•Says the INEC chair is complicit in the political hiccups in the country
Amobi Nzelu Esq, needs no introduction. He is the lawyer that took up, pro-bono, the agitations by the Apo Mechanic Village Traders, who protested over the extrajudicial murder of five of their colleagues and the fiance of one of the victims; a protest that shook the FCT to its very foundations. The slain traders were not only exonorated of the label of armed robbery, but the Police Administrative Panel and the Justice Olasumbo Goodluck Presidential Panel, indicted the police officers led by then DCP Danjuma Ibrahim (DC-Ops) and ordered the decent burials of the deceased traders and payment of compensation to the families of the victims.
In this interview, the legal mind and Septuagenerian, took our man, Ekuson Nw’Ogbunka on a journey through the analysis of events and outcomes of the 2023 general elections and passed the verdict that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) wasted the N305 billion expended on it, adding that the chairman, Prof Yakubu Mahmoud is complicit in the raging controversies. He also expressed his opinion on issues surrounding the Supreme Court of Nigeria’s judgement on the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) leadership tussle, among other matters. Enjoy the excerpts:
Sir, can we have your assessment on the recently conducted elections in the country?
The money expended, by the Federal Government to give Nigerians fair, credible and sincere election, unfortunately went down the trenches. The conduct of the election didn’t justify the humongous amount of about N305 billion spent on it, because what they gave us wasn’t a credible election. The outcome of the election; the packaging of the election, what transpired during the election, if compared with the amount expended by the FG, it can’t justify the election.
On November the 2nd, last year, the chairman of the INEC, Prof. Mahmoud told the whole world that all the Polling Unit results of the election would be uploaded on INEC Results Viewing Portal (IReV) and that uploading results will be for transparency and for the party agents to immediately have a recourse to during the manual collation, should any dispute on the collated figures arise, before such results could be finally collated and announced. S.64 of the Electoral Act explains how election results should be transmitted to the IReV. Also, the INEC Guidelines and Manual for the election in paragraph 8 states clearly, that the elections must be transmitted via the IReV. In the day of the Presidential and National Assembly elections, Senatorial and House of Representatives elections were transmitted seamlessly, but results of the presidential couldn’t be transmitted and it is only INEC that can explain why it is so. I must restate that alection on these three offices took place on the same day, time and polling units. The same system of transmitting the election results was what they applied. So, how did it happen that the results of the presidential election couldn’t be and wasn’t transmitted?
You see, where a special procedure has been laid down for doing an act by the authority, that procedure, no other one, should be followed; that is the position of the law.
INEC owes this country an explanation on what happened. Prof. Mahmoud is complicit in this particular matter. If it is a country where rule of law takes precedence, him and other members of his commission and the staff members involved should be facing trial by now, because what they did was treasonable.
You see, these old brigades must give room; they have eaten breakfast, they have eaten lunch and they have eaten dinner. The left-over, the youths are fighting to get themselves organised, they are still fighting for that small pieces. This is unfortunate!
Saying that the laid down procedures for the presidential election wasn’t followed, can you convince us the more?
You have created the pitch for the football match. You can’t elongate the pitch or extend the goal post in the middle of the game. There are set down criteria that must be met, before anybody can be president of Nigeria. I warn myself that the matrer is in the court, but where the statutes are clear and unambigous, you don’t need any foreign aid to interprete it.
The debate that is on-going now on the constitutional requirements of the winner obtaining 25% of the votes cast in at least two-third of the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) hasn’t been met by the president-elect. Chief Olisa Agbakoba, SAN, saw this thing and wrote a letter to INEC to clear the huddle. In this interview with you people, I raise it again that 25% in 2/3 of the states in Nigeria and the FCT; “not or the FCT”, was not met, before INEC declared Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu winner of the presidential election. Where in an examination, they say, Question A, is compulsory and that you must answer three or four other questions from the remaining six and you ignored the one that is compulsory, you will fail that paper.
If the drafters of the law didn’t want to make the FCT a part of the 25%, they would have said so. They didn’t exempt any state, by saying to the exemption of others. For instance, by exempting Anambra, Bayelsa, Nasarawa, Enugu and included others. No! They didn’t say so. They said 25% in 2/3 of the 36 states of the federation and the FCT. I don’t think that the judiciary will form a contrary opinion on this matter. But we are watching and waiting for the outcome.
The judiciary, as they say, is the last hope of the common man but a lot have happened to impeach on the credibility and integeity of the judiciary. Do you have implicit confidence in the judiciary?
You see, I will answer each this way. During the Apo-6 saga, the police quickly set up the Police Administrative Panel of Enquiry, headed by Mike Okiro, then a DIG and I approached them severally, to exhume the corpses of the victims that were buried at the Utako cemetary and they were dilly-dallying and dilly-dallying, until I tendered the photographs of how they were killed. It was then that the late Sen. Uche Chukwumerije and former Governor Chukwuemeka Ezeife jointly authored a letter to the then Minister of Justice, Chief Akin Olujimi, SAN, that led to the disbanding of the police panel and the setting up of the Judiciary Panel of Enquiry (JPE), headed by Justice Olasumbo O. Goodluck, who stood her ground, irrespective of pressure from several quarters and gave a fearless verdict that stood the test of time.
So, I am confident that this time, in this presidential election petition, God will bring in Justices in the mould and pedigree of Justice O.O. Goodluck in the Supreme Court of Nigeria (SCN) who will stand their ground to say, this is correct and this is not correct. I don’t believe in blanket judgement.
I can’t say I have or not have confidence in them, but all I know is that conscience is an open wound and only the truth can heal it. The lives of our children, including their own children, are at stake. So anybody that goes in there to compromise in one way or the other, the consequences that follow are very enomous.
I am not going to say that I have confidence in them or not, but conscience is an individual bag, you carry your own and I carry my own. But my prayer is that God raises another people in like character of Justice O. O. Goodluck, that stood her ground and said no and maintained that those Policemen were culpable in killing the Apo Youths, irrespective of pressure and everything. So, there are some people with conscience still in our midst. All of us are going to the same market; all of us are paying school fees; all of us are facing these power outages. So, for them to sit there and say this or that, if it doesn’t affect you today, it will affect you tomorrow, that is all I know.
I can’t support blanket judgement. I don’t want to condemn anybody, but in every 12, you must have a Judas. All I am saying is that they should hold their consciences like a flag or Bible or Quoran.
Among others, having been a Senator and later a governor, what is your assessment of the president-elect?
I haven’t had any personal relationship or encounters with him, but all I know is that the man carries excess luggage and baggages, horrendous ones. From certificate to drug controversy, to this one and that one. In 2014, the SCN decided that forefeature is a conviction in law. Are they going to change it today?
He forefeited about $406,000 over drug issue, isn’t that a conviction, making him an ex-convict? As I said, this matter is within the domain of the court, I have to warn myself not to say certain things, but these things are on the pieces of papers already.
Peter Obi, being one of the people in the court says he is an ex-convict and I didn’t put it there. So, repeating things already before the court, it is a public document, and one can comment on it.
As a constitutional Anambra State-born lawyer, what is the implications of the judgement passed by the SCN in the leadership of the APGA to Gov. Soludo in the state?
With my 43 years in practice, I avoid politics, because what they tell you in the moning is correct; the same thing in the afternoon, is doubtful and; the same thing in the evening is fault. This tussle has been there for a very long time to determine who is the authentic national chairman of the APGA. It has gone to the Jigawa State High Court, went to the Court of Appeal in Kano and later came back to SCN, here in Abuja. Now they are saying that the name of Chief Victor Oye was wrongly written, when it was supposed to be Chief Edozie Njoku; and that retired Justice Mary Odili issued a letter, saying that it was a slip of the pen; that what they wanted to write was Njoku, and not Oye. The case has continued to go on, untill the 24th of last month.
You see, this word, which is politics, should better be handled by them. Nobody has considered that this matter has been in court for years and now they are saying that it is a slip of the pen and this battle has been going on since.
Soludo was nominated two years ago, because he came for election in November, 2021 and he won the election; was sworn into office and he has just marked one year in office and you want to resurrect it now, that he was wrongly nominated by somebody who wasn’t the chairman of the party. Well, anything can happen in this country. I won’t be surprised, if they remove him tomorrow, because Nigeria is an injector of the absurd. If number four can become number one and if somebody like Sen. Ahmed Lawan can come back to the Senate when he wasn’t a candidate in the primary election; anything can happen in Nigeria.
The Judiciary is my constituency, but when we entered this constituency in 1980, we rode on Okada (commercial motorcyle) to the courts and today, the system has been bedeviled by this penticostal lawyers and anything goes and we are watching them.
Is it justifiable for people to say that Hon. Nicholas Ukachukwu, who won APGA primary under the Chief Edozie Njoku-conducted primary, and with Njoku now having been pronounced the authentic chairman, Ukachukwu should take over the Anambra Government, based on the judgement?
Nicholas Ukachukwu is my younger brother and my person, but let them know that it is the party that goes for election and both of them are from the party and the votes are for the party, not for an individual, and election is a process, not an event: you buy normination form; you go for screening; you go for primary, win at the primary and you go for the main election. The question is, the man that is going to take over, did he go through this gamot? If Ukachukwu has gone through that gamot and submitted form to INEC and met other requirements from the umpire, then it is justifiable.
Can you compare the issue with that of Zamfara state?
As a lawyer, I won’t comment on what was said in the social media.
With your base now in Abuja, how do you see the elections which took place as it concerns the FCT?
Mrs. Ireti Kingibe is a technocrat and a seasoned politician and God has given it to her. I learnt that Sen. Philip Aduda has gone to challenge her victory in court. She beat Aduda with about 100,000 votes.
Aduda went to the House of Reps, for four years and has been in the senate for 16 years. Should that be an exclusive reserve? This is FCT and all Nigerians should have equal recognition in the FCT.
Can you further unfold your observations during and after the presidential election?
The Labour Party (LP’s) presidential candidate, Mr Peter Obi, has endeared himself to mainly the youths of this country and Nigerians should know that 25% is the requirement in the FCT. The comportment of the LP presidential candidate is commendable and he has continued to endear himself to the youths of this country. The elderly ones shouldn’t suffocate the space or contend the space with the youths of this country. It shouldn’t be allowed. Let them give chance to the youths.
Don’t you think that the youths are not experienced and should be patient to learn from the elderly ones?
They don’t need to learn from the elderly ones. It is when they get to that place that they will have the experience. Giving positions to people who are about 70 years is the beginning of failure. The cabaals should give chance to the youths to move the country forward. Gowon was 32 to become military Head of State in Nigeria; Obasanjo, 39 and Emmanuel Macron of a super world power, France, 46. I shall be happy to hear that a 50 year old or less is elected president of Nigeria. God wil rescue us from the hands of these cabals. Amen!
