Abia tribunals: Travesty of justice

MONDAY OKOSIS, a public affairs analyst, describes the outcomes of various election petitions in Abia State as travesty of justice

One sector that has always been overlooked in the fights for change against corruption and reform is the judiciary. More than 60 per cent of the problems that has befallen Nigeria today or why we have not moved forward as a nation is caused by the judiciary. There are no uniform or standard laws in this country once a matter goes to the courts.
The judges or justices are on their own and decide cases according to their mood often dictated by the accused. Different judgments for different people. Just last week or thereabout, the Ghananian authorities clamped down on some high court judges for corruption.
These judges will compulsorily be retired, tried and jailed, some for life. That’s a serious country that has done so much for itself and wants to move forward. They are our neighbours. Nothing has ever gone wrong in Nigeria and gets fixed for posterity.
Why is it that no one cares about the dangerous slide in our judiciary? People are suffering and dying because of the decision of some of our judges, but nothing is being done to obviate the trend. We have had some court decisions in this country that shocked not only Nigerians but the sane world at large.
It is in Nigeria that a former governor got a perpetual or life time injunction that foreclosed his trial. The injunction even said he should not be investigated, the investigation carried out before the injunction should not be made public and he must never be arrested.
This former governor is married to a justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria. No leader of the judiciary or President in this country has tried to ask why or vacate such criminal abuse of judicial power. Instead, a sitting Senate President, the third citizen of this country, is facing trial for his declaration of assets in 2003 just because some people don’t want him in that position.
What a country called Nigeria! In Abia State, on October 12, some Election Petition Tribunals gave judgements on some cases before them. Abia people are in deep shock at the nature of all of these judgements. The people wonder if Abia is still part of this country and why the “change” that is sang everywhere does not get to Abia State.
Has Abia been forgotten by the Federal Government? In the high points of these judgments are; Senator Eyinnaya Abaribe and Chief Chris Nkwonta (Abia South). Nkwonta was coasting home with victory in the election when suddenly, the “8th wonder of the world” happened in Obingwa, the local government area of Senator Abaribe and Governor Okezie Ikpeazu.
The result from that local government changed everything because Abaribe got over 66,000 votes. Abaribe’s 66,000 votes came on the same day that former President Goodluck Jonathan got a little over 16,000 votes in an election that took place simultaneously.
The questions the tribunal did not ask is how could that happen, how many people actually voted and why the discrepancy in the votes of Abaribe and that of the then President Jonathan both of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) got respectively.
It is equally of note that the votes the former president got was from the combined efforts of PDP and other political parties like the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Labour Party (LP), Progressives Peoples Alliance (PPA) who did not present a presidential candidate for the election, but asked their supporters to vote Jonathan.
The All Progressives Congress (APC) Mohammadu Buhari was on that ballot. It is a known and published fact that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) reported at the tribunal that about 50,000 people registered to vote in Obingwa local council, less number were accredited, none with the card reader and less than the accredited voters in Obingwa Local Government Area.
PDP’s record had it that over 87,000 people voted in the election. If these did not make sense to the judges on this tribunal, what of the part that when one of the tribunals granted an application to APGA to inspect the materials used in the election, two attempts made to inspect the said materials were blocked by the thugs of Abaribe and PDP.
When APGA went back to report to the tribunal their inability to inspect the said materials in Obingwa, the tribunal ordered that the materials be brought to the court premises in Umuahia on August 3, 2015 for the said inspection, but on Sunday August 2, the INEC office in Obingwa Local Government Area where the materials were was burnt down. It happened about 11a.m. on that Sunday and two policemen, still alive, were detailed on guard at the INEC office.
This incident did not make sense to the tribunal that gave judgement in this case? Who did not want these materials that gave victory to PDP’s Abaribe inspected? Where are the policemen posted on guard duty there and what is the police report? This could only happen in Abia where the presidency does not ask questions.
How could a tribunal of Nigerian judges order a re-run in Obingwa knowing all these facts? Which INEC will conduct this election and with which materials? This is not forgetting the fact that the returning officer for the governorship election in Abia, Prof. Benjamin Ozumba, had cancelled the result of this local government due to irregularities reported by both local and international observers. This tribunal stands accused by the people and must be investigated.
Ohuabunwa, Kalu and Onuoha (Abia North)
Senator Mao Ohuabunwa, whose election was upheld by the tribunal, was ridiculed at the tribunal when he could not prove the result he said gave him victory at the election. He was laughed at even by the members of the tribunal and lawyers present. He lost in his local government, Arochukwu, and also in Bende, Isuikwuato and Umunneochi local government areas which are other councils in the senatorial election.
How did he win? That’s a question this tribunal has to answer if this country will move forward. The contest was between Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu of PPA and Dr. David Onuoha-Bourdex of APGA, who made very effective campaigns and reached out to the people in that zone.
The tribunal even refused to accept vital materials tendered in evidence by Dr. Kalu and was overturned by the Appeal Court in Owerri. This tribunal is suspect and should be investigated. People who come to work in Abia from police bosses to judges take advantage of the fact that Abia has nobody, to get away with murder. Ohuabunwa did not win that election and Abia people call on President Buhari to ask the Chief Justice of Nigeria or better still, an independent body, to investigate this atrocity against the people of Abia North.
Onyejeocha and Oji
Hon. Nkiru Onyejeocha ran for the third consistent term in that election. This was against the principle and agreement of stakeholders in Isuikwuato Umunneochi Federal Constituency and even the PDP zoning system. She was a product of Mrs. Patience Jonathan’s (former First Lady) impunity that imposed candidates on the people of Abia State in particular.
There was not even a PDP primary election for that election as the party in the state announced very close to the primary, which would have seen her out, that Mrs. Jonathan had endorsed her candidacy for the third term. PDP primary delegates who had waited for the opportunity to vote her out in the primaries, were disappointed by the undemocratic intervention of Mrs. Jonathan. Onyejeocha was hated by the people for her arrogance, violence and lack of any constituency project in the eight years she had stayed at the House of Representatives.
Dr Ejike Oji, a medical doctor of repute, was the man everyone wanted. Oji with his wealth of experience in both local and international circles, a champion of human and women rights activism, he had headed United Nations medical agencies. The consummate medical consultant was the one people in the constituency wanted to represent them at the House. He had no place in PDP, as was the case. He left the party and wanted to put Nigerian politics behind him when APGA beckoned on him to come and fly their flag. He was persuaded to accept.
It is on record that Dr. Oji ran an unconventional and unprecedented campaign devoid of people and unnecessary antagonism, but on issues and goals. Going to that election, he was the man to beat. Who would not have voted for this gentleman? He was coasting home with victory when more than 24 hours after voting had officially ended, Onyejeocha, led by an Army major, well reported at the tribunal, stormed the INEC operational collation centre at the Isuikwuato Local Government Area premises to submit results from her local government, Umunneochi which she had hijacked the previous day after voting ended.
The army major with his men, on unofficial duty, cleared the way for the said result to be accepted and collated to give her undeserved victory. It is on record that the INEC Electoral Officer (EO) for that election decided not to be part of Onyejeocha’s result brought in her branded campaign vehicle in company of soldiers instead of INEC officials and did not announce the result himself.
It is difficult to believe that the same tribunal that had warned Onyejeocha at one of its sittings she attended and even threatened to commit her and her lawyer to prison because she became very agitated and unruly, gave her judgement. Close sources to her said she had given up on the tribunal and was preparing for the Appeal Court before an intervention was coordinated on her behalf about 36 hours to the judgement. To deny Dr. Oji his deserved judgement in that case is the height of travesty of justice.
A lot is called into question here; why are some judicial officers going the way they are going? Are they not Nigerians that live here and feel the same pain and deprivation orchestrated by the indifference attitude from past leaders? Why should the Federal Government not look into the problem caused in this country by some corrupt judicial officers and rein in these bad eggs that bring shame to our country? Why can’t we borrow a leaf from Ghana and change the way things are done by people in whose hands we entrusted so much.
TA Orji and Ahamdi Nweke (Abia Central)
Who would have thought that TA Orji, the former Governor of Abia State, who was stoned and booed across the state by the people in the last years of his governorship, a man who failed to win in his polling unit, his electoral ward, his local government and all the local government, in the Umuahia area of the state (about four of them) would have been given victory by a Tribunal of Nigerian judges? Orji after his two tenures as governor could not live in Abia State. He first ran to Enugu and when the indigenes attacked him for disengaging non-indigenes from work when he was governor, now lives in Calabar.
He cannot live in Abia because the army and police who protected him as governor are all gone. Orji handed over to Okezie Ikpeazu at a private ceremony in the government house instead of the stadium where the celebration took place. He stayed away because he could not face the people after the rigged election.
Barr. Nweke won the Abia Central Senatorial election. He beat Orji hands down in the election. Everybody knew what happened in the election except the judges who sat on the tribunal. In fact, no amount of money paid as bribe to these judges can justify this travesty of justice in Abia State.
They call it retirement benefit, but let’s see how President Buhari will react to this national disgrace. It should not be left to the judiciary or police to investigate and report. It is a fact that judiciary or tribunals in Abia State acted in concert with the Nigerian police. The police report which the tribunal hinged their decision on was tented with blood money.
What has happened to the INEC office burnt in Obingwa? Where is the police report on it? Who are the policemen detailed to provide security there? These questions must continue to be asked until the President Buhari orders an investigation. Police, INEC and Election Tribunal judges cannot get away with murder in Abia State.
This offers an opportunity to set example. Many Nigerians don’t generally believe in election petition tribunals because 95 per cent of the time the petitioners fail to secure justice. The few cases where people’s mandates have been retrieved are at the Appeal Courts who always overturn these tribunal judgements.
The accused always triumph at the election tribunal due to the amount of money at their disposal, mosttime state governors, who disburse through retired judges to members of such tribunals. This has to stop and only a leader like President Buhari can do that. It is the equivalent of murder to decide these cases against the people for the sake of money.
The people of Abia reject the unprecedented miscarriage of justice by the tribunals in Abia State that gave all PDP candidate victory and call on the Federal Government to investigate these judges and bring them to account. There should be no space for corrupt judges in the present Nigeria.
It is not enough to just retire them, they must be tried and if found guilty, jailed or even shot to death as the people of Ghana are asking their president to do. Judicial and police reforms are the solution to obviate this dangerous trend. There must be serious investigation of what has happened in Abia otherwise there won’t be any need for setting up these tribunals to restore the mandates given by the people to their preferred candidates.
The incumbents, no matter what they did to get undeserved victory, laugh last. It is not enough to reverse these judgments at the appeal courts; those responsible for the atrocities must be tried, jailed or shot for Nigeria to move forward. Judiciary takes a chunk of the blame in what Nigeria has become today.
This is the time to ask question if the war on corruption can ever be won. President Buhari, the judges at the Election Petition Tribunals in Abia have dared you!

Source: New Telegraph Wednesday, October 21, 2015 edition