Elections: What’s Happening In Abia?

Taiwo Adisa, Abuja

OrjiThe ruling of the Abia State National Assembly/Governorship & Legislative Houses Election Petition Tribunal on Monday brings to the climax the rivalry between the Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA), a child of circumstance on the political turf, and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Abia State.

PPA came into existence in the build-up to the 2007 election following the pushing and shoving within the PDP as far as the former governor of the state, Chief Orji Kalu, was concerned. He was a chieftain of the PDP and had done everything possible to retain the seat of governor for a second term in 2003. Ahead of the second term election, Kalu was under severe fire from within the party.

His then deputy, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, had linked up with other forces in the party who were opposed to Kalu getting a second term ticket in office. The PDP split into two halves and maintained parallel structures from the ward to the state executive. But Kalu played some difficult games then, cutting a deal with former President Olusegun Obasanjo to get the ticket for himself. In 2003, he could not do the same for his protégé and former Chief of Staff in the Abia Government House, Chief Theodore Orji.

When the PDP chieftains opposed to Kalu’s politics tightened the noose around his neck, they refused to leave any space for him to manoeuver this time, and with Obasanjo having been stung more than twice by the Kalu venom, there appeared no inroad for the former Abia governor in the PDP. He took his loyalists to form the PPA, while a section of his loyalists broke into the All Progressive Peoples Alliance (APGA).

The eventual departure of Kalu from the PDP in Abia ensured that the core loyalists of former President Obasanjo took over the reigns of the party in that state and even though there was no water-tight unity among the chieftains, they managed to overcome their differences and presented a formidable team for the 2007 election.

Former Chairman of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NNDC), Chief Onyema Ugochukwu, became the gubernatorial candidate, while the party presented the trio of Chief Mao Ohuabunwa for Abia North Senatorial seat, Senator Nkechi Nwaogu as senatorial candidate for Abia Central and Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe as senatorial candidate for Abia South.

The chieftains shared the spoils in their areas, putting forward their trusted allies to contest the various offices. On paper, it looks impossible that the PPA would beat the PDP in an election in Abia, considering the array of bigwigs that people the latter.

Beside that fact the PDP has been in control of affairs of that party since 1999, it equally boasts of the like of the Foreign Minister, Chief Ojo Maduekwe; Ugochukwu, Abaribe, the man often referred to as Chairman Emeritus; Chief Tony Ukasanya, former President of the Senate, Chief Adolphus Wabara; his brother, Sir Marc Wabara; former National Secretary of the PDP, Prince Vincent Ogbulafor; members of the Board of Trustees of the PDP, Chief Empire Kanu and Chief Benjamin Apugo among others. But the Kalu camp had taken control shortly after the 1999 election and dictated the pace till 2007.

When Kalu’s loyalists jetted out of the PDP in 2007, they expected the magic with which they had outwitted the PDP chieftains in 2003 to play out again. And as things would turn out in April 2007, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared the PPA candidate, Chief Theodore Orji, the winner of the election, even though he was languishing in the detention camp of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) throughout the election process. The results as declared by INEC also showed that the PA won the Ukwa Federal Constituency, the home of the Wabaras, through Hon. Emeka Stanley, while the PDP won the Abia South Senatorial District through Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe and Abia Central through Senator Nkechi Nwaogu.

The results also gave the PPA majority of the seats in the House of Assembly, with PDP winning eight seats of the 24 member House seat. Ugochukwu and the aggrieved PDP loyalists took up the legal challenge, just as the PPA too in areas where PDP was declared winner. The PDP challenged the victory in the gubernatorial contest, as well as a number of House of Assembly seats.

It also challenged the victory of the PPA in Abia North Senatorial District, where Senator Uche Chukwumerije was returned to the Senate and the defeat of Barrister Uzoma Abonta by of Hon. Emeka Stanley of the PPA in Ukwa Federal Constituency. The PPA challenged the election of Senator Abaribe and Nwaogu as well as the election of Hon Eziuche Ubani in Obingwa Federal Constituency.

While Kalu’s camp would want the world to see that the PPA remains firmly in charge of Abia politics, the outcome of election tribunal rulings have been showing evidence to the contrary. The PPA lost the bid to unseat the spokesman of the House of Representatives, Hon. Ubani, while it also lost the attempt to upturn the election of Senator Abaribe and Senator Nwaogu at the tribunal. But the party has had its victory through Hon. Emeka Stanley in Ukwa Federal Constituency upturned, while Abonta of the PDP has been declared the winner. The PPA also lost two House of Assembly seats to the PDP through the verdicts of the tribunal.

Although the PPA has appealed the rulings, the contest for Ukwa Federal Constituency degenerated recently when lawyers to Uzoma Abonta of the PDP accused Hon. Stanley of threats to his life.

Early in February, Barrister Uzoma Abonta, whose petition against Hon Emeka Stanley was upheld in January wrote the Inspector-General of Police and the Commissioner of Police, Abia State through his counsel, Chuka Moumah, SAN, indicating that the life of the PDP candidate had been threatened several times since he was declared winner of the April 2007 election by the tribunal.

“It is our instruction to bring to your notice and for necessary urgent action the threat to the life of our client by Hon. Emeka Stanley,” the petition read. But Hon Stanley in a telephone interview denied having threatened the life of his opponent at the polls. He also denied having been in touch with the PDP candidate.

“It is not true. I never threatened anybody’s life. I never threatened his life at all,” Hon. Stanley said. But the lawyers added another drama to the petition when they circulated a copy of the cheque of N4 million allegedly offered by Hon. Stanley to lure Abonta into withdrawing the case from the tribunal. A copy of the said cheque was attached to the petition to the IGP.

“Hon. Emeka Stanley on one occasion issued a cheque of N4m (four million Naira) to our client in order to induce him to abandon the election petition. “Our client in pursuit of his constitutional rights and in his resolve to be law abiding prosecuted the petition to judgment. The declaration of Hon. Emeka Stanley was nullified and our client returned as having scored the majority of lawful votes,” the counsel to the PDP candidate stated.

While that drama was going on, as the matter had been referred to the Court of Appeal, the big one came on Monday, when the election tribunal declared Ugochukwu as the winner of the gubernatorial election of April 2007. The election petition tribunal sitting in Umuahia and headed by Justice Abdulahi Yusuf had declared that Ugochukwu and his running mate, Chief Chinwe Nwanganga, were the lawful winners of the April 14, 2007 governorship election in Abia State. It held that Governor Orji and his deputy, Chief Chris Akomas, were not qualified to contest the election, having failed to resign their former posts 30 days before the day of the election as stipulated in the Electoral Law. While Orji was Chief of Staff to the former Abia governor, Akomas was Commissioner for Lands and Survey.

The declarations from the tribunals of recent tend to show that Orji is losing his stranglehold (or is it magic?) in Abia politics fast. This is particularly true of the victory of the PDP in Abia South Senatorial District, where his sworn political enemy and former deputy, Sen. Abaribe, had won. Added to that was the result of election petition tribunal. The entire political life of the former governor appears to rest on these two positions. Now the battle has shifted to the Court of Appeal in Port Harcourt, the final court that can pronounce on the election matter. It is only after the final rulings of the Court of Appeal that we will be in a position to know who actually is in control of Abia politics.