Does Iwu want APGA dead?

The retention of the head of a government agency like the electoral commission that failed spectacularly to perform its basic constitutional mandate independently shows that Nigeria has institutionalized inefficiency and ethical compromise as a national ethos. The continuous retention of Maurice Iwu shows that those who benefited from the perfidy that took place in 2007 […]

The retention of the head of a government agency like the electoral commission that failed spectacularly to perform its basic constitutional mandate independently shows that Nigeria has institutionalized inefficiency and ethical compromise as a national ethos.

The continuous retention of Maurice Iwu shows that those who benefited from the perfidy that took place in 2007 in the name of a general election are working so very hard to undermine democracy. In his scholarly work; “Democracy and Civil Society in Nigeria,” Reverend Father Mathew Hassan Kukah had reasoned that the practice of rewarding electoral officers who failed in their constitutional duty of conducting free, transparent and fair election is the surest way of undermining the advancement of democracy in Nigeria.

His words: “One of the greatest problems undermining state failure in Africa is the nature and perception of the state itself. What is it, how do people experience it, how do they relate to it, how do they gain access to it and how do they feel excluded from it? Is there anything in the design of the state that makes this access possible or impossible? Is the architectural design of the state amenable to some form of superstructural rearrangement, or does the structure have to be pulled down completely before a genuine project of democracy can get under way? If so, at what cost?”

President Yar’adua has not only paid lip service to the solemn pledge he made to reform the electoral process but has not thought it wise to commence the process of sacking the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission.

Questions have being asked whether the president is happy that the current leadership in the nation’s electoral commission has not only scuttled the dreams of several credible contestants at the last election by the systematic persecution of opposition political parties by the Maurice Iwu-led Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) but has shown dexterity in undermining future free and fair electoral process.

One opposition political party that the current chairman of the electoral commission appeared to have taken delight in seeking actively to destroy is the All Progressive Grand Alliance, APGA.

It must be admitted from the onset that the intra-party implosion started in the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) long before the current chairman of the electoral panel came on board. But allegations and verifiable evidence are rife that Maurice Iwu led INEC allegedly stoked the fire of intense conflict of leadership when he discovered that the opposition All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) would pose a great threat to the vested interests of its pay masters in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) especially in the South-East. The role of the Maurice Iwu-led INEC in the unconstitutional cancellation of an already completed state governorship election in Imo State in 2007 which was won by the All Progressives Grand Alliance candidate and his manipulation of the political process in Anambra since 2007, are clear manifestations that there is a hidden agenda to destroy the All Progressives Grand (APGA).

In my book “Politics and Litigation in Contemporary Nigeria” I gave a summary of how the crisis in the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) started thus:

“Before the end of 2004, six members of the national executive committee of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) led by the National Treasurer Chief Victor Umeh announced the suspension of the party’s National Chairman; Chief Chekwas Okorie”. These national officers of the party accused the then national chairman of alleged fraudulent misapplication of party funds. Okorie stridently denied these allegations and several cases on the leadership crisis in APGA have been instituted by both the Okorie and Umeh-led factions.

Iwu and the commission that he heads have swung and oscillated like a pendulum endorsing one faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) or the other in a well coordinated bid to destroy it. Of late, Maurice Iwu told the federal House of Representatives sub-committee on electoral reform that the bonafide chairman of APGA is Chief Chekwas Okorie. Prior to that he had recognized Chief Victor Umeh as the chairman and even released the statutory allocation of N6 Million to Chief Victor Umeh on behalf of APGA.

It is shocking that the same Maurice Iwu has now recognized Chief Chekwas Okorie in clear breach of a substantive judgment of an Abuja High Court which recognized Victor Umeh as the national Chairman of APGA even when he had indeed denied that he recognized Chief Chekwas Okorie as chairman of APGA in a counter affidavit he deposed to before an Abuja High Court in a contempt proceeding initiated by the Court- recognized national chairman of APGA chief Victor Umeh.

Iwu had deposed in the affidavit thus; “The first respondent (Maurice Iwu) has never maintained or insisted that Chief Chekwas Okorie remains the chairman of APGA”.

Justice Husseini Baba Yusuf of the Abuja High Court gave the verdict validating the 2004 removal of Chekwas Okorie as chairman and recognized Victor Umeh as national.

Again, following persistent and the consistent inconsistency of Maurice Iwu on who is the authentic national chairman of APGA, the Victor Umeh’s court- recognized leadership successfully secured a federal High Court’s Abuja interim injunction halting a planned national convention by the Maurice Iwu-recognized faction headed by Chekwas Okorie which was scheduled for September 3rd 2009.  

Nigeria needs a new leadership in the independent national electoral commission that would be made up of credible Nigerians who are truly independent with no vested interests, unlike the types that have now destroyed opposition political parties in Nigeria.

For now, the leadership of INEC which is heavily compromised must respect judgments of the courts of competent jurisdiction regarding the Intra-party crisis in the All Progressives Grand Alliance.

Onwubiko heads the Human Rights Writers’ Association of Nigeria.