The National Chairman of the All Progressive Congress (APC), Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, has stated that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) behaved irresponsibly for declaring the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Emeka Ihedioha, as the winner of the Imo state governorship election in the first place.
He alleged that the electoral body hired a “senile” professor to do the bidding of the PDP when in fact, Ihedioha did not satisfy the requirements of the law to be declared the winner.
Oshiomhole spoke to correspondents after leading the newly inaugurated Imo Governor to meet President Muhammadu Buhari at the presidential villa, Abuja on Friday.
He alleged that the PDP took advantage of the provision that says that once the result is declared by the electoral officer, it cannot be changed except by the court.
Speaking on the possible review and reversal of the Imo judgment by the Supreme Court, he said: “I think there is something the media has simply refused to focus on. With all due respect, a lot of the views that people parrot are derived from what I called electronic media lawyers.
“Now, is there any of us in this room that at a time Emeka Iheidioha was declared, even the returning officer could not show that he scored the constitutional requirement of at least one-quarter of the total vote cast in at least 2/3 of a local government.
“On that criteria alone there is no question in the eyes of the law, Emeka Iheidioha ought not to have been declared because he had those numbers only in nine local government areas, and of course, you know you have about 27 local government areas, 2/3 is 15.”
Insisting that the PDP candidate did not have the necessary spread to have been declared the winner, Oshiomhole added: “So, INEC completely and irresponsibly misbehaved by using a professor who seems to be so senile that he didn’t know that nine is not 2/3. This is very serious.
“And because they take advantage of the fact that once they make pronouncements, even if the pronouncement is made by a lunatic in INEC, you can’t reverse it, you have to go to court.
“And it fits into PDP’s fixation, rig and let them go to court. They just feel that it is their birthright to continue to rig elections.
“So, the next time you see them talking, ask them how much local government did PDP score 1/4 of the vote in the total vote cast, in how many local governments. That is not in the provision of the electoral act, that is in the provision of the Nigerian constitution.
“I think all of you should read the Nigerian constitution and ask INEC to give you the results of Imo, even their own version, even excluding that of governor Hope Uzodinma. You will find that Emeka iheidioha ought not to have been declared.
“For me, it shows that nobody is interrogating INEC and that is why they are getting away with blue murder. And this is minus the fact that INEC has not explained why they did not collate votes that were certified and signed by the presiding officers, appointed by INEC in each of the 388 polling units.
“If there is something wrong with those votes, INEC is on record to have had cause to cancelled unit votes where they are dissatisfied. Those votes were not cancelled, they just chose to ignore them.
Oshiomhole condemned the protest by the PDP against the court judgment, saying that the APC refrained from protests even though, according to him, the party has been the victim of questionable Supreme Court judgment in several elections.
He stated: “When I see people protesting, that is my primary constituency, to do protests but I don’t run after mad man when he is naked and I have to join him to run because I want to make a point.
“That is the reason we just allowed them to do the sort of thing they were doing.
“Have you also found out what happened in Sokoto? There are a lot of issues that INEC cannot defend but we have to leave with the pain.
“Look at Rivers, for some technical reasons we were told we cannot even have candidates, and nobody asked questions. But because we are ruling party, we cannot just begin to go to the streets and begin to protests those things.
“You also know of another state Zamfara, where we won the governorship, Senate, House of Representatives, Supreme Court said our primaries were not perfect, therefore those who were not in the ballot box were declared. So, we lived with that pain.
“If it is about mobilizing people to attack, we would have mobilized out to the Supreme Court, but that will not be a responsible behaviour in a democracy.
“So, we lived with the pain because we understand that we operate under the principle of separation of powers.
“So, please don’t accept those half-truths that PDP is parading. I think this is important.
“When I saw Secondus (PDP National Chairman) leading that protest, I was tempted to tell him who is the real protestants, how did Wike, Emmanuel Udom and Dickson become governors? Supreme Court under the previous leadership, choose to completely dismiss the use of card reader.
“That is what has brought a lot of mischiefs now into our electoral system. Because, whereas the law recognizes the power of INEC to make bylaws and those bylaws are enforceable in court and there are judicial pronouncements holding those bylaws, when they wanted to allow these PDP states to be returned, their elections having been nullified by elections petition tribunal, nullified by the court of appeal on the basis that they did not comply with INEC guidelines, as regards to using card reader, the Supreme Court looking for escape route for PDP, decided that the use of card reader, yes though in the INEC guidelines, is not in the law. Can everything possibly be in the law?
“The same court recognized the fact the power of INEC to make rules and regulations for smooth conduct of elections.
“We have stomached all of these because as they say two wrongs don’t make a right. If we choose to question on the streets of Nigeria, all of the impunity we have seen that have affected APC negatively coming from our courts, there will be no peace anywhere.
“But we have said that somebody must bear the price of peace, that is why we choose to keep quiet. It doesn’t mean PDP has any valid case.
“Ask Emeka Iheidioha how many local government areas did he score 1/4 votes. These are not classified matters.”
Also speaking, Governor Uzodinma said he was not worried that the Supreme Court may review and reverse its decision on the Imo election as being pleaded by Ihedioha.
He said the ousted governor’s application to the apex court would not succeed because the statutory time for considering election matters has lapsed.
Asked to respond to assertions that the court’s computation of his votes has caused the total tally to exceed the number of accredited voters for the Imo gubernatorial poll, Uzodinma stated: “Well, I am not concerned. The reason being that going back to the Supreme Court is based on falsehood. Because the number of accredited voters outside the excluded votes is what we are talking about.
“But if you are going to court, you must go to court to discuss or talk about the number of accredited voters including the excluded polling units.
“If you compute the number of accredited voters inclusive of the accredited voters, the figures are correct.
“We went to court with the issue of exclusion, we didn’t go to court with the business of election malpractices, violence and all of that. So, it is a peculiar case.
“My case can be likened to that of Jim Nwobodo and Onoh, and Omoboriowo and Ajasin.
“The position of the Supreme Court is that where an election has been announced in a polling unit, INEC is bound to collect the result and enter the result into the form EC8B.
“We went there with two documents, the form EC8A that was excluded and Form EC8B where result was supposed to have been entered, and they saw clearly that it was left blank.
“So, let INEC tell us what happened. Because, if going back to Supreme Court and of course like you know I am a lawmaker, I participated in the election of the amendment the Electoral Act, election petitions are timed.
“As far as I am concerned, the 60 days left for Supreme Court to look into that matter has already expired.
“So, going back to the Supreme Court, I don’t know what that…I am not a lawyer anyway but with my little knowledge of lawmaking, I understand what is in the Electoral Act.
“So, the Supreme Court is not a market square that anytime you want you to begin to go there.”
