Imo: Uzodimma, Ihedioha, Back To Trenches Over 2019 Governorship Election

By Adesina Soyooye

The echoes of the 2019 Imo Governorship election have reverberated in the State since a couple of days ago.

The latest is the call by the Imo State Government on the National Assembly to probe how former Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Emeka Ihedioha, was declared the winner of the election without meeting the constitutional requirements.

The relationship between Ihedioha and the incumbent Governor, Senator Hope Uzodinma, has been very strained since the Supreme Court, on January 13, 2020, removed Ihedioha from office and declared Uzodinma the rightfully, duly elected Governor of the State. Ihedioha, of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, was only seven months in office as Governor, when he was succeeded by Uzodinma of the All Progressives Congress, APC.

Since then, the politics of raw bitterness, raw anger and raw hatred has reigned in the State. The foot-soldiers of both high profile sons of the State have deployed all kinds of weapons either in the defence of their Principals, or to rubbish their Principal’s opponent. In doing this, nothing is out-of-bounds. There is no borderline.

The weapons include outright lies, brazen fabrications, fake news of the worst order, not excluding the supplanting of the cover of major newspapers with a fake cover, and the forging of Press Releases/ Press Statements, criminally signed off in the name of their opponent. In all these, they hardly care about the implications the lies and forgeries, fabrications and deliberate twisting of stories would have on the State and its people.

The ante of the fabrications and forgeries was raised recently over the fate of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra, IPOB.

Kanu, a couple of weeks ago, was discharged and acquitted by the Court of Appeal, Abuja, of charges of terrorism. The Court lashed out at the Federal Government, over the manner Kanu was abducted from Kenya to Nigeria in June 2021. Agreeing that it was an extraordinarily rendition, the Court said that the Federal Government broke all the laws in its action.

About 24 hours after the judgment, a forged Press Release, purportedly signed by Governor Uzodinma’s Media Adviser/Chief Press Secretary, Oguike Nwachuku, appeared, condemning the judgement of the Court of Appeal in releasing Kanu. The statement said Kanu’s release would spell danger for the South-east. The release was made in an Imo State letter-headed paper.

Not to be outdone, a couple of days later, a forged Press Release, attributed to Ihedioha made the rounds. It was to the effect that the former Governor was angry that Kanu got a reprieve from the Court of Appeal because of the danger it portents for the South-east.

Both Uzodinma and Ihedioha were said to have, allegedly, in the forged statements, protested to the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister for Justice, Abubakar Malami, SAN. As “jara”, an audio message, attributed to Ihedioha, where he, allegedly, threatened to keep making the State ungovernable for Uzodinma was released.

An angry Ihedioha denied knowledge, and/or ownership of both the Press statement and the released audio threat. And so did the Imo State Government deny the statement attributed to Uzodinma.

But in his denial which he personally signed, Ihedioha went a step further. He called on Security Agencies to investigate both the release attributed to him and the voice call. He put the blame smack at the foot of the Governor and his agents. And, in another interview, he attributed the insecurity in the South-east to the frustrations of the youths. He cited his case as an example. He said he clearly won an election and was unjustifiably removed from office.

The truth, however, is that neither Uzodinma nor Ihedioha made any statement on Kanu’s Court judgement. The statements were forged by their foot soldiers, especially, those who, from day one, when Uzodinma was declared winner, have been fabricating all kinds of stories. A couple of them have since “repented of such fabrications”, but they are still in the business of forgery.

But, again, not to be outdone   or intimidated by the constant refrain that Uzodinma stole Ihedioha’s mandate, the Imo State Government called on the National Assembly to institute a probe into how Ihedioha was initially declared the winner of the Governorship election in 2019. The Commissioner for Information, Declan Emelumba, while speaking on a Radio Nigeria programme said Ihedioha’s declaration amounted to a criminal breach of the Constitution since he did not meet the constitutional requirements to be so declared winner.

The Government noted that although the Supreme Court had already declared Senator Hope Uzodimma as the rightful winner of the election, there was a need to probe the circumstances that led to Ihedioha’s declaration as Governor when he didn’t meet the Constitutional requirements.

Emelumba said there is an urgent need for Nigerians to know who flagrantly abused the Constitution and appropriate sanction meted  to them.

According to Emelumba, “Section 179 of the constitution is clear how a candidate can be declared a governor. Subsection A of the section states that if the candidate has the majority of lawful votes cast in the election while subsection B states that if the candidate has not less than one quarter of votes cast in each of at least two thirds of all the local government areas in the state”.

He said going by the Constitutional requirements, Ihedioha did not get one quarter of votes cast in 18 LGs which is two thirds of the 27 local government areas of the state. According to him,  INEC only declared him winner in 11 LGS, seven  short of the required 18 LGs, yet  he was declared winner of the election.

He alleged that both PDP, Ihedioha and others, connived and compromised the electoral process by flagrantly abusing the constitutional requirements.

“This is a  serious rape of the Constitution that should be investigated to know who the perpetrators are. It has never happened in this country before that someone who did not meet the Constitutional requirements is declared winner of a governorship election. It should not be swept under the carpet. ”

Asked if the Government was not satisfied with the Supreme Court judgement which restored Uzodimma’s victory, Emelumba said they were satisfied because justice had been served.

“But in a situation where a thief is caught and the stolen object recovered from him and he still goes about shouting that something was stolen from him, there is need for an appropriate sanction,” he said.

The Commissioner further alleged that PDP and Ihedioha also colluded with INEC Returning Officers to omit the results of 388 units where APC won convincingly so as to get “away with this electoral heist of the century”.

“From the onset, it was a deliberate plot to keep APC and Hope Uzodimma from the front to ensure they perpetrated that fraud. That is why you hear them shouting that he came fourth and has no claim, ” he noted.

Emelumba insisted that those who raped  and desecrated the Constitution including the beneficiaries ought to be brought to book.

Said he: “It is not enough that Ihedioha was removed from office. He and his collaborators need to be punished for the sacrilege they committed against the Constitution to serve as a deterrent to other would be felons, especially now that we are heading to 2023.”

He said the Government of Imo State believes that a thorough probe by the federal government into why Ihedioha was declared governor when he didn’t win the election will help sanitize the electoral process.”

Not a few people think that both men should put the 2019 Governorship election behind them, and plan ahead against who occupies the office as from January 14, 2024.