PDP FRAUD: WHEN SUPREME COURT FINALLY CONVENES ON RIVERS GUBER TUSSLE

 

Although coming with its own peculiar heat, the recent cult supremacy war in Port Harcourt in no small measure could be said to have achieved one uncelebrated goal. It has helped douse the mounting political tension arising from questions of legality or otherwise of Celestine Omehia, the terribly embattled occupant of Government House, Port Harcourt.

In the legal tussle contesting Omehia’s claim to the PDP governorship election ticket in the last April election, the Court of Appeal in its landmark ruling in his favour, opined that a party has right to remove a candidate; that primaries conducted by parties are irrelevant in the process of who should be a party’s candidate; and that by the findings of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) which were based on a report by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the former Speaker, Chibuike Amaechi was indeed indicted.

However, The Federal Government White Paper on the Administrative Panel of Inquiry set up to try some public officers across the country and which the Abuja Appeal Court referred to, was very clear on Amaechi that he was never indicted. This is a public document which is available on request.

Under the column where Amaechi’s name appeared in the section of the White Paper the document clearly stated: “Government notes the findings.” Meanwhile in the same White Paper, all those public officers who were duly indicted, had the words “indicted” or “indictment” ascribed to them while government merely “noted” the findings on Amaechi rather than “indicted or indictment” as was the case on the allegedly convicted elected public officers.

The Abuja Appeal Court in its lead judgment interestingly held that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and a Federal Government Administrative panel of Inquiry had indicted the former Speaker. The supposed indictment was the “cogent and verifiable” reason produced at the Court of Appeal in place of the error that PDP gave as reason for substituting Amaechi with Omehia as the party’s governorship candidate in the last April election.

If the White Paper by the Administrative Panel clearly ‘noted’ the findings on the former speaker without ambiguity, the big question is: Who indicted Amaechi then? How could the words “Government notes the findings” translate to an indictment? This is the big question which both laymen and legal experts have been asking and it will be interesting to see how the Supreme Court would do its interpretation of the same comment.

From all indications, the Supreme Court which has received the notice of appeal filed by Amaechi’s counsel may not have constituted any panel to revisit the case. If the apex court has assembled the team for the case, lawyers standing  for both sides of the divide seemed not to have been given any date by the court to prepare and make their submissions.

The reasons may be connected to the fleet of election-related cases being heard across the nation by tribunals which in most cases have majority of members of the apex court actively participating.

As Rivers people curiously await the kick-off of the interesting legal tussle, several legal experts both  real and mushroom have been dissecting the pronouncements by the Abuja Appellate court on the Amaechi vesus Omehia/PDP case. Several experts are still confused on the actual reason why the court use a non-existent indictment of Amaechi by EFCC or the Federal Government Administrative Panel when it was a glaring public knowledge that the nation’s apex court had earlier quashed the issue of indictment not backed by the courts in the case between former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar and INEC.
The Supreme Court ruling clearly stated that it was only Courts of competent jurisdiction that can disqualify or stop candidates from running for any elections for whatever reasons “The trial and conviction by a court is the only constitutionally permitted way to prove guilt and therefore the only ground for the imposition of criminal punishment or penalty for criminal offences of embezzlement or fraud,” this was the clear and direct ruling of the highest court in the country as recognized by the Constitution.

It was the same supposed indictment by the EFCC and the Administrative Panel that the PDP led Federal Government and INEC wanted to use to stop Atiku from running for the Presidency, but the indictment was quashed by the apex court.

The Supreme Court stated that “the trial and conviction by a court is the only constitutionally permitted way to prove guilt and therefore the only ground for the imposition of criminal punishment or penalty for criminal offences of embezzlement or fraud.”

On what should constitute indictment, the Supreme Court held in Atiku, Action Congress Vs INEC that the mere publication of an Administrative Panel Report or allegations of indictment by the EFCC does not amount to an indictment?

The court held that there must be cogent and verifiable reasons before a candidate elected as the standard bearer of a party is removed. But in the case of Amaechi, the only “cogent and verifiable reason” was an indictment on the imaginations of some groups of people rather than the law of the land.

For the appellate court to reverse a supreme decision just few months from the ruling is not only suspicious but could be said to be a matter of serious concern to the Nigerian Judiciary which has been receiving national and international accolades in its non-partisan but purely professional rulings on political cases.

Also curiously enough, the former Speaker was not disqualified by INEC from contesting the election based on the list captioned “Investigated and Indicted” but it was the PDP which substituted his name invoking the provisions of Section 34(1) and (2) of the Electoral Act. Could it be that INEC was fully aware that Amaechi was never indicted? This is another big poser for the Supreme Court as they convene because as the nation eagerly agitate for electoral reforms, the apex court should in its own way try to correct terrible wrongs of the past especially by the electoral body.

Another thorny issue in the entire tussle is the use of the terms embezzlement and fraud. Which public fund did Amaechi embezzled? Was Amaechi the governor or Rivers state or state accountant general or even the commission for finance at any time? So how did he come to be in charge of the resources of the state? This issue is very confusing and need to be looked into by the peoples’ last hope of justice in the land, the Supreme Court.

 

By: ZUBBY ALAZUA, AJAO ESTATE, LAGOS, NIGERIA (zubby_alazua@yahoo.co.uk)