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Uduaghan lost and
jubilated
Written by Ikenna
Emewu (e-mail: ikenna@sunnewsonline.com) |
Posted to the web recently
What a wonderful politician we have in Governor
Emmanuel Uduaghan, the man that leads Delta State. He has just pointed the
way for the rest of our desperate politicians to follow. Oh, I felt I were
in the USA dealing with great political minds called Obama and McCain when I
heard Oma Djebah, the Commissioner for Information in that great state
– The Big Heart tell the world with a sense of pride that after
the Court of Appeal sitting in Benin City on Monday, January 19 handed out its
verdict that the petitions against Uduaghan be re-tried the streets of Asaba and
Warri could not contain reasonable people of this great nation who trooped into
the state to join in the spontaneous celebration.
You can see how great events vibrate at the same frequency. That great carnival
to celebrate political magnanimity and openness, the first of its kind in
Nigeria, and indeed in Africa was just a precursor to another political
gathering just the day after in Washington. The only difference was that the
Asaba/Warri carnivals far surpassed that of Washington in honour of US
President, Barack Obama, which was just another small affair.
Uduaghan is really great. He has a big political heart. No wonder he is the
enviable governor of the Big Heart State. I am sure if we have about 10 of his
likes in our political landscape, this nation will find its political bearing
before long and will surely emerge one of the most famous politico-economic
nations in the world even before 2020. Afterall, Delta is an oil resource base
of the nation. Congratulations Uduaghan.
Fellow Nigerians, if you were Uduaghan – with all the money accruing from oil
revenue, with a dubious and unconstitutional mandate for close to two years,
with a big godfather who must have donated close to N15b to someone’s campaign
as pay-off to Aso Rock to rein in the EFCC dogs, and get the fraudulent
politician tag off your shelf, with a case stalled forever to allow godfathers
recover their investment, won’t you roll out the drums and order some Moet to
pop?
Yes, that is the Nigerian case for you. All animals, even politicians are
unequal. The Uduaghan case that has taken almost two years to come to this
unclear pass is a classic example of what unequal equities mean in a polity
whose foundation is laid in fraud.
In four states in 2007, INEC in its wisdom by the grace of Olusegun Obasanjo, in
a bid to undo Atiku Abubakar stopped AC candidates duly nominated by the party
from contesting. Delta was one of those four. The other candidate whose petition
is also pending in Asaba is Great Ogboru of DPP.
Now Atiku and Obasanjo have reconciled, so who said Peter Okocha (AC) whose
petition is to be re-heard will not withdraw that petition before any re-trial
commences? Is Okocha not a scion of the Atiku political school? The fact that
Atiku and Obasanjo reconciled the same day Appeal Court in Benin found its voice
close to two years after makes me ask if these incidents were just coincidences
or a planned one. Can you now see why Uduaghan bubbled over with jubilation
according to his mouthpiece because that retrial may never be. As for Great
Ogboru, forget his squeal. He is just one of those politicians whose complaints
can never make PDP lose sleep. The greatest party in Africa, today and in the
future, can always fix it.
Uduaghan and the forces that moulded him surely belong to the inner circle, and
for obvious reasons some people as I said earlier are plowing their field and
have every reason to recoup, and that cannot be done in vaccuo. It must be in a
state, through the allocation of a state otherwise a contract of
rub-my-back-I-rub-yours must have been breached. We should not forget that we
run a gentlemanly government in Nigeria today that respects agreements and would
not like to hurt friends in the business. That someone was planted by someone
does not imply he must copy the ingratitude of his master verbatim.
Is the case of Delta guber not in all fours, as lawyers would say, with those of
Anambra where Dr. Chris Ngige was brazenly disqualified by INEC for interest
sake? Is the Delta debacle different from the Adamawa case where Bapetel was
dropped by the same INEC and the Kogi scenario where Abubakar Audu, all of AC
were excluded from contesting elections. In these states, the courts delivered
judgments long ago.
The verdicts were the same - that in a situation where a candidate validly
nominated by a party was screened out by INEC from contesting, the election
becomes null and void. It was Atiku that got that landmark judgment at the
Supreme Court to pave the way for him to run the presidential election in 2007
as AC candidate. As Adamawa and Kogi petitions got decided, Anambra was
short-circuited because Governor Peter Obi got a Supreme Court judgment that his
tenure had not expired before Ngige’s petition would be heard. Otherwise it
would have been the same verdict. But Delta is a special case, so dear to the
powers that be, and can’t be touched, or at best be touched with delay tactics.
Uduaghan knows that that retrial verdict from Benin means just a high-sounding
jurisprudential nonsense. It goes to no issue, as lawyers would submit.
Maybe the re-trial, if it holds, would start sometime in June this year after
the President of the Court of Appeal must have taken his time to empanel the
team because the previous one would have passed through a very good solvent by
now and got totally dissolved.
By the time the petitions start afresh, it would crawl and linger and may take
another two and half years to get to the Court of Appeal in Benin again. When it
gets there, some of the Justices will take their time to travel for pilgrimage
to Jerusalem or Mecca and for medical trip as Umaru Abdullahi told us the other
time. At end of the day, the final verdict will be in October 2011, after
Uduaghan must have enjoyed the illegal and contentious tenure in issue.
You can now see why he was so large-hearted to throw parties in two cities to
celebrate that great judgment as Djebah told us.
The Information Commissioner in his wise ways announced that carnival with the
brazen disposition of a good imagemaker. We can see through his reason for that
good and unprecedented work of a state mouthpiece he did. Moreover, the way we
go about image making here by voicing out the turmoil of incoherence that plays
in our alpha-state brains is amazing. But I don’t pick quarrels about these
things, and I urge you reading me not to because I have found out that the right
to freedom of expression is the right of people to convince others of the extent
of dim wit in them and to erode any doubt their keeping quiet would have
elicited.
Tomorrow, you will hear how they abused, tongue-lashed and derided me for being
very stupid to comment about Uduaghan. I await their kindest replies the very
usual way. We are already used to them.
In the meantime, the judgment was a victory to democracy. God bless Delta State,
God bless Nigeria and her wonderful democracy!
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