When the Managing Editor of the Independent, Mr. Akpandem James, informed me in the afternoon of last Friday (January 18, 2008) that the Enugu State Governor, Mr. Sullivan Chime, had just been ordered to vacate his seat by the Election Petitions Tribunal sitting in the Coal City, I was glad that another solid evidence had emerged to strengthen the position of many of us who have continued to insist that what former President Olusegun Obasanjo and his fellow expert and partner in political corruption, Prof Maurice Iwu, supervised in Nigeria last April was the worst election in human history.

Of course, we know that Mr. Chime’s case would not be the last in this determined effort by the judiciary to dismantle the irredeemably corrupt edifices brazenly erected across the nation by Obasanjo and his equally murky-minded collaborators in the inappropriately named Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Already, the clouds appear to be gathering over Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, for instance, ahead of the February ruling in the governorship tussle in the state, as an anxious nation awaits new surprises from that famous land where self-celebrated masters of thuggery, violence and electoral corruption now hold sway. In fact, I would be really surprised if the PDP would be able to retain up to six governorship seats by the time the Election Tribunals conclude their assignment.

Reading the judgment in Enugu last week, the Tribunal Chairman, Mr. Justice Samuel Ottah, stated that the Tribunal was of the view that “instances of non-compliance with the Electoral Act, which is non-voting by majority of the electorate, goes to the foundation and [so] it cannot be said that there have been an election. It goes to the root of the edifice. We have no doubt that majority of the electorate were denied the right to choose their governor. The governorship election in Enugu State of 14th and 28th April 2007 is hereby declared a nullity and therefore void. The election of the first respondent, Mr. Sullivan Chime, is hereby declared invalid as he was not duly elected and returned.”

As the voice of the Tribunal Chairman reverberated in Enugu that morning, and around the nation as the day wore on, there is no doubt that most people may have sadly remembered one misguided young man from Enugu State called Mr. Frank Nweke, former Information Minister and Obasanjo’s Chief Megaphone, and may have wondered where he was hiding when the tissue of lies he had laboured so hard to string together in respect of the elections in Enugu were being shredded by the Tribunal.

When the charade which the Tribunal has rightly described as “make-believe or fairy tales” took place in April 2007, former Senate President, Mr. Ken Nnamani, had against all odds, come out to clearly declare that there were no elections in Enugu. And for this effrontery, Nnamani was rewarded with virulent attacks and several forms of intimidation from the Emperor’s foot soldiers, but the man remained undaunted. Frank Nweke himself, seeking to please his master who was diligently overseeing the allocation of votes across the nation from his fortress in Aso Rock, had loudly insisted that, contrary to Senator Nnamani’s claims, proper elections, conducted in transparent and orderly manner, took place all over Enugu, even though some people were ready to bet their last kobo that even Nweke’s father did note vote in the so called elections.

What the Tribunal has now confirmed is what everyone already knew took place, and which Senator Nnamani and several other right-thinking people in Enugu State had at that time declared without equivocation, namely, that some licensed fellows had merely gathered somewhere and allocated votes to “approved” candidates, who were later declared “winners’ of elections that never took place. It was a most unfortunate and very saddening development. In fact, I am hoping that in the days to come, all those who had contested the April 14 and 28 elections in Enugu State would go to court to seek further interpretations and the full implications of the ruling. Because, if you ask me, the Tribunal has simply ordered a rerun of all the elections that took place in Enugu State on those two days, implying also in clear and unambiguous terms that the “results” which gave President Umar Yar’Adua and all the lawmakers from Enugu State their “victories” had emerged from phantom elections.

Mixed reactions have trailed what can be rightly termed Gov Chime’s “Second Fall.” The “First” occurred a couple of days earlier, on Tuesday, January 15, 2008, when the Enugu governor slumped and passed out during the Armed Forces Remembrance Day celebrations at Michael Okpara Square, Enugu. It is possible that Chime may have been overwhelmed by fear and dread of the predictable fate that awaited him four days later at the Tribunal, causing his strength and courage to fail him.

Well, take heart, brother; you should have known that there was no way the corrupt electoral edifices erected by Obasanjo and his likeminds could have survived in today’s Nigeria, where the judiciary is fast rediscovering itself, and the people gradually developing some sophistication and discrimination in taste as far as politics and democracy are concerned.

The Tribunal had also ordered the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) to conduct fresh governorship elections in Enugu State within three months. The same order had also earlier been given in respect of the annulled governorship elections in Adamawa, Kogi and Kebbi States, all now before the Appeal Tribunal, where Chime and his lawyers would be heading to any moment from now (if they had not done so already). In fact, many other electoral “victories” in both State and National Assemblies have equally been annulled. And many more would be annulled in the days to come.

So, in the face of these ugly developments which have tarnished Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) and its Chairman beyond redemption, who then would conduct the fresh elections if the Appeal Tribunal begins to uphold some of the judgments already delivered by the lower courts? Would it still be the same thoroughly discredited INEC headed by the same Professor Maurice Iwu which had in April 2007 conducted elections in Nigeria that have now clearly acquitted itself as, perhaps, the worst in human history?

What would give the other political parties the confidence that this same INEC would now conduct transparent, free and fair elections, when Nigerians are yet to see the slightest hint of remorse in its Chairman over the revolting electoral fraud the Commission unabashedly and flamboyantly perpetrated in this part of the world just a few months ago? Assuming the other parties insist that they would not be able to repose any confidence in this INEC and its unrepentant Chairman, and so would not participate in the fresh elections it would conduct, would President Umar Yar’Adua hold the nation to ransom simply because he is afraid of the political cost of sacking just one man that is held in fierce contempt by most Nigerians and even foreigners? What would Yar’Adua do about Iwu and INEC? Would he be able to summon the guts to also dispatch him to Kuru to join his cousin Nuhu Ribadu to rue their misfortune for agreeing to become willing and eager hands for the prosecution of Obasanjo’s insidious designs?

Honestly, I don’t envy Yar’Adua. Iwu and his INEC are two most embarrassing and imposing mountains standing before him, which he has so far successfully avoided confronting despite widespread sentiments against the man and the horrible elections he supervised. But as these damning verdicts continue to emerge from different Election Tribunals across the nation, the disbandment of the present INEC and the sacking and prosecuting of Prof Iwu for taking the nation through a very costly stress and the serious doubts over his management of resources at INEC are   assuming lives of their own and cannot just be easily wished away.

It is possible that as usual, the Servant-Leader is even unperturbed and merely sleeping through the matter, hoping that like many horrible things that have happened in Nigeria, it would, somehow, disappear. But as he would find out very soon, the serious issues Nigerians have against Iwu and NEC won’t be in a hurry to disappear, because they represent an affront Nigerians are now ready to confront squarely. Iwu is even compounding matters and still inflaming passions by his unrepentant attitude and brazen insistence that the elections he conducted were the best Nigeria ever had. What a gratuitous insult. 

It is strange that instead of worrying about the horrible corruption charges against their godfather, the supporters of former Governor Chimaroke Nnamani are out there rejoicing and threatening to deny Chime the PDP ticket if the Appeal Tribunal upholds last Friday’s judgment that sacked him from office. Sullivan Chime is a likable person, but Enugu under his watch is yet to impress me. The only thing I have written about him since he became Governor is to ask him to pay the many workers of the state parastatals some of whom are still owed more than twenty months salaries arrears, a burden he had inherited from Chimaroke who had installed him in power through the same odious phantom elections.

The grouse the Chimaroke group has against Chime is that he has been trying to distance himself from his predecessor in order not to be horribly tainted by his polluted legacies, which he benefited from. If Chime would take my advice, let him run now and pay with fanfare all those workers Chimaroke owed in Enugu, before the Appeal Tribunal gives him the boot. He should continue to distance himself from Chimaroke and everything he stood for, even though he had served in Chimaroke’s cabinet, and was made Governor by the Ebeano political machinery. If eventually Chimaroke, whose “election” should also be annulled if the full meaning of last week’s ruling is to be implemented, is able to make the PDP deny him their ticket, he should join another party and contest in a free and fair election, which, hopefully, would not be conducted by Maurice Iwu. Indeed, I am yet to hear of any candidate backed by civil servants who failed in an election. The Chimaroke baggage is one political liability that would sink rather than make him float.

But if things were to be done the way they should in a civilized society, annulling elections and calling for fresh ones should not be enough. All those who manipulated the elections should be arrested, prosecuted and dealt with accordingly. That is the only to institute deterrence in our electoral system.