By Henry Ekpe
Elections in Nigeria do not end with results announced by the Electoral Body. This is because the Law allows the participants in elections to approach the court if not satisfied with the result, which in the end determines who is the final winner of the polls.
In Nigeria today, election results announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC, are subdued to further scrutiny by the Election Tribunal, then the Federal High Court, Appeal Court and finally the Supreme Court which has the power to determine the faith of all candidates as far as the final result is concerned.
Unfortunately, since hardly any Nigerian politician will agree he/she lost an election, even when the entire exercise was clear, the Courts have literally taken over the job of the Electoral Bodies.
Indeed, either for lack of faith in our Electoral system or penchant for not agreeing to defeats, every politician head to courts to ask to be declared winner.
Under this ugly scenario, politicians have succeeded in reducing INEC to only a Body that conducts polls, count votes and allowing the courts to decide the results.
Since 1999, no Governorship election in Imo State took place without the losers challenging the winner in Court. Therefore, it has become a norm and an ugly situation, which has dogged Imo State till date. Although no Imo incumbent Governor has ever been removed from office by the Court, except in 2020 when an incumbent Governor, with an already existing administration was pushed out from office, with a new Government assuming office. He is Rt Hon Emeka Ihedioha.
In 1999, the Peoples Democratic Party PDP, won the Imo Governorship election in against the All Peoples Party, APP, with the late Dr Ezekiel Izuogu as the candidate.
Thinking that the matter was over, Imo people were shocked when APP and Izuogu went to Court to challenge the PDP victory. It was that Court case that opened the gate for Imo Governorship losers to drag the winner to Court rather than accept defeat. A very bad precedent. And it stuck till today.
In the 1999 election, even though all the Big Wigs in Imo politics like Chief Emma Iwuanyanwu, Chief Evan Enwerem, Senator Athur Nzeribe, Chief Ifeanyi Araraume etc were all in APP, Imo people still stuck with PDP that had the likes of Chief Charles Ugwu, Hon Oliver Enwerenem, Ikedi Ohakim, late ID Nwoga and others as their Big Fishes and voted for Chief Achike Udenwa.
In the end, Chief Achike Udenwa and PDP won both at the Court and in the polls and PDP was in office for two terms.
However, that did not stop same APP, now changed to All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP in 2003 from challenging PDP and Udenwa in Court again. This time ANPP had Chief Humphrey Anumudu as its candidate.
Following internal wranglings, Imo PDP was hit by a big crisis in 2007 in a bid to produce Udenwa’s successor.
At last, Senator Ifeanyi Araraume emerged PDP’s Governorship candidate against the expectations of PDP top hierarchy, and the party therefore planted Chief Ikedi Ohakim of Progressive Peoples Alliance, PPA, and asked its teeming supporters to vote for Ohakim.
Before then, there had been an earlier election where Chief Martin Agbaso of All Progressive Grand Allianc APGA, who ran against Araraume, was coasting home to victory, before the election was stopped and Agbaso’s dream to be Governor was cut short.
It was in the second election that Ohakim, with the massive support and backing of PDP won and was sworn in as Governor of Imo State and Udenwa’s successor.
But for the four years Ohakim was there, he had over twenty litigations against his emergence as Governor.
However, the serious ones were those instituted by Agbaso of APGA and Araraume of PDP, which all ended at the Supreme Court. For four years, Ohakim faced Court cases until he left office on May 29, 2011.
The major case that would have caused trouble for Ohakim was the one between PPA and National Democratic Party NDP, with Dr Fabian Ihekweme as the Imo Governorship candidate.
Ihekweme’s party loco was omitted and the only option was to call for another election as stipulated by the electoral law.
But as a patriot, Ihekweme decided to settle out of Court with his Brother, Ohakim, citing Okigwe interest as his motivating factor. That was how Okigwe had a Governor in office between 2007-2011. Because no one knew what would have been the outcome of a fresh election then.
Now in 2011, Senator Rochas Okorocha succeeded Ohakim as Imo State Governor. Okorocha arrived under the platform of All Progressive Grand Alliance, APGA against all expectations.
When Okorocha was announced as Governor, after a long meeting with his close Aides, Governor Ohakim accepted the result, and asked me as his Chief Press Secretary, CPS, to draft and read a Press Release to the Media announcing his acceptance of the out of the polls.
However, later his party, PDP met and the party’s decision over took that of Ohakim as the party went to Court citing obvious irregularities, especially in Ohaji/Egbema and Oguta axis, where INEC refused to release the results, won overwhelmly by PDP.
But in the end, Okorocha won in Court, and I was nearly murdered by APGA followers who left me for dead inside the gutter at Owerri High Court.
In Okorocha’s second term bid election, he was again challenged by PDP, but this time with Rt Hon Emeka Ihedioha as its candidate.
In that election, Okorocha escaped by the whiskers, because PDP and Ihedioha gave him a political fight of his life, even as the sitting Governor, it took a supplementary election for him to survive for a second term.
Emeka Ihedioha and PDP dragged Okorocha through a long litigation which in the end went to Okorocha’s favour.
Come 2019, Imo State had the most contentious Governorship election in its electoral history.
In this particular election, all the political gladiators who hitherto operated under one political platform, in 2019 decided to lock horns from different political parties.
Ihedioha came from PDP, Araraume represented of APGA, Senator Uzodinma hoisted APC’s flag, and then incumbent Governor, Okorocha “ran” under Action Alliance AA, with his son inlaw, Chief Uche Nwosu as his representative.
Anybody conversant with Imo politics would realize what it meant for these Heavy weights to appear in one political Turf to do battle for just one diadem. And of course it was tough and tight.
In the end, Ihedioha and PDP won. As a ritual since 1999, others who lost headed to the court to replicate the Izuogu action against Udenwa instead of accepting defeat.
So, for over eight months after the elections, the Tribunals and Courts became the focus for Imo citizens to know how the Governorship election result will pan out.
In the process, Emeka Ihedioha who was declared winner by INEC won at the Tribunal and Appeal Court. But Uzodinma, Araraume and Nwosu still insisted they will pursue the matter to Supreme Court.
I even dedicated one column pleading to Nwosu, Araraume and Uzodinma that they should allow Ihedioha to continue in office since he had already spent Eight months in office and was doing well.
I also added that since Ihedioha is from Owerri zone, and with the clamour for Owerri zone to rule the State, as Orlu and Okigwe have all done theirs, it would raise eye brows and create bad blood should Ihedioha who is from Owerri be removed from office.
However, that advise was like water poured on stone as the trio continued with litigations, which came to a head on January 14,2020, when the Supreme Court said it has added results from 388 polling units, for Uzodinma.
This addition skyrocketed Uzodinma who came 4th on INEC record to First, and was declared winner.
Emeka Ihedioha was therefore kicked out of office after seven months on the saddle.
But the Imo Governorship election and its doomed litigations are not yet over.
On Tuesday, a Federal High Court dismissed a case before it instituted by Reform And Advancement Party RAP against Uzodinma on the same Imo Governorship tussle. And this was before Bar Kingdowm Okere, the RAP Governorship candidate in Imo in the 2019 election could withdraw the suit, citing abuse of Court.
However, from all indications, it is still not yet over for Imo Governorship litigation as another major one is pending before the Apex Court in the land. It is now one year and seven months that Imo State held its Governorship election.
By next week, the matter instituted by Bar Umueadi, a former INEC Lawyer over the lingering Imo Governorship election would be opened.
This time around, Umueadi is asking the Supreme Court to help him explain who between Governor Hope Uzodinma of Imo State and Chief Uche Nwosu, is the authentic candidate of APC in the Imo election.
Umueadi is arguing that, since the Supreme Court, in a previous case presided over by Justice Augie had declared that Uche Nwosu was not eligible for the Imo Governorship election, based on his dual Governorship candidature of AA and APC, who then is APC candidate? Umueadi is pleading to know how Governor Hope Uzodinma joined the fray if APC had no candidate with Nwosu’s disqualification?
Does it mean that APC still had a candidate in the same election? If Nwosu was disqualified who then is the candidate of APC, how and why?
These are the questions Umueadi is seeking explanation from the Supreme Court.
Imo People have really seen legions of Governorship litigations in their time and waiting patiently for the final outcome of this particular one.
