Still on Newsroom Prophets and Election Disputes
by Mike Nwachukwu
This is not an attempt to defend Simon Kolawole. No doubt a brilliant writer who has an uncommon courage to analyse issues and present them to the reading public as he sees it, I believe he has the capacity to address the issues raised by Ethelbert Okere in his “Of Newsroom Prophets and Election Disputes”.
My concern really is to set the REC / State Returning Officerords straight as far as the April 14, 2007 Governorship election in Imo State is concerned.
Being the DiREC / State Returning Officertor-General of the Martin Agbaso Governorship Campaign Organisation, I was naturally in the middle of “our” affairs in the run up to the election so much so that on that day of election I was the State Party Collation Agent of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) embedded in the Headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from around 11.30 p.m. on the election day, for the collation of the Local Government results that were coming in as the night wore on and gradually turned to morning. I was there until the INEC REC / STATE RETURNING OFFICER held his press conference at about 10.00 a..m. the next day.
As the clock ticked away to what turned out to be “a very long night” and we were yet to be called in for the collation at the State Level, of the Local Government results by the INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC / STATE RETURNING OFFICER) / State Returning Officer even up till 5.30 a.m. the next day (April 15, 2007), I knew something was definitely wrong. No available INEC official could offer an explanation for what was going on even as twenty five (25) Electoral Officers had filed in their Local Government results (INEC Form EC8C) at the Portharcourt Road INEC headquarters and Chief Agbaso was coasting home to victory. The REC / STATE RETURNING OFFICER was of course nowhere to be seen.
This was the state of affairs until around 9.30 a.m. when there was an announcement to the effect that the REC / STATE RETURNING OFFICER was going to hold a press conference. By then of course, several journalists from various media houses had come into the premises and were headed towards the conference room for the press conference. As I was walking into the conference room, I ran into Ijeoma Nwogwugwu, who was briefly my colleague at Daily Times. After the exchange of banters we all settled down for the press conference. Naturally what was coming on had filtered through and some of us just sat through to see and hear for ourselves the making of another annulment in Nigeria’s fragile democratic experience. Like an ill wind, the much sought after INEC REC / State Returning Officer who was not on hand to discharge his final duty to the people of Imo State all through the previous night suddenly appeared, threw his bombshell and disappeared without taking any question from any of the media personnel present.
Remember, the very basis for the bombshell the REC / State Returning Officer threw was the occurrence of violence in nine (9) out of the twenty-seven (27) Local Government Areas of Imo State, leaving eighteen (18) free of violence. So, what happened to the results from those eighteen (18) Local Government Areas where there was, according to the gospel of the REC / State Returning Officer no violence? If my mathematics is right eighteen over twenty seven (18/27) is two over three (2/3) and for anybody to be said to have won an election under our constitution and electoral laws, the person requires to win at least 25% of the votes cast in at least two thirds of the voting unit. In the case of a Governorship election this will translate to two – thirds of the Local Government Areas of the State.
For Imo State with twenty-seven (27) Local Government Areas this magic number is eighteen (18). What therefore happened to the results from those eighteen (18) Local Government Areas? Who won the election in those eighteen Local Government Areas?
The records available to us and which are also available to all the Political Parties that participated in the election as well as to all the security forces that oversaw the elections, point to the fact that Chief Martin Agbaso of APGA won the election in those eighteen Local Government Areas. These are ordinarily very public documents which any serious minded and interested party could always access. This is beside the fact that very serious minded media houses had election monitors filing away reports and election results as they were coming in. This is how come election results are effectively and successfully challenged in courts.
It is either that Ethel my brother does not understand what an electoral process is or is just being mischievous. He is ordinarily an intelligent (?) and seasoned (?) media practitioner, so I want to believe he is ordinarily making efforts to justify the job his “pay master” has availed him and is therefore being mischievous to the point of being ridiculous. Hear him:
“If Kolawole went beyond the ordinarily, he would have learnt, for example, that the process of collating election results differs remarkably between that of the governorship and House of Assembly. While that of the House of Assembly ends at the local government level that of the governorship traverses the entire state. The process is not the same. It is a world of difference; to take election result from booth to ward level, to L.G.A. level and then to the state level. Anything could happen and it did happen in the case of Imo on April 14, 2007”
So what is different between the two elections conducted by the same officials on the same day, at the same time, with the same ballot boxes and security agencies watching over and the same Party Agents representing the participating Political Parties?
If we take Ethelbert Okere’s Local Government Area, Ngor-Okpala L.G.A. as a hypothetical case, at the close of polls, the Presiding Officer in a typical pooling booth, in the full glare of Party Agents and security personnel there present picked out the ballot papers one after the other from the ballot box, placing those for the governorship election on one side and those for the House of Assembly on another side (remember that INEC provided one ballot box for the two elections). After the ballots are counted, the results are called at the booth and entered into the INEC Form EC8A. The Presiding Officer alongside the Party Agents signs off on the Form EC8A. He thereafter, avails the respective Party Agents their own copies of the Form EC8A for the two elections and heads to the Political Ward Collation Centre to submit the results and used election materials to the INEC Ward Returning Officer.
The job of the Polling Booth Presiding Officer ends at the point he / she makes these submissions and the Ward Returning Officer enters these results into the INEC Form EC8B which in ordinary terms is the summation of the results of the various polling booths in the Political Ward. If you like call it the sum of the parts of the Political Ward. After completing the INEC Form EC8B, the Ward Returning Officer sign off on the Form EC8B alongside the Party Agents and distributes copies to the Party Agents there present. He thereafter proceeds to the Local Government Collation Centre. Again because we are dealing with two elections, there are two INEC Form EC8B’s, one for the Governorship Election and the other for the House of Assembly election.
At the Local Government Collation Centre, the INEC Ward Returning Officer submits his copies of the Form EC8B to the Local Government Returning Officer (whose function was performed in the 2007 general elections by the INEC Local Government Electoral Officer). The Local Government Returning Officer collates and enters the Political Ward results into the INEC Form EC8C which is the Local Government result sheet and represents the summation of the results of the various Political Wards embodied in the INEC Form EC8B, in the Local Government. Again you may wish to call it the sum of the parts of the Local Government. After the collation and sign off by him / her and the various Local Government Party Agents, he distributes copies to the Party Agents and representative of the Security Forces there present. Remember we are still dealing with two elections – the Governorship and the House of Assembly election. Accordingly there are two INEC Form EC8C’s for each of the two elections.
Now, because the collation of the House of Assembly election terminates at the Local Government level which is the unit of the election in States like Imo where each House of Assembly member represents a Local Government, the election for the House of Assembly comes to a closure at that point and INEC Certificate of Return availed the winner by the INEC Local Government Returning Officer. In the case of the Governorship election, the Local Government Returning Officer after distributing the INEC Form EC8C’s to the various Party Agents and discharging his responsibilities as it affects the House of Assembly election, proceeds to INEC State Headquarters which is the State Collation Centre and submits his Local Government result to the State INEC Returning Officer who is also the State INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner. In the case of Imo State that fellow was a man called Barr. Austin Okojie. I was already embedded in INEC Headquarters, Owerri as the State Party Agent for APGA when the Local Government Returning Officers were streaming into INEC Headquarters and submitting their Form EC8C’s.
As in the cases of the Ward and Local Government Collation Centers what Barr. Okojie would have ordinarily done is to call in the Party Agents when at least two-thirds of the results had come in to commence the process of collation. In fact by 3.00 a.m. of the following day April 15, 2007 and by which time about twenty five (25) Local Government Returning Officers had submitted their results we had expected the process of collation to commence but Barr. Okojie was nowhere to be found. Ordinarily his job was to collate the Local Government results into INEC Form EC8D, announce the result, share out copies of the result sheets to Party Agents there present and subsequently issue INEC Certificate of Return to the winner. But alas, the learned (?) gentleman abdicated his responsibilities, took the part of dishonor and reminiscent of the annulment of the June 12, 1992 Presidential election, annulled an election that had been won and lost!
Is it therefore not just obvious that Ethelbert Okere was being less than honest and out rightly mischievous when he noted that the electoral process for the House of Assembly and Governorship election that took place in Imo State was different? From what happened in his own Local Government Area, Ngor - Okpala which we used to typify what happened in all the other Local Government Areas in Imo State could anybody spot any difference. Yes the House of Assembly election came to a closure at the Local Government level, but does that make its process any different from that of the Governorship election which was to come to a closure at the INEC Headquarters but which Barr. Okojie decided in consultation with his “Master” to annul? “I do not think so”
Hear Ethelbert again:
“In Kolawole’s own words, Agbaso “clearly won” the April 14 th election. Clearly won? For an election whose result was never announced? By the time of the election, Kolawole was in the newsroom of THISDAY as an editor. In that capacity, what was his source of information that Agbaso “clearly won” that election. As an editor, there could be only one source of to accept results from: The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the only body that has the constitutional powers to announce election results”
How did we and the likes of Simon Kolawole, a very cerebral writer of uncommon distinction who Ethelbert Okere is today attempting to rubbish know that Chief Martin Agbaso won the election? On what basis did Thisday Newspaper on their April 15, 2007 issue give the election to Chief Agbaso? How did everybody that is anybody in Imo State know that Chief Agbaso won the election even before the Barr. Okojie decided to tow the path of dishonor and shame when he should have ordinarily and in line with his constitutional responsibility bring the election to a proper closure? The answer Ethelbert, lies in the buildup of the result of the election from the polling booth to the Political Ward, and Local Government. Every interested party to the election did their own collation based on the INEC Forms’ EC8As, EC8B’s and EC8C’s earlier issued out to the Party Agents at the Polling Booth, Political Ward and Local Government levels by the INEC Presiding Officers, Ward Returning Officers and Local Government Returning Officers respectively.
I verily agree with you when you say that only INEC can announce a result. That is why we will hang on to the INEC announced results at the Polling Booth, Political Ward and Local Government levels by the INEC Presiding, Ward Returning and Local Government Returning Officers respectively, embodied in the INEC Forms EC8A, EC8B and EC8C respectively. Since Barr. Austin Okojie, the INEC Imo State REC / State Returning Officer decided to keep back to himself the INEC Form EC8D – the summation of the Local Government Area results embodied in INEC Form EC8C, which would have brought the election to a proper closure and on the contrary decided to annul the results released by his colleagues at the Polling Booth, Political Ward and Local Government levels, we made do with what we have and did the collation for him. Or Ethelbert, would you say that those other INEC officials that released INEC certified results at their various levels of responsibility are no longer INEC staff authorised by the Electoral Act that guided the elections to perform their duties? Wait a minute Ethelbert. Are you just being unintelligent here, mischievous, or downright and plain stupid all in the name of trying to do the job of an Executive Assistant (or is it Special Assistant), Media? A job you have always done without and could really do without knowing who you are.
Now how else can one relate your own reasons for the cancellation of the election and that proffered by Barr. Okojie. The latter told us it was all about violence in nine (9) Local Government Areas presupposing that there were no results in those areas and you are talking about anything happening along the chain of moving results from one collation level to the other. You also talked about Senator Ararume’s photograph being mixed up with that of Engr. Charles Ugwuh and tried to use it to justify the violence created in the imagination of Barr. Okojie.
But my brother if I momentarily agree with you and Barr. Okojie that there was indeed violence in nine (9) Local Government Areas of Imo State as a result of the factors you have noted as in above, what happened as I have raised earlier to the result in the remaining eighteen Local Government Areas which represents 2/3 of the Local Government Areas in Imo State and where there was no violence? On what basis then did we have House of Assembly Members representing not just those nine (9) Local Government Areas but also the rest of the eighteen (18) Local Government Areas? What was the nature of this violence conjured in the mind of a wicked and heartless man that distinguished between a Governorship and House of Assembly election? From which Constitution or Electoral Act of the Federal Republic of Nigeria did Barr. Austin Okojie acting as the INEC Imo State Resident Electoral Commissioner / State Returning Officer derive the powers he exercised when he annulled the April 14, 2007 Imo State Governorship elections and rescheduled it first for April 26, 2007 and subsequently for April 28, 2007? Is this not criminality and fraud personified which my otherwise respected brother is making efforts to justify just because he wants to keep a job?
Does it really not matter to you and your ilk that like you in one moment of sanity agreed: “Yes the elections were held “same day, same time, same officers…” yet one was upheld and the other annulled for reasons of violence in some Local Government Areas. Is it that you lack the capacity to come to terms with the fact that INEC just goofed beyond any sane person’s imagination when they took that ill-advised measure or just that you have to do or say something to remain relevant in an illegal administration that is practically on its way out of “Douglas House”?.
Okay, how come a few days after the election was annulled and another one scheduled for April 26 and later April 28, 2007, INEC released a report of the statistics of electoral violence nationwide during the general election and Imo State was given a clean bill of health?
According to Ethelbert:
“Now the question is why did Kolawole stop his analysis of the Imo case on “April 14”? Was he not aware that there was a second election on April 28 from which a winner had emerged? If he did not know, then he is an uninformed commentator. If he knew and chose to limit himself to the April 14 election, then he had a mindset which makes his analysis unhelpful to the advancement of democracy”
Ethelbert, we all met in Court on February 26, 2007 when the Appeal Court sitting in Abuja gave its ruling on the preliminary objection raised by the trio of INEC (1 st & 2 nd Respondent), Senator Ifeanyi Ararume (3 rd Respondent) and your Governor, Ikedi Ohakim (4 th Respondent). I can only imagine what was going through your mind and my other friends with you on the “other side” as the ruling was being read but you remember that in the very words of Justice Bada who read the unanimous ruling:
“…While there is a pending case in Court on the legality of Cancellation of the election of 14 th April 2007 is it competent for the 1 st and 2 nd Respondents to ignore the case and proceed to conduct another election? I do not think so.
In the instant case since the cancellation of the said election of 14 th April 2007 and the rescheduled election for 28 th April 2007 are in dispute, it is therefore not appropriate for the 1 st and 2 nd Respondents to proceed and reschedule another election. They ought to have waited for the outcome of Appeal in this Court”.
Have you forgotten that the Learned Justice also among other things noted that:
“Furthermore, the mere fact that the appellant participated in the rescheduled election held on 28 th April 2007 cannot erode the Jurisdiction of this court to entertain the appeal.
The purported election held on 28 th April 2007 by the 1 st and 2 nd Respondents in Imo State was in disregard of the pending Judicial Review Proceedings”
In very plain English language what you have just been told is the April 28, 2007 Imo Governorship election is a nullity. It just did not happen. Bro, it’s simply just a matter of time before the very obvious happens.
You concluded your piece by noting that:
“The tendency to portray INEC as collaborating with Ikedi Ohakim is laughable. If INEC was in waiting to rig the election in favour of Ohakim, did it have to schedule for another election? If INEC was bent on rail roading Ohakim into Government House, Owerri, it would have announced the result in favour of Ohakim on the basis of the April 14, election. It did not have to wait for a second election”.
This is real good thinking on your part. For a moment I almost thought that you have lost all your capacity to think. If you remember, the “big man” in INEC is a professor of some sort. He is a very intelligent Professor, with a capacity to do anything and attempt to get away with it. But he is also smart enough to know the Ikedi Ohakim was not just part of the equation on April 14, 2007. He knew that the man was not a candidate in the true sense of a candidate for an election. He knew that the man was not just prepared to be Governor. He knew that the man as a “guy” was positioning himself when he first picked up the PDP nomination papers before moving over to PPA. He knew your man did not have a campaign structure nor did he campaign in any part of Imo State for the April 14, 2007 election. I had earlier identified myself as the Director-General of the Martin Agbaso Governorship Campaign. We had our office with the full complement of staff, men and materials at No. 1, Upe Street, Off MCC-Uratta Road, Owerri. I know that Senator Ifeanyi Ararume’s Campaign Office was somewhere at Onitsha Road, and that Engr. Charles Ugwu while the PDP candidate had his on MCC – Uratta. I don’t remember where Hon. Uche Onyeagocha had his, but it was clear he was in the election and a serious contender. Where was Ikedi Ohakim’s Governorship Campaign Office and who was his Campaign Manager or Director-General? Did you ever see or hear him campaign anywhere around Umuowa where you come from or any part of Ngor-Okpala for that matter? Did he have an agenda for Imo State?
Why in the aftermath of the infamous annulment of the April 14, 2007 Governorship election, did the INEC big boss eventually decide to hoist Ohakim on Imo State against all odds? You and I know that when the then “Capo di tuti Capi” (Boss of all the Bosses) decreed that he did not want the INEC big boss’s preferred candidate, he was left between Ohakim and a few equally pretenders to the throne. He eventually chose to “deliver” Ohakim after the latter agreed to certain terms. Why do you think that the younger Iwu – Cosmos is SSG, while his daughter is either an Executive or Special Assistant?
My brother, I can understand the need for you to play the relevance game, but If I were you, rather than dissipating energy trying to justify the unjustifiable and attacking people that have elected to stand on the side of truth and reason, I would advise Ikedi Ohakim heed to the advice of one Ikedi Ochulor who in his piece (If I were Ikedi Ohakim, Sunday Independent, March 8, 2009) advised him to ask his lawyers to focus their creative energies towards finding anywhere in our Statutes Books where INEC derived the power the exercised when they annulled the April 14, 2007 Governorship election in Imo State!
Nwachukwu is the Director-General of the Martin Agbaso Governorship Campaign Organisation
