Eyes are on the Supreme Court to break the heightened political tension in Abia State, Editor, Politics/Features, EMEKA ALEX DURU, writes.
Since the April 11/25, 2015 governorship election in Abia, the state has not enjoyed peace in strict sense. If anything, Abia, which prides itself as “God’s own State”, has in a way been on mood swing between supporters of the governor, Okezie Ikpeazu, and his opponent, Alex Otti, with each camp, at some time appearing to hold the wrong end of the stick in the unfolding political situation in the state.
The pervading tension in the state, somehow, began to gain ground in the build-up to the governorship election. Then, though other political parties campaigned and actually participated in the election, it was obvious that the exercise was a straight encounter between Ikpeazu, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, and Otti, his All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) opponent.
Ikpeazu, who rode on the back of the then Governor Theodore Orji’s political structure, had brandished continuation of the policies of the administration as his trump card. But that became a basis for Otti to dismiss him as a lackey of a government he said represented the years of the locust in Abia history.
While the two regularly took tirades at each other, their supporters also engaged themselves, at times, in manners that almost compromised the peace in the state.
It was with such testy climate that the state limped into the April governorship election. When the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), therefore, declared Ikpeazu the winner, it was hardly surprising that the two opposing camps reacted differently. While supporters of the governor emptied into the streets in jubilation, Otti and his camp cried blue murder, alleging that the election was rigged.
The APGA candidate promptly headed for the state’s elections petitions tribunal. He had specifically challenged the results of the election in Isiala Ngwa, Osisioma and Obingwa local government areas where he alleged massive electoral fraud by PDP.
He made other allegations to support his petition, stressing that it was on the strength of such instances that the Returning Officer for the election, Professor Benjamin Ozumba (Vice Chancellor of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka) announced the cancellation of results in the councils.
His prayer was for the tribunal to nullify Ikpeazu’s declaration and declare him the rightful winner of the poll.
Ikpeazu, however, countered the allegations, insisting that he won the election squarely. He called out witnesses and tendered documents in support of his position. In its ruling, the tribunal had dismissed the petition by Otti and upheld Ikpeazu as the winner of the poll.
The judgment bolstered the governor’s camp but prompted Otti to proceed to the Court of Appeal. His argument remained that he was rigged out in the election and should be declared the winner. He particularly made case on alleged over-voting in the contentious councils, insisting that the disputed results from them should be cancelled.
He cited states where such situations had arisen in the past and how the court had handled them. The Justices of the Appeal Court upheld his argument, did the computations and declared the APGA candidate the rightful winner of the election.
According to the five-man Appeal Court panel headed by Justice Oyebisi Omoleye, Otti scored 164,444 valid votes to defeat Ikpeazu who scored 114,444 votes. Based on the results, the APGA candidate was declared the winner.
Though the governor has appealed the judgment at the Supreme Court, public opinion remains divided on its sustainability or otherwise. While APGA faithful and other supporters of Otti enthuse at the pronouncement which they describe as a step in the right direction, the governor and his followers see it as miscarriage of justice. The PDP has particularly maintained that the judgment would not pass the test of rigorous scrutiny at the apex court.
But former APGA National Chairman and Anambra Central senatorial candidate, Victor Umeh, insists that the Appeal Court judgment is in order. He added that the judgment would not have come to any man of justice with any surprise because the Abia governorship election was won by Otti convincingly with the requisite spread across the state.
“He was the most popular candidate in that election and Abia people yearned for change from what they had been experiencing in the previous administration.
“You would recall that the returning officer in that election cancelled the results from the three local governments based on reports from his officials in the field. Against this scenario, Ikpeazu is still claiming that he won the election. He lost the election and what the Court of Appeal did was to serve justice to the person who deserves it.
“Otti won the election and you could see that from the spontaneous eruption of excitement and jubilation in Abia State the day the Court of Appeal ruled on the matter,” he said.
On his part, however, a human rights activist and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Mike Ozekhome, said the judgment was fundamentally wrong and full of errors. Ozekhome, who spoke on Channels TV Breakfast Programme ‘Sunrise Daily’, said the court was wrong in nullifying Ikpeazu’s election and declaring Otti winner of the election.
Ozekhome noted that if the calculations of the Appeal Court were anything to go by and given the population of the registered voters in the affected councils which he put at over 250,000, the worst the Court should have ordered was a re-run.
Chief Press Secretary (CPS) to the Governor, Godwin Adindu, also has issues with the judgment, stressing that the Supreme Court should not allow it stand, in the interest of equity, justice and fairness.
In a release made available to TheNiche, Adindu argued that the Appeal Court, by its action, has disenfranchised almost 300,000 voters, being the total number of registered voters in the three councils. This, he stressed, smacks of total political annihilation of Ngwa people who constitute the largest ethnic nationality in Abia.
The Appeal Court, he further argued, acted in bad faith to criminalise and penalise the entire three local government areas based on report of the card-reader that was inconsistent on Election Day.
“Our expectation from the Court of Appeal was to uphold the decision of the tribunal which took time (three months) to examine all the issues involved in the election,” Adindu remarked, looking forward to a favourable judgment to his principal from the Supreme Court.
Otti and his camp also expect the apex court to deliver judgment in their favour. Thus, the anxiety mounts.