On Tuesday, October 13, 2015, the National and State House of Assembly Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Umuahia upheld the election of Senator Mao Ohuabunwa of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), representing Abia North senatorial district in the National Assembly. The Abia North case was perhaps the most keenly observed across the country because of the caliber of people involved. The election of Ohuabunwa was challenged by two other eminent personalities, a former governor of Abia State, Chief Orji Uzo Kalu and a business mogul, Chief Bourdex Onuoha.
Apart from the three contestants being high profile personalities, what heightened the anxiety over the case was the fact that one of the petitioners, Kalu, characteristically gave it so much hype in the media, taking advantage of his proprietorship of one of the most widely read dailies of the country. Although Kalu came a distant third from Ohuabunwa, majority of Nigerians thought the matter was just between the two.
For example, a few weeks before the final ruling of the Justice Adeniyi Onibanjo-led tribunal, Kalu had obtained a favourable ruling from the Court of Appeal, sitting in Owerri, nullifying an earlier ruling by the tribunal barring the admission of a list of accredited voters in Abia North as evidence. That ruling was celebrated by a section of the media that had sympathy for Kalu and as a result of which many thought that the tide was going to turn in his favour.
Besides sheer legal technicalities, the involvement of the former governor also had further implications in the politics of Abia State, for the simple reason that the Abia North case represented Kalu’s final battle to remain politically relevant in the state.
Prior to the 2015 general election, Kalu had issues with the mainstream political establishment in the state, of which Senator Ohuabunwa was a key factor. After a futile attempt to return to the PDP which was controlled in the state by the political tendency which had Ohuabunwa in the forefront, Kalu belatedly launched a bid to contest the Abia North Senatorial seat on the platform of the Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA) which he leads.
Although many keen watchers of Abia politics knew he had little or no chance, especially facing a formidable contender like Ohuabunwa, a two-time member of the House of Representatives and former majority leader in the House, Kalu threw everything he had into the contest.
On March 28 2015, the senatorial election in Abia North (made up of five local government areas: (Arochukwu, Bende, Isiakwuato, Ohafia and Umunneochi) was essentially between the PPA (Kalu), Ohuabunwa (PDP) and APGA (Onuoha). After some days of delay, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) announced Mao, as he is simply referred to by his people, as the winner of the election.
Although Kalu came third, he cried out, alleging that massive rigging, intimidation and manipulation attended the election. The APGA candidate, Onuoha, also protested vehemently and in a subsequent petition to the National and House of Assembly Election Petition Tribunal, he asked it to declare him winner instead.
On the witness box on July 8, 2015, Onuoha among other things claimed that “I scored 37,115 lawful votes while the respondent who was declared winner scored 28,800 votes”. Onuoha had also alleged that Ohuabunwa inflated his scores while deflating those of APGA. The tribunal, however, consolidated the two petitions – by the APGA and PPA candidates – to streamline adjudication but majority of observers had their eyes on that of the APGA candidate.
Delivering judgment on Tuesday October 13, 2015, Justice Onibanjo said that the allegation by the APGA candidate, Onuoha, that there were irregularities was not enough to cancel the election, as demanded by the APGA and PPA candidates.
The tribunal did the most practical thing. It did a simple arithmetic of adding and subtracting figures which the APGA candidate had alleged to be in dispute before every eye at the tribunal venue. It deducted the votes which Onuoha had claimed were added to that of Ohuabunwa and added it back to that of Onuoha.
After the arithmetic, the final figures stood at 43,739 for Ohuabunwa and 28,210 for Onuoha. Orji Uzor Kalu remained where he was at 20,000 votes which was the earlier figure announced for him by INEC, even as the tribunal dismissed his (Kalu’s) petition as incompetent.
Not unexpectedly Onuoha and his party rejected the ruling and have declared their intention to challenge it at a superior court. But not a few in the state believe that will be an exercise in futility. In the view of keen watchers of the Abia political terrain, election disputes in the state will be difficult to go against the PDP which they say has an undisputed stronghold in the state.
In the view of analysts, it is not for nothing that the PDP not only won all the elections in the state but it’s also won all the litigation against its candidates. Only last week, the Governorship Election Tribunal upheld the election of Dr Okezie Ikpeazu after a sustained dispute from the APGA governorship candidate, Dr. Alex Otti. Earlier, the National and State House of Assembly Election Petition Tribunal had upheld the election of the immediate past governor of the state, Chief T.A Orji, as senator for Abia Central. Although it had ordered a rerun in Abia South where Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe had earlier been declared winner, it had upheld the elections of seven House of Representatives members which were being contested mostly by APGA.
The build up to the 2015 senatorial election in Abia North was full of anxieties and debates. The people of the area had expressed concern over a likely candidacy of the then incumbent senator, the late Uche Chukwumereije. Chukwumereije was on his third consecutive term in the senate and the prospects of his running again created anxieties among the people who felt the senatorial seat should move to another local government area in the zone.
Chukwumereije was from Umunneoche. Initially, however, some skeptics, especially those who were not in the camp of the then governor, now Senator T.A Orji, felt that the campaign to stop Chukwuwereije from returning to the senate for a fourth term was a ploy by the governor to impose a candidate on the zone. But the groundswell persisted, prompting many, who felt that the PDP had perfected plans to move the seat away from Umonneoche, to leave the party.
Their next port of call was APGA which was becoming quite strong following the entry of personalities like Alex Otti who was a governorship aspirant and later candidate of the party. Soon, it became clear that the fight was going to be between the PDP and APGA. However, from nowhere, Dr Orji Uzor Kalu joined the fray.
Preparatory to the initial alignment and re-alignment of forces, Kalu had made a public declaration through his newspaper that he was back to the PDP, while completely denouncing membership of the PPA. This was even as the leaders and the faithful of the PDP in the state almost in unison rejected his return to the party.
But a few weeks after that declaration, one of Kalu’s aides went to the headquarters of the PPA to purchase a form for the senatorial election on his (Kalu’s) behalf. Kalu promptly denied authorizing his aide to purchase the form on his behalf, and demanding a public apology from him. But many people were not impressed because they had become quite familiar with the antics of the former governor. Indeed, Nigerians, not just Abians, were hardly surprised when eventually Kalu became the candidate of the PPA for the Abia North senatorial election.
Senator Ohuabunwa who had his election upheld by the tribunal is from Arochukwu local government area and a frontline politician from the state. Apart from the fact that Abia is a stronghold of the PDP, the widely-held belief is that Mao is one politician who commands enough following that would see him victorious in any election in the state.
In Abia state, the consensus of opinion is that the two-time representative of Arochukwu/Ohafia federal constituency defeated his opponents, who are no mean personalities, because he has a better pedigree. In fact, some take the position that Mao may have succeeded in finally retiring the former governor from politics.
