I CALL FOR PEACEFUL AND CREDIBLE GOVERNORSHIP ELECTION IN EDO STATE. I bring warm felicitations to my brothers, sisters, elders, and leaders of our dear State, Edo State. As we go to the polls today, Saturday, September 21, 2024, to elect our next Governor, I wish to counsel on the need for a peaceful and credible Governorship election in Edo State. All over the world, democratic elections are very important in the determination of individuals to lead the people, as well as the fulfilment of their expectations, dreams, and aspirations. It is therefore expected that politics should be played without bitterness, rancor, and violence. It is in the light of the foregoing that I call on all players, including the political parties, to work to ensure a peaceful, credible, and violence-free elections. I particularly charge the political parties and their agents to do nothing to promote violence or vote buying, but rather to work to promote mutual respect, understanding, and peaceful engagement during today’s voting exercise and the post-electoral period. I also wish to call on the law enforcement agencies and the electoral umpire, the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC), to uphold the sanctity of the election by eliminating acts capable of undermining the integrity of the Governorship election. Importantly, I urge the people of Edo State to massively turn up at the various polling units to exercise their democratic right to determine who governs them. I fervently appeal to them to reject any effort to undermine their free will or negatively influence their choices, and to vote a people-centered and altruistic individual that can best govern them, in line with their expectations and aspirations.I further appeal to the people to secure their collective future and prosperity by rejecting vote buying and selfish inducements to undermine their conscience, free will and informed choice. They should collectively protect their votes and future. Finally, I commend all the candidates that put themselves up for the Governorship election, and admonish them to sustain their matured conduct throughout the exercise, and to promote same amongst their supporters.Judging from my experience as a Governorship candidate in the April 2007 Edo State Governorship election, under the aegis of the National Conscience Party (NCP), I wish to sincerely remind them that only one candidate at a time can be elected as the Governor of Edo State. I therefore hope to see a collective support for whoever is elected by the people to govern them. This, of course, is without prejudice to their fundamental legal rights to advance their case in the post-electoral period. I truly wish all of them the very best at the polls. May the prosperity of Edo State and her people be secured through this election. DR. OSAHON ENABULELE, M.B; B.S, MHPM, FWACP, FNMA, FCMA, HM-TMA. Immediate Past President, World Medical Association (2022-2023).