or-die campaigns by the PDP to create fear in the APC camp to ensure its supporters stay at home on voting day.

For example, in the month of September 2024 alone several top PDP members on radio and television spoke in a fighting mode to defend the assigned , expected victory of Asue Ighodalo.

Odion Olaye at a PDP rally in Egor declared that Asue Ighodalo has already won massively in the area with 80 percent of the votes and he must be declared the winner of the election otherwise Edo State will burn. On his part, Obaseki, the supposed chief security officer of the state in a Channels TV interview vowed unapologetically that the election will be a do-or-die affair. Later, the PDP refused to sign the Abdulsalami Abubakar Peace Accord to work for a violence-free election.

The development further confirmed the PDP's preparedness to abandon a peaceful conduct of the election of September 21, 2024.

Given its well-oiled rigging machine in readiness, the PDP was very confident that come rain or shine victory belong to Asue Ighodalo. Afterall, the votes of over 50 percent of permanent voter card holders have been bribed with projects and money including all market union members in Edo State who on September 18th, 2024 received a slush bribe of 1billion naira.

However, the PDP forgot that as a bad governorship product, ab initio, Asue Ighodalo would never be able to garner winning voters to be elected. Neither would Obaseki successfully market him because of his nonperformance as an incumbent governor. In addition, in office he held a snake in both hands thus chasing away party members as well as new potential ones.

What is more, several people saw the money and project bribe as their rightful democratic entitlements. So, the bribe did not induce people to vote for PDP.

Also, a surge of undecided voters in protest against Obaseki wiles pitched their tents with the dominant and formidable APC party with a functional structure and an Esan candidate, Senator Monday Okpebholo, whose turn it is to become a governor on the solid affirmative grounds of equity, Edo unity and peaceful co-existence.

Then, of course, there is the saying that man proposes but God disposes. Hence, while Obaseki was hellbent to rig the election, the federal government got wind of it. To stop the act; the central government changed the equation on the ground it brought in a new police commissioner Nemi Edwin Iwo and Anugbum Onouha as resident electoral commissioner.

In addition, the Edo State Security Corps were banned while over 80, 000 crime fighters were dispatched to Edo State to keep the peace. Indeed, the police, DSS, soldiers, NSCDC and EFCC among other national operatives were on duty in Edo State on election day.

All these arrangements totally crippled the rigging machine of Obaseki and his associated in the PDP.

We must not also lose sight of the effectiveness of the APC campaigns; the efforts of the BENDEL Mirror online Newspaper; as well as the spiritual prayers of our revered Oba of Benin.

If you don't pray, you are playing with your life, declares a pentecostal Edo pastor.

Methinks, the Oba's prayers really worked for ùs.

On September 26, 2024 the oba called on all Edo people to fast for two weeks to thank the ancestors for preventing evil scourge in the land. Good counsel.

Evil was banished from Edo State on September 21, 2024 with tbe defeat of the PDP, Obaseki, Ighodalo and Ogie.

Roma locuta est, causa finito!! The electorate has spoken. Case closed!!!

No PDP war machine can rig the court to void the people's mandate given to the APC, Senator Monday Okpebholo and Hon. Dennis Idahosa.