Chime’s Amazing Victory

Governor Sullivan Chime of Enugu State

Against all permutations, the Appeal Court sitting in Enugu sets aside the nullification of Governor Sullivan Chime’s election, thus bringing to an end the bitter battle to oust him from office
By Anene Ugoani, Enugu
he success of the appeal of the Enugu State Governor, Sullivan Chime, at the Court of Appeal Election Panel, was least expected by many. In fact, the expectation in the governor’s camp and the opposition enclave was that the Justice Olufunmilayo Adekeye-led panel would avoid the extremes and adopt a middle-way-approach by upholding the nullification of Chime’s election by the Election Petitions Tribunal and thus order a re-run of the gubernatorial election in the state.
Chime and his challengers as well as their supporters had this mindset by every indication. The clamour for fresh election was even more vociferous in the governor’s camp as many of his supporters openly said they preferred a repeat election to a court victory in order to establish his popularity and call the bluff of the immediate past governor of the state, Dr. Chimaroke Nnamani, once and for all. And to demonstrate they were rooting for a re-run election, they began a subtle campaign by airing jingles on the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN), Enugu national station, advocating a re-run of the gubernatorial contest.
The governor himself, cleverly joined in the covert political campaign as the state became awash with his posters and giant-sized billboards. He also undertook a state-wide electioneering under the guise of commissioning projects. In fact, the governor could be said to have rounded off his political campaigns before the Court of Appeal delivered its Judgment on Friday, July 11, 2008.
But it was not only the governor’s camp that engaged in the quiet political campaigns ahead of the anticipated repeat governorship election. The gubernatorial candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Okechukwu Ezea, a wealthy lawyer, equally did as his political jingles were also aired on the FRCN. Added to that, he summoned a couple of “emergency meetings” of the Enugu State chapter of the Labour Party. There were, in addition, unconfirmed reports that Nnamani, leader of the Ebeano faction of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the state and arrowhead of the opposition against Governor Chime, had acquired a large number of campaign vehicles, preparatory for the anticipated fresh polls.
Thus, journalists based in Enugu State began to warm up for the coverage of the expected electioneering and repeat election. They had envisaged a situation in which the nullification of Chime’s election would be confirmed by the judges at the Court of Appeal, a repeat election ordered, Chime departing the Government House to fight the election, and the speaker of the State House of Assembly, Eugene Odo, sworn-in as acting governor– like it happened in Kogi, Bayelsa, Adamawa and Cross River States.
Convinced that Odo was the governor-in- waiting, some of the journalists went to the young man’s office a day before the Court of Appeal delivered its judgment, to find out how he was preparing for his inauguration into office as interim governor. The man, however, declined to grant their requests for an interview.
In Enugu, as in many other parts of Nigeria, rumour-mongering is a major industry. All sorts of rumours had accordingly been woven when the Court of Appeal failed to deliver its judgment on Tuesday, July 8, 2008 after sending out judgment notices to the parties involved in the case. The rumour mill had it that the court shifted the delivery of its judgment at the instance of Chime. And that Chime got to know that the judges were about to uphold the nullification of his election and disqualify him as the candidate of the PDP in a fresh election that would be ordered by the court.
Due to the discovery of the intention of the judges to finish him, politically, according to the speculations, Chime had prevailed on the court to defer its verdict in the case till July 11, to enable him “run around and see what he could do”.
There were many who took the rumours that circulated in the state, before the court handed down its judgment in Chime’s appeal, serious. But there were other residents that took them with a pinch of salt. As a result, the opposition candidates and their supporters who were at the Court of Appeal to hear the judgment, went there with mixed feelings and apprehension.
At the end of the judgment, which took the five judges over three hours to read, the opposition camp was dumfounded and crest-fallen. The governorship candidate of the Democratic People’s Party, DPP, Reverend Oscar Egwuonwu, kept a straight face as he left the court premises, unaccompanied by any of his supporters. He declined press interviews. Even the lawyers of the opposition candidates were dispirited and refused to react to the judgment. They simply shook their heads in dismay.
While the opposition camp licked its wounds, wild jubilation erupted in Chime’s camp, from inside and outside the court premises. Commissioners in the Chime administration, local government chairmen, chieftains of the PDP, the Secretary to the Enugu State Government (SSG), Martin Ilo, the former governor of old Anambra State, C.C Onoh, as well as the state chairman of Chime’s faction of the PDP, Vita Abba, were generous in granting interviews to journalists.
In the lead judgment, delivered by Adekeye, the judges said the three opposition candidates– Ezea, Egwuonwu and Onyia– who alleged in their petitions at the lower court that there was no election on April 14 and April 28, 2007 in Enugu State, lacked substantial evidence to prove their claim.
The first case that was taken was the appeal against Ezea’s petition. The court held that the burden of proof was on Ezea and should therefore not be shifted to the respondent (Chime). It described the newspaper clipping tendered by Ezea as additional evidence that there was no election, as mere hearsay. In a newspaper story, chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Maurice Iwu, had told reporters that there was no election in Enugu State.
As far as the judges were concerned, the INEC boss was not physically present in Enugu State on the day the elections were conducted, and consequently commented on the election based on what his aides told him, insisting that “hearsay is not admissible in evidence”. They dismissed Ezea’s petition and ordered him to pay N50,000 cost to Chime.
In the case of Egwuonwu, the court noted that he tried to use 17 witnesses to prove there was no election in a state that has 2,874 polling booths. For there to be proof, according to the court, the petitioner must produce a voter from every polling booth to testify that there was no election where he went to vote.
Justice Abdukadir Jega, who read the court’s judgment on the petition field by Egwuonwu at the tribunal, castigated the Samuel Otta-led tribunal for shifting the onus on Chime to prove that he won the election. He stated that the tribunal should not have relied wholly on the Practice Direction Act, because “Practice Direction was not meant to overrule the laws of the land and the 1999 constitution”.
The tribunal, he went on, had no right not to accept documents which Chime’s counsel wanted to tender, since they were pleaded. The Court of Appeal thus dismissed Egwuonwu’s petition and ordered him to pay N50,000 cost to Chime.
In the case of Onyia, Justice Baga, another member of the panel, said the judges at the lower tribunal were wrong to have shifted the burden on Chime to prove that he won the election. The judge maintained that the four witnesses produced by Onyia were not enough to prove that the there was no election in the disputed areas. And on Onyia’s allegation that Chime was not qualified to run for the election, the court dismissed it as a pre-election issue which it had no jurisdiction over. The judges, therefore, unanimously ruled that the judgment of the Otta tribunal, that nullified Chime’s elections, be set aside while the governor and his deputy, Sunday Onyebuchi, remained duly elected on the platform of the PDP.
For Onyia to succeed in his allegation that Onyebuchi was unlawfully substituted as a running mate to Chime, in place of Sam Ejiofor, the Court of Appeal said the petitioner needed to prove that the No. 2 citizen in the state is not a Nigerian, is below 35 years and did not possess a minimum of the West African School Certificate (WASC) at the time of the election.
The court equally dismissed Onyia’s allegation that there was violence at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) premises in Enugu in the morning of the purported election, saying he did not prove beyond reasonable doubt that there was violence there and, in addition, did not say how whatever happened at the CBN premises affected the outcome of the election and his electoral chances.
The Court of Appeal also threw out the appeal of Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, the gubernatorial candidate of the All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP) in Ebonyi State, against the election of the sitting governor, Martin Elechi, saying the appellant lacked substantial evidence to prove his allegation.
In his reaction to the court’s judgment in the appeal filed by Chime, Onoh, who arrived the court premises at the end of proceedings, told reporters that he was the happiest man because of the success of Chime’s appeal.
“Gentlemen, this is a judgment not in favour of Sullivan Iheanacho Chime, it is a judgment in favour of Enugu State and Nigeria in general. I am one of the proudest men today. I know for certain that if the judgment has been against Sullivan Chime, we will return him with 90 per cent vote”, Onoh boasted.
And speaking with reporters, shortly after the judgment was given, Ilo said that the victory of the governor had proved that the judiciary had again risen to sustain Nigeria’s democracy. The SSG disclosed that while the nullification of the election lasted, Chime was not in any way disturbed as he had carried on with his duties.
Reacting to the judgment when he spoke to a mammoth crowd that gathered at the Governor’s Lodge to congratulate him, Chime declared that his confirmation as the governor of Enugu State would spur him to deliver more services to the people of the State. He expressed the hope that the judgment would bring to an end negative publications and the activities of rumour peddlers, urging the people of the state to remain law-abiding.