Sahara Reporters Latest News Today Sunday 19th January 2020
Sahara Reporters Latest News Today and headlines on some of the happenings and news trend in the Country, today 19/01/20
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Ihedioha Breaks Silence, Says Sack A Mystery
Ihedioha addressing PDP NWC members in Abuja
Ihedioha addressing PDP NWC members in Abuja
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Emeka Ihedioha has described his sack as Imo State governor by the Supreme Court as a mystery that was never anticipated.
He described the day as black Tuesday, stating that he pitied anyone celebrating the event.
Speaking when members of the Peoples Democratic Party National Working Committee paid him a courtesy visit in his Abuja home, Ihedioha said that he took solace in the word of God, which says there is a season and time for every purpose under heaven.
He said, “This is a replica of the kind of attention the event of that black Tuesday 14th January resonated across the country.
“We are as shocked as yourselves, it was never anticipated. All legal pundits and democratic watchers never imagined and anticipated.
“So, for us it remains a mystery.
“I believe that that event will define obviously our democracy. I am certain that the judiciary and electoral system are well aware that they are on trial. And what is fundamental about this is that the facts of the matters as relates to Imo State governorship election is that the foundation of our democratic processes, the elections in Imo were closely monitored, well advertised and everybody in Nigeria followed it through.
“The results were very clear, the electoral umpire still have the results, and INEC has stated clearly that the results in question and the figures are not summing up.
“It is not about Emeka Ihedioha, it is not about Imo State, its about the future of our country and democracy.
“This will make history in many ways and so this is a historical process, historical action, and I am sure there will be historical answers at the end of the day.”
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New Imo Governor Fires Chairpersons Of Boards, Parastatals
Hope Uzodinma
Hope Uzodinma
Governor of Imo State, Hope Uzodinma, has sacked all chairmen of boards and parastatals in the state including their members, a report by PUNCH said.
The governor ordered the affected persons appointed by the former governor, Emeka Ihedioha, to handover government belongings in their possessions to the most senior civil servant in their respective agencies.
“Senator Uzodinma has approved the immediate dissolution of boards of all government parastatals and agencies in the State.
“By the same token, the governor has requested that the outgoing appointees relinquish all government property in their care to the most senior civil servants in the various affected MDAs on or before the close of work on Friday,” a source said.
Chief Press Secretary to the governor, Oguwuike Nwachukwu, confirmed the removal of the chairpersons.
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AFCON: Clubs May Think Twice Before Signing African Stars, Says Liverpool Coach, Klopp
Liverpool manager, Jurgen Klopp, has warned that the decision to move the African Cup of Nations back to January by the Confederation of African Football will have an impact on the club’s transfer policy.
The AFCON will take place next winter in the middle of the English Premier League season, even though the last one took place in the summer.
With Liverpool set to lose players like Sadio Mane, Mo Salah and Naby Keita for up to six weeks, Klopp warned that the move will make club think twice about buying African players in the future.
He said, “I couldn’t respect the African Cup of Nations more than I do because I like the competition.
“But it is an obvious problem that you play a tournament in the middle of the season. African Cup of Nations going back to January is, for us, a catastrophe.
“It doesn’t help African players. We will not sell Sadio, Mo or Naby just because they have a tournament in January and February – of course not – but if you have to make a decision about bringing in a player, it is a massive one because before the season you know for four weeks you don’t have them.
“That’s a normal process and as a club you have to think about these things. It doesn’t help the players, for sure.
“But these decisions are made without asking the players, without asking the managers, without asking anyone. It is just a decision.”
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E2%80%99s-victor-moses Inter Milan Close In On Loan Deal For Nigeria’s Victor Moses
Inter Milan are on the verge of acquiring the services of Chelsea winger, Victor Moses, after manager Antonio Conte made a specific request for the club to sign the Nigerian international.
Moses, 29, played under Conte when the Italian was in charge of Chelsea and has already expressed his positive opinion on the transfer and wants an immediate move to Inter.
Fenerbahce, Moses’ current club, has said that they will not stand in the player’s way in moving to Italy.
According to Sky Sport Italia, the Nigerian will return to Chelsea to be immediately loaned out to Inter until June for no cost.
Inter have already made it known that they will not make a permanent move for Moses this month, but could revisit the situation in the summer if they deem him to have successfully adapted to Conte’s 3-5-2 formation.
A fee of €10m (£8.5m) has been mooted as the figure Inter will have to pay if they wish to acquire the player on a permanent basis in June.
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Robbery Victim Dies From Gunshot Wounds In Abia
A middle-aged palm oil merchant in Umuahia, Abia State, Mr Basil Odoemelam, who was robbed of over N1m, has died from gunshot wounds, according to the News Agency of Nigeria.
Odoemelam died around 6:00pm on Friday at the Federal Medical Center, Umuahia, where he was taken to after the attack.
His business ally disclosed that he gave up the ghost in the theatre while doctors were carrying out a surgery to remove bullets that reportedly lodged in his lower abdomen.
The gunmen were alleged to have shot him five times in the leg and lower abdomen before dispossessing him of the bag containing the money.
The deceased’s younger brother, Ejima, who was seen weeping profusely at FMC, also confirmed the death to NAN.
Recalled that the three-member armed gang had allegedly trailed the deceased from an old generation bank after he had reportedly withdrawn about N2m to pay for goods supplied to him.
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Two Persons Killed In Fresh Attack On Kaduna Community
Two persons have been killed following an attack on Gora-Gan Community in Zangon Kataf Local Government Area of Kaduna State by gunmen, according to the News Agency of Nigeria.
Chairman of the local council, Mr Elias Manza, who confirmed the incident, said the attackers opened fire on some youth playing around the village market square on Friday evening.
He said, “The attackers came on motorcycles and opened fire on the youth playing, killing two females while two males sustained injuries.
“The injured are currently receiving treatment but normalcy has been restored to the area.”
According to him, security operatives had since been drafted to the affected community and advised members of the area to remain calm.
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Loud Applause For Operation Amotekun By Tony Ademiluyi
Insecurity is as old as man. Mortals from time immemorial have devised several means to secure their lives and properties from assassins and bandits who are ruthless and could be fatal if their sinister demands are not met.
Some of this awareness for security could be ideologically driven and violence could be deployed to achieve its purpose. The Irish Resistance Army was formed as a response by the Irish to resist British rule in their country. It secured the lives and properties of the Irish as it was used in intelligence gathering since the members were fellow Irish who knew the terrain better than the foreign British. The Italian mafia started in Sicily in Southern Italy as a response to the constant attacks from the Northern part of the country. It was also exported to the United States where many Italians of southern descent migrated to. It kept the spirit of southern Italy alive in America and greatly protected the interests while attending to their security needs of them even while in exile.
The South-West part of the country has been under vicious attack from the Fulani herdsmen as well as kidnappers and bandits which makes it unsafe for habitation. The Nigerian Police Force is terribly ill equipped to handle the needs of the region due to its defective centralized structure which doesn’t allow for the best intelligence gathering.
The concerned six south west governors came together to form the Operation Amotekun (Leopard in the Yoruba language) to combat the growing menace of insecurity in the land. These men couldn’t sit back and watch their people being mindlessly slaughtered and maimed and so they had to step in, think outside the box while proffering a solution to the nagging challenge.
The idea was well received by the public at the formal inauguration in Ibadan, the former capital of the western region where the Oyo State governor, Seyi Makinde, played host to the other governors of the region.
Just when the region was about to say uhuru at last, the Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, Abubakar Malami, threw the spanner in the works through a strange legal technicality when he said that it was illegal for any group or organisation to form a group for the defense of any territorial part of the country.
This is ludicrous as one wonders why the chief law officer has suddenly become a kill joy. The Northern part of the country has the Hisbah which functions in the same way as the operation Amotekun plans to operate. Why didn’t he declare them illegal? The organisation is notorious for its human rights violations in the course of its pursuit for a more secure north. They were in the news recently for the confiscation and destruction of millions of bottles of beer in Kano State. They also flog people for all sorts of crimes and there have been protests against their activities especially by the Southerners living in the North as they surreptitiously encroach on their human rights since they are not bound by their religion to live under Sharia law.
The North East which has been under siege from the Boko Haram Insurgents for over a decade which has led to the death of over a hundred thousand and the internal displacement of over two million has been under the protection of the Civilian Joint Task Force. Why didn’t the Justice Minister proscribe them?
It is tragic that Malami is merely playing politics with the lives and protection of South-West residents with a substantial chunk of them even originating from the northern part of the country where he hails from.
The basic constitutional right enshrined in the constitutions of all nations as well as international charters is the right to life which is an inalienable right. All other rights stem from this right. It is insensitive and cruel for him to propose an anti-people policy that purports to truncate this wonderful gift from our maker.
It is a well-known fact that the Nigerian Police Force is not sufficiently equipped to effectively tackle crime in the South-West region. They are grossly inadequate and the centralised and unitary structure makes it difficult for them to be as fluid as possible in the important role of intelligence gathering. How can an Ibibio man who was recently posted to Ekiti effectively gather intelligence when he doesn’t speak a word of Yoruba or is familiar with the terrain? This is the handicap of the current police set up. The operation Amotekun is not replacing the police, civil defence corps or the other security agencies. They are only complimenting their efforts as it is impossible for the police to secure the lives of South westerners alone.
South-Westerners and residents alike should team up as one to protest against this directive from Malami as we owe it to our generations yet unborn to have a more secure region.
Evil must never triumph over good.
Tony Ademiluyi writes from Lagos
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Amotekun: Majesty In Name Meets Right To Self-Defence By Babafemi Badejo
I lived in Nairobi, Kenya, for 11 years working for the United Nations on peace for Somalia. It meant I went into Mogadishu where I had earlier lived for two years (before the UN’s evacuation), on an as-needed basis.
It used to be nice to take my children and visitors to the Nairobi National Park and once or twice, drive as far as Massai Mara to view wild animals. But in all these efforts, I never saw Amotekun (leopard).
I wanted to record a close picture of majestic Amotekun in the wild but did not succeed. Of course, I knew there were some in captivity at the Nairobi park orphanage but I wanted the real thing. Not a tamed one.
Then came this Saturday early morning about 2003/2004. We had driven to Nakuru Park. As we entered, my camera on my laps in steady mode, and I talked on my obsession on wanting to see a leopard, four in quick succession passed right in front of the car.
They were majestic, with the cat purrs design on their furs allowing them to adapt easily. Much different from the spots of the cheetah and they don’t have the flowing tears of the cheetah either.
Amotekun lacks the speed of the cheetah. The four Amotekun were gone before I could pick up my steadied camera. I was over-awed.
We drove all over the park trying to figure out their path. No success. That was an end to one of the myths I had read about Amotekun to the effect that they are solitary. Here was a community of four.
Not until May 2009 while on an observation stop in Nairobi on my way from Johannesburg did a smart Massai guy take me right before a leopard lounging away in what appeared like sleep mode on a branch of a tree.
I visited the spot twice and it was there for me to snap as many photographs with my camera. It wasn’t yet the time of the ubiquitous smartphone.
This leopard that I saw in the vast Maasai Mara confirmed another characteristic of Amotekun. It is a stealth operator from dusk to dawn hunting for food, generally wandering around its territory that could be in the range of 25km or 75km radius.
A very strong animal that appears lazy and shy to many, Amotekun kills its prey at close quarters through suffocation. It does not engage in the rowdy brawl of a Lion.
It uses its brain to get close enough before pouncing giving the prey, another unlucky animal no chance.
I know that Yorubas pay attention to names. And I think the Southwest governors made a great choice in using the majestic but a specifically angry Amotekun as the insignia for the Western Nigeria Security Network apparatus.
Nigeria may be approaching dusk. Dusk for which there may not be a dawn if care is not taken.
Vicious attacks on the Southwest geopolitical zone (a convenient political terminology that has no constitutional status) of Nigeria in 2019 through maiming, kidnapping, killings and theft of property resulted in what’s called “Operation Amotekun”.
Amotekun, the Yoruba word for leopard, became the code name for Western Nigeria Security Network.
Under this arrangement, the six states of Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Osun, Ekiti and Ondo came together to enhance their security in collaboration with the Nigerian security apparatuses.
On January 9, 2020, the states launched the popularly hailed and appreciated Operation Amotekun with a lot of fanfare
That the Nigerian security forces are overstretched is not in doubt. The Nigerian military forces are bogged down by Boko Haram in the Northeast geopolitical zone without any clear answer to the problem.
Nigeria has no longer been as forthcoming to participate effectively in United Nations peacekeeping operations – a source of stealing for a few Nigerian military and civilian leaders who divert UN payments on equipment and at times entitlements of soldiers.
The inability to cope resulted in collaboration with civilians in what is called Civilian Joint Task Force as well as an AU supported multinational joint task force bringing together Nigeria’s immediate neighbours to face Boko Haram.
Though the President Muhammadu Buhari government has done better in handling Boko Haram than its predecessor, the problem remains.
The police are understaffed and poorly equipped. During the defence of the security service’s 2019 budget, Acting Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, informed us that understaffing was the main problem leading to the comical state of the Nigerian Police Force.
For him, there was also a problem of underfunding resulting in being under-equipped to fight crime. One police officer to 662 citizens, is grossly inadequate.
Comparative figures are Singapore with a ratio of 1:137; Egypt 1:186; South Africa 1:366; Norway 1: 188; USA 1: 298 and Canada 1:188. The United Nations suggests that the ratio should not be less than 1:400.
With such staffing inadequacy, little wonder that some states started self-help arrangements that have been on for over one and a half decades.
Twelve Muslim-dominant states of Kano, Zamfara, Sokoto, Kebbi, Niger, Katsina, Kaduna, Bauchi, Yobe, Borno, Gombe and Jigawa formed Hisbah for the enforcement of Sharia law. Some call them religious police.
They all operate some elements of vigilantism. In this day and age, they enforce the prevention of mixture of gender in public transportation, enforce dress codes, seize and destroy alcoholic drinks etc.
There are variations among them. Some, like in Kano and Zamfara, are based on state law and are funded by the state and some lack legal backing.
The Federal Government continues to keep quiet on challenging the constitutionality of any portion of Nigeria being under a separate and additional criminal law beyond the penal code.
Our constitution knows Sharia law and gives it equality with customary law, i.e, the focus is on the private affairs of individuals.
Of course, Hisbah continues to be in operation. They are expected to complement the police by informing when necessary leaving the police with arrests. But they do more in practice.
The inadequacy of policing in Nigeria did not stop with the complementary religious security arrangements in a constitutionally secular country.
Plateau State, under Governor Jonah Jang, collaborated with the Federal government and assisted by the UN, set up Operation Rainbow as a civil-military complementary arrangement that was aimed at minimizing insecurity in the State.
Though criticised, he continued till he left office with his successor showing less interest.
Even the Federal government itself contracted private companies to form pipeline surveillance security entities to reduce sabotage on the lifeline of Nigeria: petroleum oil and gas transported through pipelines.
So, it is a surprise that the Attorney-General of the Federation through a spokesperson on January 14, declared Operation Amotekun illegal, arguing the exclusive right of the Federal Government to provide security for Nigeria or any part of it.
This development has resulted in a lot of brouhahas. Does the interpreter of the law have the right to make such a pronouncement without a Federal Executive Council meeting to deliberate and reach a decision? Or is this simply cabal-style governance?
Is this statement of the Attorney-General not discriminatory? If it is, why the discrimination against a geopolitical zone that tallies with the Yoruba ethnic group by the Attorney-General?
Is it that what’s good for the goose is not good for the gander? And our constitution declares abhorrence for discrimination.
In my view, the Attorney-General is wrong in claiming backing of a Constitution this government has been trampling on by concentrating leadership of security and financial concerns largely in the Northwest and Northeast geopolitical zones at the expense of the remaining four zones.
As Governor Kayode Fayemi rightly pointed, Section 14 of the Constitution gives the duty to provide security to the government, which terminology the Constitution also defined as federal, state and local governments.
More importantly, the inherent right to self-defence has been an inalienable right of every human being at the individual level.
Russell on crime puts it aptly thus: “…a man is justified in resisting by force anyone who manifestly intends and endeavours by violence or surprise to commit a known felony against his person, habitation or property.
“In these cases, he is not obliged to retreat, and may not merely resist the attack where he stands but may indeed pursue his adversary until the danger is ended and if in a conflict between them he happens to kill his attacker such killing is justifiable…”
One of the things I learnt while I worked with the United Nations was that my security starts with me. I worked in war zones.
I was taught to constantly be observant of my environment and react without waiting for security officer colleagues to prevent my being harmed.
This lesson saved me from being bombed out of existence twice in Somalia (September 26, 1993, and May 1, 2005) and from being kidnapped once in Darfur in 2016.
So, if I have the first responsibility for my security, how can any Attorney-General tell me there is a portion of the Constitution that says Nigeria has the exclusive right to ensure my security?
After all, it is under this individual right of self-defence that I built a fence around my house and constructed security arrangements inside with which I lock myself up overnight like being in a prison.
Then, my house is situated within a housing estate that has many guards, including OPC that I contribute to pay for with the first contact with any government being the mobile RRS police that patrols.
If Lagos State wants to join others to further boost all my efforts, how can anyone tell me that they as Abuja people have an exclusive right on my security? No, definitely not so.
The fact is that my inherent individual right to self-defence is at the core of concentric circles of security.
The community development association and local government come next and a geopolitical zone defence network is welcomed to further assist before the Federal Government wakes up from slumber in the outer core.
That the inherent right to self-defence principle is not limited to the individual is well made under international law.
Section 51 of the UN Charter that gives member-states of the organisation that inherent right of self-defence easily comes to mind.
So, the Southwest governors have a right to collaborate among themselves and work with willing national security apparatuses to ensure the security of lives and properties in the territories under their respective control. Those who elected them into office expect no less.
Self-help by states and geopolitical zones in the face of a nonperforming central government is known to law.
If people build and maintain roads, if they generate electricity and provide water security, etc., as the sovereign state recedes to focus on supervising the stealing of national patrimony, how can a judge in his/her right senses deny the right to defend one’s life and property?
Such self-help is necessarily anticipatory. It includes the efforts to “be prepared” in the spirit of the Boys Scout’s motto.
Some Yoruba leaders are acrimonious that they were not consulted. Where were they at the height of the killings and kidnappings for ransom in the South-West? What did they do to ameliorate the development?
They were comfortable in Abuja and secured their fortresses moving all over with rented policemen who should have been part of the pool to tackle the problem but terrorised us with sirens.
They should not rub salt on the injury. They should suspend their respective ego-based hubris and join the fray on the popular demand of the people for security.
I read that some of the leaders in the Southeast indicated that the Southwest stole their ideas. Even if that were the case, it is time to engage in healthy competition and collaboration.
All should join hands with those in the northern parts of Nigeria who are nursing the same ideas of self-help and requiring assistance on implementation.
The focus now should be on providing knowledge on meeting implementation challenges as negotiations continue getting the Buhari government to operate based on reason.
Operation Amotekun has been launched. That is the status quo. Operation Amotekun should continue to design and operationalise itself in the South-West of Nigeria within the law. It should ally with similarly interested states of Nigeria in ensuring enhanced security.
By the way, security is more than carrying guns. Human security has been broadened to be a multi-dimensional enterprise.
Even in security qua security, there is so much on surveillance, application of modern technologies, sharing of knowledge in general and intelligence gathering that make the AK-47 redundant.
Operation Amotekun need not carry arms to be effective in enhancing the sense of security to allow people to once again feel safe to drive on our unmaintained so-called highways.
The AGF is weak on moral and legal grounds not to talk of politically. Even though this is a political issue, the Attorney-General should go to court if he likes.
However, since it is the style of the President to keep mum on top, then the governors should embark on the sensitisation of their electors on the options the South-West faces.
This is the time for these governors to demonstrate that they are leaders.
Badejo is a lawyer and one-time Deputy Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General
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E2%80%99s-ex-vice-president-atiku-dishonesty-over-unpaid Expatriate Workers Of Gotel Accuses Nigeria’s Ex-Vice President, Atiku, Of Dishonesty Over Unpaid Salaries
Atiku Abubakar and John Chiahemen tour the Gotel Communications compound in Yola, Adamawa. Members of the international team are present.
Atiku Abubakar and John Chiahemen tour the Gotel Communications compound in Yola, Adamawa. Members of the international team are present.
Expatriate workers owed money by Gotel, a company owned by Nigeria’s former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, have said they are dismayed by his response to their demands of wanting their salaries, terming it a cheap public relations stunt by his agents to hide the truth from the world.
Atiku while responding to an exclusive story by SaharaReporters on January 9, 2020 exposing how Gotel failed to pay expatriate workers for several months in breach of their contract, had on Thursday channelled the blame to former Gotel Chief Executive Officer, John Chiahemen, of stealing salaries meant for the expatriate staff.
But in a swift reaction on Friday, the affected workers including David Guinan, Ebong Udoma, William Chu, Deven Petley, Susie Illiyan, Teddy Vuong, Hannington Osodo, Kostas Sergeiadis and Richard Spiropoulos accused Atiku of being economical with the truth.
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Nigeria’s Ex-Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, Accuses Former Gotel CEO Of Stealing Salaries Of Expatriate Staff After SaharaReporters’ Story
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Udoma, a former Chief Editor of Gotel Africa TV says Atiku’s remarks only confirms that he owes them salaries and that turning the blame on John Chiahemen does not in any way absolve Atiku from paying.
He said, “Besides, there have been newspaper reports of Gotel workers in Yola being owed months of salaries last year, are we to believe that John who had left since 2016 is responsible for that too?”
The affected workers say that final figures for settlement were reached on following an audit called by Gotel board after John left.
Promises were made to pay the salaries owed in 2016 but nothing happened since that period.
Former Gotel COO, Gary Alphonso, said the station’s operations were stalled soon after Atiku left the management financially crippled.
He said, “What does not change is the fact that Atiku left us all including John in a lurch and financially crippled. None of the promises they made to us ever materialised.
“If he (Atiku) makes Paul Ibe release a statement implicating John in having been given payments and not released it to staff, it means he may well have approved payments that never reached us.
“The people who controlled the money flowing to us were Babalele and Abdullahi. Maybe they kept it.”
Meantime Chiaheman, who was on transit when contacted by our correspondent over the matter, said he had instructed his lawyers to issue a statement on his behalf regarding the accusations made by Atiku.
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Imo: The Charade Of A Judgment By Ahanonu Kingsley
The feeling rife everywhere in Imo State currently is of rue; the dolour is palpable on almost everyone, as it concerns what many have described the biggest daylight fraud of the moment. That fraud and the basis of the feeling is the recent verdict of the Supreme Court ousting Emeka Ihedioha as governor.
That verdict by the Supreme Court is one that’s very remarkable, but hugely in a sense not impressive. Its remarkableness hinges on its judicial buffoonery; on its misapplication of justice by upturning the majority decision of the people of Imo State in what’s seen as the most frivolous and most ridiculous judgment so far.
The approval of conjured figures by the unanimous decision of the seven member panel that sat on the Imo governorship appeal was more frightening and so terrifying than the conjured figures themselves. What that unexplained branded figures, couched in no less a bag than the popular Ghana-must-go which notoriety in corrupt theatrics is well known, did was to push up the eventual numbers of votes cast far beyond the credible number of accredited voters.
What this action essentially means is the ultimate fleecing of credibility in the process that produced a democratically elected governor and the infliction of pains to the genuine Imo electorates, whose votes and whose values were rubbished just by the unanalysed consent of the learned justices to a fraudulent electoral concoction. It’s indeed smelling so strongly, the ooze of that manipulated concoction.
Following basic reasoning, of which all judicial processes ought to follow, an electoral process where there’s such discrepancy to the extent that the number of accredited voters is dwarfed by what becomes the total valid votes cast is not only legally untenable but one which should be dismissed as so shameful. It’s ordinary that whatever number of votes said to have been cast should come from those whose names appear on the register and who are accredited. So it becomes a shady area that requires not just clarification (because such cannot be clarified) but outright condemnation. And this is what the current situation calls for.
In the declaration of the 2019 gubernatorial election of Imo State, the returning officer, Prof Atunta, had given a view of what was the voting dynamics in the state, and which of course should guide the analysis here (as the statutory and credible source). It was given that while the number of accredited voters stood at 823,743, the total number of votes cast was 739,485. There are the invalid votes et al. We might not need bother with the other details, since the following analysis would rely on these principal statistics.
In the breakdown, Emeka Ihedioha/PDP was said to have polled 273,404 votes to win the contest, while their closest rival, Uche Nwosu/AA garnered 190,364 votes. It was said that Ifeanyi Araraume/APGA and Hope Uzodinma/APC scored 114,676 and 96,458 votes respectively to come third and fourth. In adding these numbers of votes to those of the remaining 66 candidates and their parties, the total valid votes tallies to 714,355.
A dissatisfied Hope Uzodinma, coming from the complaint of been denied some lawful votes headed to the tribunal and up to the Supreme Court to seek redress. And on January 14, 2020, the apex court (assumably, after studying the submissions before it), granted audience to the alleged excluded 338 polling units from Uzodinma/APC. The court not only consider the votes from those units as valid, it completely awarded them to the appellate and consequently declared him validly elected governor of Imo State.
That judgment struck like a thunderstorm. How come, everyone wondered? They can’t believe this arithmetic jiggery-pokery.
Let’s say we admit that the results of those 338 polling units, hauled into a Ghana-must-go bag were valid votes, should we be made to admit also without disbelief that those votes in their entirety belong to just a single candidate? How admissible could that be, and this is a question whose answer definitely would be as hard to grasp as the explanation of how the coconut couched water.
It’s highly unfortunate that the decisions of the two lower courts as it regards the credibility of the content in the Ghana-must-go claimed to be the votes from 338 polling units were jettisoned by the apex without a more verified reason and on such ludicrous and imbecilic stand that makes mockery not only of the basic grand norm of electoral conscientiousness but of simple statistics. Wasn’t the apex court supposed to review the judicial credibility of the lower courts and correct the errors where necessary? They failed woefully in the review process and instead foisted what can be considered as the most legal folly of the decade. It’s laughable as it’s painful how such could be procured by the highest temple of justice in the land.
Primarily, it is the duty of the court to interpret the constitution and its processes like the electoral process. But this power of the court to review election processes does not in any way include to delegate the function that it should review, to wit counting and allocation of votes. Given that it has the power to invalidate any perceived wrong in the electoral process (be it exclusion or inclusion of votes), the Supreme Court however, erred in taking upon itself the role to determine whose votes was higher even when such was not given credence by the authority responsible for that. INEC had excluded and never those units on the basis that it was contentious. And this obviously is the haze that the court should have cleared.
The court left it jurisdiction and took upon the power to count those votes, without considering its limitations to determine which and what votes were valid. And this would have necessitate the wholesome allocation of votes from the said 338 units to a single party. Indeed it was so, for the court had stated that by putting into consideration votes from these units, the hitherto 3rd runner up overjumped his leading rivals to secure the highest valid votes to be declared winner. But what were the votes? We were only told that, adding excess votes from the 388 units INEC never declared, Hope Uzodinma garnered an astronomic votes that saw him win the poll.
The thing that follows is the implications of this additional vote numbers to the entire votes statistics certified by the electoral umpire. As revealed by INEC, the total number of accredited voters was 823,743. Imperatively, whatever figure that falls above this is not only fictitious but sternly dubious. And this obviously becomes a burden that the Supreme Court judgment must prove, if indeed it must reliably rest as a fair, just and truly cogent verdict.
Without adducing the obvious possibility of amassing a greater amount of the votes in the 388 units through whatever means possible, it would be unimaginable to assume also that the entirety of the votes went to just one party. Hope Uzodinma’s anchor, ab initio, in his fight for perceived electoral justice has been on the reliance of what the 338 units produced. He held them so tightly because they defined what was his stronghold. And it’s obvious what stronghold entails in politics. He banked on this strength, and scooped everything that was to be scooped in the excess 103,887 votes, at least according to the Justice Tanko Mohammed-led panel.
But that decision of the Supreme Court to award the entirety of those votes to Uzodinma and thereby raising his total votes to an astronomic amount that wows even the total number of accredited 823,747 voters okayed by INEC, does it not taint and invalidate the entire process of that 2019 governorship poll and punch its verdict? (For, by that inclusion, pushed further the total accredited voters to 927,000).
One fact however, is drawn from the raging verdict of the seven man panel: that the learned justices never took into account serious dynamics in the election that should have led them making a clear judgment. They were hasty and so performed a poor surgery on the case they adjudicated. At best, they succeeded in upturning the mandate of the greater Imolites, and heavily so without taking recourse to the process through which they exercised that mandate. I think that would have been the most appropriate ground to do that (if indeed it was that necessary). For at the end, democracy was slain and justice robbed as far as the Imo people are concerned.
Ahanonu Kingsley writes from Owerri
Twitter: @kings_emz
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