(This
is the continuation of our Public Information of 20th October, 2013, titled :Intersociety Fights For Igbo Cause & Good
Governance In Nigeria: APC’s Attacks Against Our Leadership Another War Against
Igbo Gods & A Boarding Pass Off Anambra 2013. Ngige,
Peter Obi, Poll Rigging, Emeka Umeagbalasi & Intersociety)
In 2002, a coalition of
human rights activists in Anambra State were brought together and they joined
forces with the “Mother Church” to form a strong coalition to fight election rigging and
disastrous governance in Anambra State then under Dr. Chinwoke Mbadinuju’s
inglorious epoch. The “Mother Church” was represented by the JDPC and prominent among
the congregated rights groups was the Anambra State Branch of the Civil
Liberties Organization under Comrade Emeka Umeagbalasi.
In the April 2003
governorship poll, the Coalition, with the help of the “Mother Church’s” JDPC,
deployed over 4000 monitoring agents in all the polling booths in the State.
Except in two wards in Anambra West LGA, where the poll did not take place, all
other results were obtained, studied and analyzed at the JDPC secretariat in
Onitsha and they clearly showed that Mr. Peter Obi of the All Progressives
Grand Alliance won the poll with a wide margin. But to the shocking of
everybody, Dr. Chris Nwabueze Ngige was returned by INEC and later administered
with the oaths of office and allegiance. Peter Obi and his party, too, through
their agents, collected results, which tallied with ours.
Dozens of ballot boxes
filled with cast votes were later found floating on rivers in Omambala or
river-line and forest areas of the State including Igbo-ukwu in Aguata LGA.
Dozens of the election result forms called “Form EC8As” were also found torn to shreds by Dr. Chris
Ngige and his godfathers-led poll agents. Dr. Chris Ngige’s inaugural speech
contained some paragraphs dedicated to one Chris Ubah for making him the
governor. The speech was also interrupted for minutes in the form of “Ahu Nze,
Ebie Okwu” (when a titled man enters the scene, all protocols are suspended in
his honor), when the quantity arrived the inauguration ground midway into Dr.
Chris Ngige’s inaugural speech, in recognition of his then mastery in poll
rigging and coronation of plum public holders, in return for huge financial
gains.
After the armada of
electoral fraud, the Coalition, including “the Mother Church”, represented by the JDPC resolved to go court or
support the presumed winner should he decides to go to court to challenge the heart-breaking
rigging. Other public interest groups and public figures like the local branch
of Ohaneze Ndigbo supported the Coalition and joined forces with them. In September, 2003,
the first hearing of the poll rigging case commenced at the Anambra State
Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, sitting at Awka. The five panel
tribunal was headed by Hon. Justice Garuba Nabaruma.
Few months after the
commencement of the matter, interests and pressures crept into the Coalition. The JDPC of “theMother Church”, which earlier vowed to appear before any
tribunal or court to give evidence, chickened out, citing pressures from “home
front”. Few months later, Dr. Chris Ngige became a knight of the Catholic
Church and before members of the Coalition could close their eyes and open, 80% of its Coalition partners have thrown in their towel; saying
“election rigging has come to stay in Nigeria and you can’t fight, but accept
it”. By 2005 August, when the first unanimous verdict was delivered in favour
of Peter Obi and Anambra voters, the Coalition camp has emptied,
leaving behind few die-hard activists led by Comrade Emeka Umeagbalasi and his
Anambra CLO.
In 2004, the Ngige camp,
represented by one Emeka Ngige, SAN, wrote the national leadership of the CLO,
asking it to disband the Anambra CLO’s leadership, so that his camp can easily
clamp on its leader, Comrade Emeka Umeagbalasi and send him to jail on
“sedition charges” or any other spurious criminal charges. An administrative
secretary attached to the Enugu zonal office was procured to hand in spurious
indictable report to facilitate the Anambra Branch’s “disbandment”. When the
national leadership of the CLO stood its ground and rejected the spurious memo
of the said admin staff, the Ngige camp opted for libel litigation, whereupon
he sued in his personal capacity.
On March 15, 2006, the
Enugu Division of the Court of Appeal, headed by Hon. Justice Danladi Mohammed,
with Hon. Justice James Ogebe, as the administrative judge, returned
unanimously, Peter Obi’s sacred mandate and ordered Dr. Chris Ngige, who was
the then interloper governor out of office. During the 27 months (May 2003 to
August 2005) proceedings at the tribunal, Dr. Chris Ngige’s camp called 525
witnesses as against Peter Obi’s 45. The Anambra CLO wrote over 72 petitions
and press releases in the course of the electoral mandate recovery advocacy and
faced several threats of elimination from Dr. Chris Ngige’s camp.
Anambra
Rights Community’s Pact With Peter Obi:
Contrary to false
impressions that seem to have become a norm in Nigerian culture,
non-governmental organizations are not invented to serve as enemies of
governments, particularly popular governments. From 1839, when the world first
recorded NGO, called “Anti Slavery International” was founded, to the post
second world war global NGO revolution, NGO serves to make people’s lives and
cultures better and refined by consistent advocacies and constructive and
proactive engagements with popular governments in matters of good governance
and people’s liberties.
Amnesty
International and Human Rights Watch policies of “dealing with any government
in power” in matters of human rights, for instance, have been seminally
challenged by many modern thinkers; on the grounds that “human rights and human
rights defenders fare better under popularly instituted governments” than under
those instituted roguishly.
Flowing from the
foregoing, therefore, our pact with the present popular government in Anambra
State, which we labored to restore its stolen mandate over seven years ago, is
not for clannish political and monetary gains like it is seemingly the case in
Lagos and other APC States. It is purely for proactive and constructive
engagements or reasons. In June 2006, the then Anambra CLO leadership under
Comrade Emeka Umeagbalasi held a meeting with Governor Peter Obi at the Onitsha
GRA Government Annex. The likes of unforgettable Barrister Chuka, obele-chuka
and other activists also attended. They told Governor Peter Obi in black and
white that none of them, despite being qualified academically to occupy any
public office including the AG of the State, was willing to serve in his
government, but to remain in the opposition to checkmate his excesses and point
out areas that need to be attended to, in the interest of the public. They also
told him boldly and begged him too, not to fail in governance so as not to make
voters disenchanted and lost faith in popular poll and government. They charged
him to ensure that at the end he leaves Anambra far more than he met it. This hallowed pact has continued till date.
Generally, NGOs’
interest in any popular government is divided into “egalitarian partisanship”
and “libertarian partisanship”. But in roguishly instituted governments, any NGO
support or partnership with such regimes is solely “libertarian partisanship”
oriented. Like in the universal concept of human rights, where that of USA is
referred to as “libertarian” ( rights layered in selfishness or rights for only
American citizens and death for others) as against Europe’s “egalitarian
rights” or rights for Europeans and non-Europeans alike; our “partisanship”
interest in the Government of Anambra State is purely “egalitarian” or public
interest for public good as against parochial interest for private pockets
(libertarian partisanship), which seems to be the order of the day in Lagos and
other APC States.
Our popular website (www.intersociety-ng.org) contains series of attacks against some
policies considered anti people and unpopular formulated and implemented by the
present popularly elected Government of Anambra State. This includes malicious
demolition of suspected criminal properties outside court pronouncements,
imposition of death penalty on suspected kidnappers, smokescreen security
policy of “arming kidnappers, assassins and armed robbers of tomorrow”, using monstrous vigilantism,
creation and maintenance of militant entities for collection of revenues, to
mention but a few. Our popular website is a guide.
It is correct to say
that nine-nine percent of followers and other people who left Mr. Peter Obi
today, left because of his insistence that public money is not meant for
private pockets, but for public good. This, they tagged “misery” or
“frugality”. One of the secret campaign weapon reportedly employed by the
opposition parties and their candidates for the November 16, 2013 governorship
poll, who may include the APC and its candidate, is a promise to key public figures
that such frugality culture will be a thing of the past if put into office. In
the past civilian regimes in Anambra State, from 2003 to 2006; be they illegal
or disastrous, senators and house of reps members from the State were paid
N500, 000 and 250,000 each respectively, at every month end from the State’s
meager allocations; using highly inflated security votes. The State Assembly
members then routinely fight over “jumbo pay packages”.
A certain former number
two man received N10million, likewise other political god fathers. Monies meant
for the execution of federal projects in the State, now get into the hands of
contractors directly, unlike in the inglorious past when over half of them were
shared by federal politicians and their cronies, warranting constructing roads
using shovels and head pans. The difference in the quality and pace of work at
the ongoing reconstruction of the Onitsha-Enugu Dual Carriage Way as in Anambra
and Enugu portions is a clear case in point.
Today, neither Emeka
Umeagbalasi, nor Justice Ijeoma, Aloysius Emeka Attah and other key figures in
Anambra Rights Community, has any empty plot or developed plot in Onitsha or
any part thereof. While Comrade Aloysius Attah does professional journalism to
keep family going, Emeka Umeagbalasi, though measured in Criminology &
Security Studies, remains a buyer and seller at the Bridgehead Market in
Onitsha and still resides where he parked in 20 years ago. Comrade Justus
Ijeoma sustains his law program in the university and his family with petty
contract business including managing the restroom of the Tools & Allied
Market in Onitsha on contract basis.
Therefore, the reported
creation of a CSOs’ liaison office by a certain State Government that
distributes N100million or there about to them monthly with instant increases
in crises times, should not be used to
judge situations in other Nigeria’s boundary climes. This is because the two
approaches are different and are rested on the premise of “libertarian
partisanship” versus “egalitarian partisanship”.
The Part Three of this Moment of Truth is in the making. Watch Out!!!
Signed:
Emeka Umeagbalasi, Chairman of the Board
International Society for Civil Liberties &
the Rule of Law
08033601078, 08180103912
Comrade Justus Ijeoma, Head, Publicity Desk
08037114869
juijeoma@yahoo.com
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please restrict your comment to the subject matter.