By Anthony Iwuoma
I remember when I was in secondary school. One of the things I enjoyed doing most was reading novels, and I read voraciously. There was hardly any James Hadley Chase I did not read.
Even the Agatha Christies, Nick Carter and the Moon and Boon series and such like denied me sleep most of the time. However, the ones that gave me most thrill were the African variants laced with wisdom of the proverbs. It was from there I learned that the darkest hour comes before dawn. It sounded like the biblical saying that joy comes in the morning; more like light at the end of the tunnel.
And so, for Imo North Senatorial District, hope is near. If anyone had told the constituents of beleaguered zone that close to two years after the unfortunate transition of Senator Benjamin Uwajumogu, its representative in the Red Chamber of the National Assembly, to the cold hands of death, the battle for who takes over the seat he vacated would still be raging, they certainly would not have believed it.
The epic contest is coming after a protracted and high wire succession campaign, which eventually threw up the trio of Sir Frank Ibezim, Senator Ifeanyi Araraume of the All Progressives Congress, APC, and Chief Emmanuel Okewulonu of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
Strangely, the main battle was not between the two leading parties in the state but between APC and APC, which has been engulfed in bitter internecine battle since the Independent Electoral Commission, INEC, lifted the lid on the bid for Uwajumogu’s replacement. While the PDP seemed not to have had any serious issues settling for Okewulonu, APC was torn in the middle between Ibezim, a former commissioner in Imo State, and Araraume, who had previously represented the zone for eight years, 1999 -2007…
Perhaps, out of premonition for the looming crisis, the APC had sought to avoid acrimony by first making a consensus arrangement whereby the aspirants chose the best alternative to themselves. At the end of the exercise, Ibezim emerged winner but as is characteristic of Nigerian politicians, who never accept defeat, the losers reneged on their earlier agreement hence the decision for all to go into the primaries.
However, confusion trailed the exercise when the primaries committee split. Chairman and Secretary of the APC seven-member primary election team, Senator Surajudeen Bashiru and Samuel Ogbuku respectively and two other members, Senator Jibrin Gada and Bello Kumo announced Frank Ibezim as the winner of their own primary. However, three other members of the team, Alhaji Umar Gana, Mohammed Saba and Godfrey Ejim, submitted a separate report, which declared Ararume as the winner of the same contest.
Senator Bashiru, who briefed the media after submitting his team’s report accused the other three members of abandoning the job they were sent to do, adding, however that the remaining four members which constituted a simple majority on which its rule was based declared Ibezim winner.
Unequivocally, Bashiru announced: “At the end of the day, the aspirant that got the highest votes is Frank Ibezim and he is the person declared as the winner in my capacity as the chairman of the election committee and his name was submitted to the organising secretary of our party a moment ago,” he added.
The three other members, led by Umar Gana, also submitted a parallel report to the National Organising Secretary, saying Ararume emerged as the winner of the primary election.
Although these may have been overtaken by events, the confusion persists and question is if the rules of the committee was based on simple majority as its chairman said, why was the Gana parallel committee given any attention in at all? Anyway, following the report of the committee, the APC endorsed Ibezim as its flag bearer. Nevertheless, Araraume and a few others cried foul and there the trouble began for Ibezim who had earlier survived a trumped up disqualification by the screening committee.
Curiously, the courts were brought into the fray to dictate who the party’s candidate should be against all known legal tenets. The law of the land expressly allows political parties to choose their own candidates; APC did and submitted ibezim’s name to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, as required by law. It was never contemplated by the framers of our laws that a time would come when courts of law would usurp the roles of political parties, as is happening in ‘our very before’ (apologies Zebrudaya).
From being disqualified to run, to actually running and winning, several legal obstructions emerged but like a cat with nine lives, Ibezim scaled over all of them. All accusations now have paled into insignificance. What is alive and throbbing is actually a non-issue but for strange court interventions, and gratefully, the matter is now before the apex court of the land, which will rule on it in a matter of days. It has to do with alleged certificate forgery.
Ibezim was alleged to have forged his certificates, which amounts to perjury with its dire consequences if convicted… but did he?…
It is based on this unproven allegation that Ibezim had been declared disqualified by the Court of Appeal in Abuja, which affirmed an earlier judgment of the Federal High Court, Owerri, which declared Araraume candidate, and directed INEC to replace Ibezim’s name with Araraume’s.
Incidentally, a three-member panel of the Court of Appeal had set aside that judgement but Justice Taiwo Taiwo in a recent judgement stated that based on a recent judgment by the Court of Apeal in Abuja, Ibezim remained disqualified. This judgement overruled the apex court, which had ruled in favour of Ibezim’s candidature before now. Even the trumpeted judgment on which Justice Taiwo based his ruling had been appealed against before the Supreme Court but this was curiously ignored.
Ibezim’s purported disqualification was based on alleged certificate forgery, which in itself raises fears of an amalgam of powerful conspirators with influence and affluence against the man. He allegedly presented a forged school certificate and statement of results but neither the West African Examination Council (WAEC) nor Uboma Secondary School, Ikperejere in Etiti, Imo State, was called as witness to deny that the documents were theirs.
In the first place, Ibezim was disqualified for allegedly presenting academic credentials with different names despite both his results bearing the same Ibezim Francis Chukwuma in that sequence. Yet the Court ruled the certificates were forged without proof or authentication by the issuing authorities. Ibezim was actually meant to prove his innocence instead of his accusers proving his guilt. This unnatural approach to Ibezim’s case raises the issue of who is actually afraid of Ibezim. Probably, their trump card was the name Frank, which appeared in Ibezim’s electoral papers at INEC. This is actually a non-issue because it is a variant of Francis, as Tony is to Anthony or Livy to Livinus. It would also not be the first time such is happening and is, in fact, a settled legal issue.
The only plank on which all of Ibezim’s travail stands is the contrived allegation of the non-existent certificate forgery. Since this has not been proven, Ibezim’s accusers should repent and sin no more while the man Ibezim should be allowed to savour his victory for the good of Imo North.
It is a settled legal process that a lower court must submit to a superior court. One wonders why on earth a High Court would override the decision of the Supreme Court. Here we are not just talking about a superior but the apex (highest) court of the land being overruled by a High Court. Something must be fishy somewhere.
Even if the Supreme Court had not affirmed Ibezim’s candidature, judges do not adjudicate further on any matter already before an appellate court. However, despite that Ibezim had already appealed against his disqualification by the High court, which the Court of Appeal upheld, the learned judge still went ahead to rule on the matter. Even if one concedes to the probability of the learned judge being unaware of Ibezim’s appeal, pending in the Supreme Court, was it not strange that the learned judge was aware of Araraume’s cross appeal against the same case, which he acknowledged? A cross appeal obviously presupposes that there is already an appeal, isn’t it?
We are in a country where conscience is smothered because of the fickleness of office. It is ungodly to kill conscience for politics. The kernel of the trouble in Imo North is the smothering of conscience, the only healing for an open wound. Without hiding behind our putrid legal system and a few pliable or careless judges, did Ibezim truly forge his school certificates; have Ikperejere and WAEC denied him? If the issuing authorities have not done so, how could any reasonable person conclude that the certificates are forged? Over to the Lord Justices of the Supreme Court.
The joy of every discerning mind now is that at last the matter has come before the eminent jurists at the apex court. It is now up to this crop of the nation’s best to decide whether it was right by Ibezim’s accusers and the courts to rule his certificates forged whereas the owners of the same certificates did not deny them, and, in fact, were surreptitiously kept at bay so that they would not confirm the veracity of the certificates.
Also an issue is whether taking up Frank, a variant of Francis, repudiates the bearer of the name when even the forged certificates and photographs are consistent with the bearer in the light of previous rulings on similar matters.
Hope is on the upswing in Imo North and the people have every reason to rejoice because light has appeared at the end of the tunnel. Because these protracted legal somersaults have eventually berthed at the temple of justice that cannot be reproached. But however it goes, ultimately, Imo North still wins or loses; to God be the glory!
Anthony Iwuoma is a journalist and public affairs commentator
