Dr Alex Egbona, the member representing the Abi/Yakurr Federal Constituency of Cross River State in the House of Representatives is on his way to the Court of Appeal to challenge the nullification of his election by the tribunal, but the APC Reps candidate alleges harassment and intimidation by some political interests who he said have insisted that he should suspend the move. He also spoke on his activities as a legislator in the last few months.
The judgment on the petition against you at the election tribunal did not go in your favour as the tribunal nullified your election. How did that get to you?
It is one of those things. You know in every competition, in every battle in life, in every game, once there is a contest, there will always be a winner and there will be a loser. The most important thing that matters, as far as I am concerned, is whether you lost properly or you were robbed of victory.
The signs that things were not okay at the tribunal started showing early during the trial. A situation where some members of the tribunal were showing clear bias in the course of the trial was an indication to us that there was an agenda the panel came to execute in Cross River as far as my case was concerned. On a particular day in the course of the trial, for example, the tribunal was even helping a witness and telling him what to say and how to respond to questions from my lawyer.
But let me even say this: a former boss of mine even told one of my aides in the early days that the case lasted at the tribunal that I would lose at the tribunal. It was towards the end of the trial that I got to find out why he was so sure. I later discovered that an important member of the tribunal used to be counsel to a former governor from the South East. That former governor and my former boss in question are very close friends. That former governor, from what I have come to discover, worked in consonance and with my former boss who saw my victory at the poll as an insult on his person, because he supported the PDP candidate against me.
The good news is that there is an Appeal Court and I am going there to challenge the black market judgment they bought in Calabar. You can imagine a situation where the tribunal overlooked the evidence we brought before it to talk about other things to enable them arrive at the judgment.
I want to believe that you listened to the Appeal Court judgment on the case between Atiku Abubakar and Muhammadu Buhari. You heard what the court said about the use of card readers. The arguments we canvassed at the tribunal was the same with what was canvassed at the Appeal Court on the issue of card reader. But the tribunal chose to look the other way and decided in favour of the PDP candidate.
Look at the issue of my candidacy. The tribunal invented their own laws and ignored the position of the apex court on that subject matter. So, the entire judgment was a piece of thrash and we are going to deal with it at the Court of Appeal.
You said something about candidacy and I remember that INEC had removed your name and those of other APC members a few hours to the election…
Yes, you are right. That is what happened. There was a high court judgment that said I and other candidates of the APC were not candidates of the party. That was as a result of the internal issues we had in the party. But good enough, that judgment was properly set aside by the Court of Appeal. And in law, to the best of my knowledge, though I am not a lawyer, once a higher court has nullified an action or order, that order is deemed not have existed at all. That is the law.
But the tribunal overlooked that and ruled that the Court of Appeal judgment came a little too late. This is another aspect that the Appeal Court will look into. In the eyes of the law, my nomination by the APC as candidate for the election was and remained intact as at the day I was elected member of the Abi/Yakurr Federal Constituency. I have a firm belief in the appeal court that the wrongs of the lower court will be corrected.
So is that to say that you have filed an appeal?
We are in the process of doing so. We are getting the necessary documents and court processes that will enable us to file a good case. We are still within the time allowed in law. When we file, the whole world will know. This is not just a battle that Dr Alex Egbona is pursuing; it is a battle for the Abi/Yakurr people.
Remember that I was the only aspirant in APC that won an election in the state during the last general elections. From house of assembly to governorship and National Assembly elections, I was the only one that won. Despite all the intimidation, my people stood by me and we defeated them with all the money and soldiers they brought to harass us. My election was like war. My former boss came to my village on the eve of the election and told my people not to vote for me. A town crier was engaged to announce that the APC should not be voted for in the election; that it would be a big disgrace for my former boss if his candidate in the PDP did not win. What I am telling you now was reported in the media. But my people stood firm and resisted everything and I won.
Now, there is serious pressure on me not to go on appeal. They are intimidating and harassing me and my family. Just about 24 hours after the tribunal nullified my election, men who dressed as soldiers were sighted in my village. They were patrolling my community, and I asked, if you are beating a child, won’t you allow the child to cry? They say they defeated me at the tribunal and they went to my village to make sure the people did not cry.
And after that, some gunmen went to my Calabar home in the dead of the night, shooting and shooting. They have been calling me, threatening that they would deal with me if I went on appeal. They are worried that I am challenging the tribunal judgment. Is it a crime to challenge a tribunal judgment in a higher court? I have told them that there is no stopping me. Nobody, I repeat, nobody can stop this moving train. My people deserve a better representation, and that is what I owe them. They have chased me from day one till now and we keep winning and we will continue to win.
This battle is not mine, it is the Lord’s and we will win. I have been very loyal to my former boss, but he is not comfortable that I am climbing the ladder. He wants to pull it down. I still see him as my leader. I do not understand why he feels this threatened by my rising profile in the political space. In other climes, political fathers encourage their children. See what our APC leader, Ahmed Bola Tinubu, is doing in the South West. Look at all his political children and how he is helping them to grow. That is a man that knows that the rise of his children means his own rise too. But in our own case, it is not like that. I only hope and pray that God will touch him to know that he needs to encourage and not destroy his children.
We come from the same local government. My village is not far from his. I would have thought that as my former boss, he would be very excited that his son is going into the National Assembly. But he was proud to come to my village to campaign that my people should not vote for me. And when I won, he was proud to say that I would lose at the tribunal. God is still on the throne. Let us see between him and God, who has the final say. One thing I have told myself is that he remains my boss and I will never insult him. I remain loyal to him and I will forever give him all his due respect as my boss. Anyone who knows him should please tell him that he remains my boss and leader. But he is not God and he should not equate himself with God.
You have been in the House of Representatives for some months now. Can you beat your chest and say that your constituents have felt your impact?
They can answer for themselves. I cannot boast in myself and what I have done. But for the sake of this question, just know that I have done my best and will continue to do so. My duty is representation as a legislator. I do not control any votes. But in just a little above two months, go to my constituency and hear things for yourself. I have done what people have not done before. I am adopting the bottom-top approach in my representation. I have undertaken a tour of the entire constituency and have already taken a census of all the projects that need to be executed. The people have also told me what they will want me to focus on, as part of my constituency projects.
It will interest you to note that I hired consultants to compute these and they will form part of the things that will be handled under next year’s budget. I do not want to talk about the number of people I have so far assisted to get jobs everywhere. I do not like to blow my trumpet, so let me leave it at that. My left hand is not supposed to know what my right hand has done, even though because of the kind of politics we play, we intend to ignore this biblical injunction. But I can tell you that things are no longer the same in my constituency. I gave my people my word that I would make a difference and that is what is guiding every action that I take. You can take this to the bank that I, Dr Alex Egbona, will leave the Abi/Yakurr Federal Constituency far better than it used to be.
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