A Director in Senator David Mark’s Campaign Organisation, Dr Adakole
Elijah has said that the Idoma people who are a minority but highly
enlightened would support a strong character to represent their cause in
the senate instead of a lackey who carries handbags for other senators.
Dr Elijah’s statement was triggered by claims by the All Progressives
Congress, APC candidate in the Benue South Senatorial District rerun
election, Daniel Onjeh that the Idoma people are no longer in support of
Sen. Mark’s ambition to represent them at the senate.
It would be recalled that the Court of Appeal sitting in Makurdi last
Saturday annulled Sen. Mark’s election and ordered a rerun within ninety
days. Mark who is the immediate past Senate President is a member of the
Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
However, Dr Elijah while briefing newsmen in Makurdi yesterday said he
will not join issues with Onjeh to dignify him even as he stressed that
the Idomas whom he said are not fools would continue to maintain their
support for Sen Mark in order to protect their integrity and destiny.
“We will not toy with our destiny and that of our children to a man who is
an agent of externalities to represent us,” Elijah stated.
He described the judgment of the Appellate court as shallow and lacking
logic, particularly that the court relied on the clerical error of the
returning officer who signed the result on 28 instead of 29 March, 2015,
arguing “what the court needed to have done was to set aside the
declaration and collate since the date does not invalidate election if
there was a clerical error, in so far as it does not change the result.”
He bolstered his argument with the judgment delivered by the president of
the Court of Appeal, Justice Zainab Bulkachua which he said the Court of
Appeal in Makurdi misapplied in the instant case. “Bulkachwua said
election is like a pyramid, it grows from down to the top, you cannot
stay at the top and quash any election that has properly taken place from
the bottom, that election that has not been challenged at the polling
unit, ward and local government cannot be nullified.”
Dr Elijah also wondered why the Court of Appeal relied heavily on the
senatorial election result Onjeh dumped on document which was rejected by
the lower court in July and was not appealed against. He said for the
Appeal Court to resurrect such a document and base its judgment on it is
curious and said they have to explain to the world if they had no vested
interest.
“We are not afraid of anything, we want to point to Nigerians the lacunae
is curious for resurrecting a document whose ruling was not appealed
against. We want the judgment to be published for the whole world to see.”
He described the denial by the state government through the senior
special adviser to the governor on Media and ICT, Terver Akase that it
did not interfere in the judgment of the court as a case of the owl
crying in the night and the child dying in the morning.
“Why did the state government deny having hand in the judgment when it
was not accused, we want to get the judgment and expose them,” Elijah
further stated.
He wondered why Onjeh whom he said drew school fees from the purse of Sen
Mark when he was a university student would turn round to lie to
Nigerians that Mark did not do anything for his people, adding that Mark,
apart from assisting Onjeh had given scholarship to over 12,000 students
across the state, with each benefitting over twenty thousand naira.
He also listed among others, human capital development, employment and
appointment of Idoma people into the critical sectors of the Nigerian
economy, construction of a N17billion hydro dam at Otobi Akpa in Otukpo
local government, the multi billion naira Otukpo-Oweto road and Loco
bridge, influencing of Federal University of Health Sciences to Idoma
land, though it has been reversed by the APC government, construction of
class rooms, boreholes and rural roads across Idoma land as imprints of
Sen Mark’s positive impartation on his constituents.