Imo Gubernatorial Election: Strategy of Avoidance and Suppression
Winston Churchill once reminded all of us that “truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is”. This observation by the former British Prime Minister is totally in harmony with our own human values and understanding of the nature and meaning of truth. The average person and society at large recognizes truth when it is said. Truth may be covered up for a long time; but almost always, it does evolve, and when it does, it leaves in its wake, battered credibility, irreparable damages, and in many cases, lives destroyed.
When truth is uncovered, the damage to society is mitigated. The actions of those who chose to inhibit the course of human civilization is brought into the full glare of sunlight and attenuated; thereafter, progress is redirected and continued. Those responsible for undermining the public good and those responsible for covering it up are brought to ridicule and treated with ignominy. This chain of events must occur in society, and, for the people who wish to make progress and be taken seriously by others. Truth is an obvious fact that hardly needs to be stated.
It is against this back drop that the recent decision of the Supreme Court to move up the hearing date on a case brought before it by Governor Ikedi Ohakim of Imo State on whether or not the Abuja Court of Appeals erred in their decision to hear the case is greeted with great admiration. The Court’s initial decision to hear the case on September 29, 2009 was needless to say; nauseating. Their reversal of that decision and ramp up of the case to June 23, 2009 was uplifting and refreshing. The Court has wisely determined that justice delayed is justice denied.
Chief Agbaso’s election case has lingered on now for over two years and deserves the utmost urgency. We all agree that no one should profit from crime and this may be exactly what has happened in Imo State. The people of Imo State who are subject to the authority of Governor Ikedi Ohakim have every right to know if their governor is a crook. The governor’s effort should be aimed at proving otherwise. It should not be in stalling or preventing a hearing. This tactics of delaying or scuttling a hearing is a losing strategy and an affront to democracy and he knows it.
The reader is reminded that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) abbreviated the April 14, 2007 Imo gubernatorial election after polling was done and tabulated in 24 out of the 27 local government areas of the state. INEC’s explanation of their decision to cancel the election was tortuous, convoluted and implausible to say the least. INEC’s explanation reminds one of Churchill’s riddle that was wrapped in a mystery and placed inside an enigma. If it is up to INEC, we should not know the answer to what happened in Imo State on April 14, 2007. The Supreme Court and/or the Abuja Court of Appeals will now hopefully untangle the maze of debauchery, deceit, crapshoot, and lies perpetrated on the people of Imo State.
The electoral body claimed that violence and mayhem of the magnitude envisaged in Clause Part IV, section 27 (1) of the 2006 Electoral Act attended the election and yet, no one is able to verify their claim. The Act reads as follows: “Where a date has been appointed for the holding of an election, and there is reason to believe that a serious breach of the peace is likely to occur if the election is proceeded with on that date or it is impossible to conduct the elections as a result of natural disasters or other emergencies, the Commission may postpone the election and shall in respect of the area, or areas concerned, appoint another date for the holding of the postponed election”.
INEC has not claimed that violence attended all the polling places in the 27 local government areas of the state. The average person would ask why then was the governorship election result cancelled in the entire 27 local government areas of the state; and, not just in respect of the area, or areas concerned, as stipulated in the concluding sentence of Clause Part IV, section 27 (1). This conundrum is further exacerbated by the knowledge that under the same set of circumstances, i.e., date, time, place, space, staff, ballot boxes, ballot papers, and, other resources; the Imo state house of assembly election results were approved and released by INEC; but, not the governorship election result. This was too important to be given away to the wrong person; albeit, it was the product of the same election and the wrong person may have won it.
In INEC’s world and monopoly of election knowledge, imaginary violence and mayhem marred the Imo gubernatorial election but the same violence and mayhem was not sufficient to mare the state house of assembly elections; an argument that is stupid and incongruous with the facts. INEC’s behavior is a stain on the conscience of Nigeria and on civilized norms of behavior. We must each in our own intellectual way determine if an average person regardless of their country of origin, creed, background or ideological bent; operating under a veil of ignorance, can accept INEC’s reason or logic for the cancellation of the Imo gubernatorial election of April 14, 2007.
Finding the answer is the essence of intellectual life to which we must be irrevocably bound and committed. It will be the end of intellectual life however, if we choose not to find the answer to INEC’s poser. Esoteric legal arguments are simply that, esoteric, but the people of Nigeria have the most important thing and that is commonsense – lots of it.
Governor Ohakim’s strategy of avoiding a trial at all costs and suppressing evidence is nauseating and antithetical to democratic values, and he knows it. The more he makes effort at circumventing a hearing, the more citizens wonder if he really won the gubernatorial election. At issue is his legitimacy in office and nothing else can be more important than proving it.
Of the three branches of our government, the judiciary has shown the greatest promise and they have the gratitude of a grateful nation. I am not surprised however, because, thus far, they have the most intellectual minds. The work of the judiciary has the most meaning to the citizens of Nigeria because we can see and evaluate it more readily unlike the work of the presidency or the legislature, which are cloaked in secrecy and deal-making and does nothing to improve the lives of the governed. It is important that the judiciary continues to shine the light and uphold the principle of equal justice under the law, for without it, this nation has nothing; really nothing.
Martin Ajaero
OPEN LETTER TO NIGERIA PRESIDENT Yar'Adua
Your Excellency, in your inauguration speech five months ago, you promised the Nation to be a servant president and would listen to the hopes and aspirations of your people. In 1994, I wrote to former president of United States of America, William Jefferson Clinton, concerning the human degradation in Haiti during and after political turmoil that was ravaging the country and asked for his intervention. Precisely, on June 20, 1994, President Clinton, despite of his busy schedules replied my letter and spelt out in details his plans to ameliorate the plights of Haitians. It is in the same token that I wrote this open letter to you and for your speedy intervention and a reply to this letter will be highly appreciated.
Mr. President, as a concerned citizen of Nigeria living in the United States, I am concerned about the report of the European Union Election Observers that portrayed the activities of Independent National Electoral Commission as grossly negligent and dereliction of its civic obligations to the people of Nigeria. The EU Report was a solid indictment of the Professor Maurice Iwu's led Commission of incompetence, corrupt, falsification and manipulation of government records in order to influence the outcome of election results. Mr. President, your track record as a Governor of Katsina State spoke volume of your integrity and your disdain for corruption. Now you are the president, use your good offices to save Nigeria from the cataclysm of the ruling party’s grip on Election Commission.
The purpose of this letter is to request that you dissolve the INEC and relieve Professor Iwu of his position and let him return to classroom where he belongs. Mr. President, since your life time and following political activities in Nigeria and African, with the exception of Apartheid South Africa where the majority took control, have you ever witnessed any ruling party lose elections? The yawning of millions of Nigerians are that you transfer the duties of INEC to Nigeria Judicial Council with a budget to oversee all national elections. The Judicial Council should report to only 3 retired Supreme Court Justices who will release every national result away from Executive Office. You are a living witness of what the ruling party did to Anambra State in the last dispensation. I chose the Nigeria Judicial Council because of its track records of protecting the interests of commoners by its recommendations of summary terminations and dismissals of corrupt judges. Above all, I recommended NJC because of its stand on the rule of Law. The NJC must ensure that individuals sitting in Aso Rock, National Assembly, Governorship seats and State Houses of Assemblies are true representatives of the people. No matter how much INEC is defended; its activities, so far, is not worthy of emulation and people are requesting a turn around from the status quo.
Your Excellency, be the first in Africa to remove the Electoral Commission from the grips of the ruling party. Mr. President, Nigerians are yarning for true representatives of elected officials for the country. In a civil society, elections are won through the track records of individuals that exemplified themselves with honor, integrity and service to the nation. In the last administration of your ruling party, Nigerians are plagued with dare-devil armed robberies in broad day lights and nights, high rate of unemployment as ever before; political assassination became the order of the day, child kidnapping, cultism, lawlessness, bribery and corruption filled the air. The dilapidated infrastructures littered all over the place; Nigerians returned home from work to a high room temperature in their homes because of no power supply for cooling relaxation. Foods are damaged in the refrigerators because of interruption of power supply. The plight of lack of water supply tortured the population, and of course, the never ending bad roads with potholes all plagued Nigerian during the last administration. How then, did your ruling party scored over eighty percent of the votes in the last general election under the anomalies mentioned above? Mr. President, under normal circumstances, your ruling party was not supposed to win any seat in a free and fair election. In some State Houses of Assemblies, your ruling party won hundred percent seat whereas in those States they achieved nothing in the last administration. Mr. President, your ruling party won all seats in Anambra even though the exit poll showed otherwise. The resultant effect was endless impeachment saga for a legitimate winner of the governorship seat. Mr. President, please do something to take away the powers of the ruling power to conduct elections in the country.
Mr. President, another typical example of lawlessness and disdain to the rule of law by your ruling party to conduct elections was what took place in Imo State where exit poll showed that Chief Martin Agbaso of APGA clearly won the governorship election on April 14, 2007. Mr. President, on the eve of declaring Chief Agbaso the winner, your ruling party and INEC under Professor Maurice Iwu, unilaterally cancelled the election because of his claim of violence. Mr. President, Professor Iwu only cancelled the govern ship election and left State Assembly elections intact, notwithstanding the fact that both elections are conducted same day with same ballot paper. Mr. President, the greatest danger to democracy is not military intervention but the ruling party's grip and manipulation of electoral process. Be the people's president that you professed to be and give Nigerians a credible Electoral Commission in order to rekindle the hopes and aspirations of Nigerians. Nigerians want to be proud of their elected officials and their representatives. So far, Nigerians have been duped and the activities of INEC is like the Magician's lyric of come and see Nigerian wonder, bubu yaya bubu yay, the more you look, the less you see.
Mr. President, the Nigeria Judicial Council will surely deliver the people to the Promise land. Your legacy, if you do this, will surely be written in the golden annals of history.
Best wishes, Henry Otulle Eke.
Henry Otulle Eke, columnist and social
critic; editor and publisher of Ogene Ndi Igbo and Town Crier Newsletters. (otulleeke@aol.