Soludo’s Cross

Chareles Soludo

Former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor and candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Professor Charles Chukwuma Soludo seems to be in a fix as pressure mounts on him to discard his earlier decision not to challenge the result of the last Anambra state gubernatorial election
By Okechukwu Obenta, Awka
erhaps, former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Professor Charles Chukwuma Soludo has been passing through excruciating moments since after the February 6, 2010 Anambra state gubernatorial election which he contested under the platform of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). He was one of the 24 contestants in election that lost to the incumbent state governor, Peter Obi, candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA).
Shortly after the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Josiah Uwazuruonye released the results of the election and declared the APGA candidate the winner, Soludo had met with members of his campaign organisation at Barnhill Resort, Awka, the state capital, where upon they appraised the conduct of the election.
Though he pointed out certain flaws, such as late commencement of voting and inability of some eligible voters to cast their votes because their names could not be found in the voters register, Soludo, however, made up his mind to abide by the INEC decision on the matter. Consequently, he proceeded to congratulate the winner, Governor Obi and pledged support to the administration so as to move his state forward.
Soludo: “This experience has among other things revealed to me how desperately Nigeria needs electoral reforms. A situation where INEC determines whether and where voters can exercise their rights to vote, as in the case of Anambra, cannot augur well for our nascent democracy. Together, we can fix this problem. Finally, let me use this opportunity to congratulate my friend, Peter Obi, inspite of the grave flaws, INEC has declared you the winner of the election. The fight is not about us, but about the future of Anambra state; you will have my support.”
But signals emerged very strongly last week that the ex-CBN boss might be heading to the election petition tribunal, contrary to his earlier declaration. And the decision has already started causing ripples within the party hierarchy both at the national and state levels. The development has, in fact, widened the gulf already existing within the party in the state.
As it is now, while the Minister for Information and Communication, Professor Dora Akunyili is leading the camp within the party that is opposed to any plan by Soludo to challenge the result, former Vice President, Alex Ekwueme is perceived as the arrow-head of the camp prodding Soludo to head to the tribunal. The Source’s observation of the power play, which came to the fore last week, however revealed that members of the party who share Akunyili’s view were in the majority when compared with those on the former Vice President’s side. This much was deduced from the attendance members in the two separate meetings of stakeholders convened by the two arrow-heads.
While Akunyili’s meeting was held at Emmaus House in Awka, the state capital on Saturday, February 27, with so many known founding members of the party, particularly former chairmen and members of the state executive committee, local government and ward executives, as well as some past and serving members of both the National and State Assemblies, a similar event convened by Ekwueme the next day at his Oko country- home did not attract such huge attendance.
Among the former past state chairmen of the party present at the Information and Communication Minister’s stakeholders meeting, but who were absent at the one convened by the elderstateman included Chief Frank Oramulu, Chief Dan Ulasi, Edwin Kpandola Okwuosa andTony Nwoye.
Dr. Fred Odua, Chief Roma Mocha and Prince Kenneth Emeakayi were among past members of the state exco of the party who attended the two separate meetings.
Akunyili underscored the reason why her camp was opposed to any plan by the party’s candidate to go to the election petition tribunal, saying that since the governorship candidate had publicly congratulated the winner, it was morally wrong for him to thereafter go to the tribunal to challenge the result.
She insisted that even if a gun was being pointed at her, “I will tell you the truth: you cannot congratulate a winner today and go to court tomorrow. If you do that, you will lose public sympathy. And when you talk of public sympathy, even the judges are human beings.”
In fact, Akunyili only escaped death by the whiskers largely due to the dexterity of her security aides and that of the police anti-crime squad deployed to the venue and under the command of one Ogbonwu Taiwo, a Superintendent of Police(SP) who made sure that the thugs that stormed the venue of the meeting and attempted to lynch her could not have their way.
Immediately she emerged from the meeting and made for her car, several thugs attempted to swoop on her. While some hauled missiles at her, throwing pure water satchets at her, others simply booed. The policemen had earlier arrested about four of the thugs and whisked them away in their patrol van. The Source learnt that some of the suspects were found concealing guns on their bodies. A female member of the party, Ifeoma Egwudo, said at the meeting that one of the thugs pointed a gun at her at the premises to scare her away from entering the hall, but that she rebuffed him.
The thugs, The Source learnt, were largely pro-Soludo supporters who purposely stormed venue of the meeting carrying placards in solidarity with him.
As far Akunyili was concerned, the PDP has lost the gubernatorial election, and rather than continue to cry over spilt milk, party elders should direct their attention, energies and resources towards reconciling all aggrieved members of the party, including those who left for other parties and even contested election in those parties as a result of the injustice meted out to them. She called for total reconciliation among the party members and warned that unless it was achieved, the party would continue to lose in future elections in the state. In fact, Akunyili predicted that unless her advice was heeded, there would be no PDP in the state in six months time.
Though virtually all the members of the two camps share the same opinion, that most of the party members worked against it in the governorship election and so there was need for reconciliation, the Ekwueme camp, otherwise known as members of Soludo campaign organisation, strongly believe that the Akunyili camp is largely populated by anti-Soludo elements. They appeared convinced that they worked against the PDP candidate in favour of the APGA candidate. They as a matter of fact voiced the sentiment that despite Governor Obi’s massive achievements over the past four years, if they had aggregated the numerical strength of the PDP in the state, which is in the majority when compared with that of the other parties, including APGA and sincerely brought it to bear during the campaigns and the election proper, the party’s candidate would have coasted to victory. Thus, the pro-Soludo camp even suspects that Akunyili worked for the APGA in the election. They were also convinced that the Acting President, Goodluck Jonathan worked against Soludo on account of his (Soludo’s) rumoured ambition to seek the Vice Presidential ticket of the party in the 2011 election. The belief among members of the camp is that because Jonathan would still want to retain the vice presidential slot of the PDP in the 2011 election, in the hope that in 2015 when the presidential ticket would move down to the South, he would be in a better position to clinch it, so he did not want Soludo to have any opportunity that would place him at any advantage to compete with him.
These insinuations from the pro-Soludo camp, notwithstanding,not a few political observers have rated the election as the freest, fairest and most credible exercise ever conducted by the nation’s electoral umpire, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) since the inception of the current democratic dispensation. And this, despite the few pitfalls experienced. This was the view of virtually all the international and local observers who monitored the election, including human rights groups and independent election observers.
In fact, except the candidate of the Action Congress (AC), Dr. Chris Nwabueze Ngige, all the other 23 contestants in the election easily conceded defeat and declared their readiness to support the INEC – declared winner, Governor Obi, citing the need to move the state forward.
Some of them, including Dr. Andy Uba of the Labour Party (LP) and Chief Ralphs Nwosu, candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), even paid courtesy visits to the governor at the Governor’s Lodge, to congratulate him over the victory and pledged their support to his government.Uche Ekwunife, candidate of the Progressive Peoples Alliance(PPA), one of the six front-runners, had even gone back to her legislative duties at the House of Representatives where she is occupying the seat for the Anaocha, Dunukofia and Njikoka federal constituency.
Even Ngige who is believe to be very vehement on heading to the election petition tribunal to seek a run-off as at Wednesday, March 3, less than a week to March 9 when the mandatory 30 days allowed under the constitution and Electoral Law from the date the result was declared for any person who desires to initiate such action, is not known to have made good his threat. The only petition known to have been filed in the tribunal against Obi’s declaration was the one brought by the Hope Democratic Party (HDP) running-mate, Mike Okoye. But the action had already pitched him against his principal, Prince Nicholas Ukachukwu who has distanced himself from the petition. Ukachukwu, in a disclaimer published in The Sun newspapers had described those behind the action as disgruntled people who want to cause confusion and destabilise the state.
Those who indicated two weeks ago intention to challenge the Obi’s declaration are basically laying claim to several issues: that he did not met the statutory required spread; that he did not score one-quarter of the total votes cast in two-thirds of the 21 local government areas of the state. But experts in statistics have done the calculation and come up with the result that contrary to the claims of Obi’s challengers, he, indeed, scored one-quarter of the total valid votes cast in 15 local government areas – which was even more that the required two-thirds.
But Obi’s opponents, especially Ngige and his supporters would insist that “total votes cast” in the eyes of the law includes both “Valid and invalid votes.” According to the result, Soludo polled 59,355 votes and scored one-quarter of the valid votes cast in seven local governments to come second and Ngige third, with 60,240 votes, securing one-quarter of the valid votes in about four local governments. In his own case, Obi polled over 97,000 votes and scored one-quarter of the valid votes cast in 15 out of the21 local governments in the state to emerge winner.
Interestingly, the ex-CBN Governor was among the contestants who first congratulated Obi and pledged to support him in the task of moving the state forward. While declaring Obi winner, the REC had emphasised that he scored majority of the valid votes cast in the election and that he met the required spread, as stipulated in both the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 and the Electoral Law, 2006.
Now, having congratulated Obi and pledged support for his government, many political watchers are surprised at the turn-around plans by the former CBN boss to head to the election petition tribunal to subject the results to judicial scrutiny. Such action, according to some observers, if taken, would certainly lower the integrity of the ex-CBN boss and portray him as someone who is desperate and unprincipled in the eyes of the public.
Those who expressed this view particularly pointed to the huge acclamation by both the international and local election monitors that the exercise was generally devoid of such electoral vices like ballot-box snatching, thuggery, intimidation of both INEC staff and voters, outright writing of results in private rooms and hotels, influence of god-fatherism, among others which were the trademarks of past elections so far conducted under the current democratic era,
Meanwhile, some observers including members of the PDP who criticised plans by Soludo to head to the tribunal with the election result said that one of the worrisome aspects of the development was the involvement of the former vice president in the whole thing.
For instance, former member of the state Assembly under the PDP platform, but who later decamped and contested the guber election under another party, Chief George Okoye, described any action to challenge the guber result as a wild goose chase. He said that such petition was sure to die in good time in the tribunal because it would lack any merit that would warrant the Judges waste their time on it.
Also, a member of the party in the state was of the view that the party stands to benefit nothing from such legal action, and like many people in the state rather sees the action as targeted at causing unnecessary distraction to the government.
That the elderstatesman has hand in the pressure being mounted on Soludo to head to the tribunal came to the fore last week when he(Ekwueme) hosted some stakeholders of the party in his Oko country home in Orumba-North Local Government Area of the state.
While addressing the PDP members, Ekwueme had insisted that the gubernatorial election could not be regarded as “credible in any part of the world”. He said that he could not cast vote during the exercise because he could not find his name in the voters’ register, and that even his younger brother who is incidentally the traditional ruler of the town, Professor Laz Ekwueme, could not vote for the same reason of not being able to find his name in the voters’ register.
Ekwueme described the conduct of the gubernatorial election as “high-tech-computerised administrative rigging”, a phrase first coined by the PDP candidate in the election in describing the election. But when asked by journalists later in an interview whether he would encourage the party and its governorship candidate to head to the tribunal to challenge the result, the elderstatesman, who incidentally was the pioneer Chairman of the PDP Board of Trustees, refused to be categorical. He rather insisted that the national leadership of the party in its “wisdom” would give advice for the necessary step to take.
Though he would not want to own up that plans by Soludo to challenge the governorship result enjoy his blessing, Ekwueme’s speech at the occasion which was largely in Igbo, however sold him out.
Ekwueme: “I decided to convene this meeting so that we can appraise what transpired in the just – concluded governorship election to reassure ourselves that we still have hope. We know that we are in the majority in Anambra state and that if the election had been free, fair and credible, our candidate, Professor Charles Soludo and Emma Anosike ticket would have given us victory. When I was interviewed in Dubai where I went to take a rest after the gubernatorial election by some international media, I said two things: one, that before anybody is deemed to have been duly elected Governor, he or she ought to have fulfilled two requirements: he or she shall score majority of votes cast in the election; secondly he or she should have the minimum spread of one-quarter of votes cast in two-thirds of the local governments within the state. Secondly, in the election only 16 per cent of registered voters were allowed to cast their votes in the election. Therefore, the exercise cannot by any stretch of imagination be regarded as a credible election in any part of the world, not only in Anambra state”.
Also, when approached to confirm whether he has decided to challenge the outcome of the election in the tribunal, Soludo only told newsmen that his stand would be made public in a week’s time. “My response is very clear, I think in the next couple of days, I think in a week’s time, that will be the 30 days within which people are allowed if anybody had any point to make. We had said at the very beginning that we are studying all the reports that are coming, we are evaluating them. I think we must come to one conclusion or the other before the expiration time,” Soludo said.
In his reaction to Ekwueme’s criticism of the election as not credible, Senior Special Assistant to Governor Obi on Communications, Ifeanyi Ubabukoh expressed surprise that the former vice president who lost his voice when Anambra state was burnt in 2004; when a candidate was declared winner ln 2007, even without voting conducted anywhere in the state; when terrible things happened in the state such as the unconstitutional impeachment of Governor Peter Obi, the menace of godfatherism, and all the abracadabra former President Olusegun Obasanjo did in the state, will now find his voice against an election which has been acclaimed by every democratic institution both locally and internationally as the most credible exercise ever conducted since the current democratic era and want the INEC to sustain and improve on it for the coming 2011 general elections.