Outgoing Imo State Governor, Rochas Okorocha has warned the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) that withholding his certificate of return as the winner of the Imo West Senatorial district is an insult that diminishes Nigerian democracy and has the potential to stir tension in Imo state.
On Thursday March 14, 2019, INEC declined to issue Okorocha a certificate of return presented to other elected senators at an event at the International Conference Centre in Abuja – an action Okorocha described as an insult to his person and a mockery of Nigerian democracy.
Okorocha, who addressed youths at the State House in Owerri, argued that the move to withhold his certificate of return based on allegation without hearing his own side of the story was unjust. He insisted that INEC’s action was an insult to his person and a mockery of Nigeria’s democracy. He alleged that he’s aware that INEC has colluded with some of his political enemies to deny him his mandate.
The governor, who contested the Imo West Senatorial District election on February 23, was declared the winner of the election. But INEC refused to acknowledge his victory because the returning officer was made to announce the result under duress.
“I have been held hostage here for days so I’m trying to ease off and take my life home back to my children and for the sake of that I am calling these results under duress,” INEC returning officer for the election in Imo State, Innocent Ibeabuchi had said before reading out the results.
INEC’s head of voter education Festus Okoye also said the commission will not award a certificate of return to candidates where election results were announced under duress. “The commission has decided that we will not reward bad behaviour in the electoral process and we recorded bad behaviour in result collations in Imo West Senatorial District” Okoye told Channels TV’s Lunchtime Politics Program.
According to Okoye, “investigation by the commission revealed that the returning officer for Imo West made a return under suspicious circumstances. He was put under too much pressure. He was forced to make a declaration and a return and we made a determination that that particular return was not made out of the free will of the returning officer,” Okoye said.
Commentary: Okorocha, the unmaking of the kingmaker
Okorocha has been on a collision course with APC chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, whose swashbuckling sole-administrator style leadership, ran into troubled waters by its lack of consensus building and pitted him against some state governors, who decided to appropriate powers available to them by virtue of incumbency, by trying to be their own referees in a game that required the party’s dominance.
It was this attempt to dictate the terms of engagement that threw up the unfortunate scenario that led to the suspension of Governors Ibikunle Amosun and Okorocha from the APC for anti-party activities. The unfolding events saw APC women issuing an order banning Oshiomhole from stepping foot anywhere in Imo State. Unfortunately, it seems the APC chairman is having the last laugh.
The fact that was lost on governors like Okorocha as they battled Oshiomhole is that, while they pledged their loyalty to Buhari, they failed to look deep enough to realize the decision to reconfigure the power structure in APC was not entirely that of Oshiomhole alone.
President Muhammadu Buhari and Tinubu are the other two legs on which the party now stands alongside the national chairman. However, in essence the entire architecture has been designed to have one godfather, Buhari, with two vassals.
Okorocha must now come to terms with the fact that he is dealing with a former military officer who was tutored in the art of decoy and camouflage. Having been humiliated by Bukola Saraki after the 2015 elections, Buhari is hell bent this time around to call the shots.
The president knows that the governors who would soon lose their executive powers would be left with no option than to kowtow to him and abide by whatever designs he wishes to pass through his two vassals- Oshiomhole and Tinubu.
