Tag: Akwa Ibom

What really is your complaint about the 2019 governorship election in Akwa Ibom State?

I ran for governor as a result of the many challenges we have in Nigeria, but particularly in my state; lack of employment, especially for young people, inability of youths to have their voices heard, lack of services to the general populace, especially with regards to education and health care. I made that a core priority of my manifesto. I went into the elections like every other candidate, got the forms and was nominated by party. I did everything like rallies, town halls, I even took some of my town halls out of the country just to get support. A few weeks into the race, a lot of things happened; the normal political intimidation, which I was prepared for. I come from a political family, even though I am not a politician. I could understand. But then it started getting off key. There were people coming to buy off team members of my support team. Others, in the name of stepping down were paid off. I expected that because 17 political parties, some of them major parties like Accord and Labour Party stepped down and endorsed my candidacy, it was very novel in African and Nigerian politics. The regular situation is that major parties like the All Progressives Congress (APC) or the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) get smaller parties to step down for them, but having a very young party like the Abundant Nigeria Renewal Party (ANRP), which is barley one year old, benefit from such an intimidating move.

One week to the election, it was a known case that four major players were in the governor race in Akwa Ibom State, the APC candidate, Nsima Ekere; the PDP had the incumbent Governor Udom Emmanuel; the Young Democratic Party was represented by Ezekiel Nya-Etok and I was the candidate of the ANRP. The election came and went but what happened was very disastrous. We realised that in many of the 2986 polling units in Akwa Ibom State, there was proliferation of vote buying. People were intimidated. Those who would not sell their vote were stopped from voting and some of us that did vote there were so much void votes. We were so discouraged and I started comparing note with Architect Nya-Etok and we realized that the same thing happened. He even had a sadder story to tell. We agreed to hold a press conference to air our grievances. I said I will be going to court. He said he will support me in the process. We agreed to approach the International Criminal Court, as well, because vote buying comes under political repression, which is a crime against humanity.

Did you prepare your case in time?

We prepared our case. It is normally 21 days to file from the date of the announcement of result. My lawyer was with the APC lawyer who had gone to submit the petition of the APC governorship candidate at the same time. They met and they talked. The APC submitted, but when we came back to submit, we were told that our petition was late. The Secretary/Registrar of the tribunal said this. I did not go with my lawyer. I could not believe this. He went with the Deputy Chairman of the party. The man insisted that we were late and he could take the petition. He told the man that you are not allowed by law to reject a petition, it is a court that has that power, even if our petition comes in like two months after. It is the court that will determine if our petition is late or not; so, allow it to go in and let the court strike it out. There was a lot of fanfare, he came in with so many policeman dancing around the whole place. When I heard the story, I knew something was wrong. The next day, I followed my lawyer to the tribunal. This time around, I had the press, so they could bear witness. We called the man and it was a recorded conversation. He repeated the same thing that he will not take our petition. Our lawyer said again that he had no right to refuse our petition. He shouted us out. We briefed the press there. The video is on Youtube same day. You can’t backdate a Youtube video. The thing now is where does this guy get his power? He is not the problem. There are forces at the tribunal that are doing all these. What is wrong with that process? I want to get my petition in. As a politician, I know the calculation. The political calculation is that somebody somewhere does not want my petition to go in because of the value I have. That petition can cause a lot of issues. It is easier and cheaper for them to stop it from entering. The worst that can happen is that the man will be sacked. They will say, ‘we have sacked him but we can’t take your petition because it is late.’ I don’t want anybody to be sacked, I want my petition to be taken in. I want Akwa Ibom people and Nigerians to see what happens when you challenge the status quo. The reality is that there are the guys over there and there are ‘us’ the people. When you try to get over there to know what is happening, they stop you by all means.

We have done so many things. We have done what the law allows us to do. We have written to the President of the Court of Appeal. We have written reminders and even gone there to see her in person in Abuja. I was in her office for hours but could not see her. I was not allowed to. We have written to the National Judiciary Council (NJC). We have written to the Chief Justice of the Nigeria. We have written to the President, the Vice President, the Senate President, the Speaker of the House of the Representatives; so that all arms of government will know what is happening. So far, we have not got any response. When I went to submit the letter to the President of the Court of Appeal, this Mr. Abubakar who is the Registrar broke my phone in the process. I have the evidence and I have the video. The process was videoed so that they know we came to submit the letter. Of course, when he saw the camera, he took my phone and broke it, but he was already caught on camera. This level of impunity is unbelievable. You won’t believe it but it is true and we have evidence. He told us that no one will reply to our letter and we will not be able to do anything as far as Nigeria is concerned. The media people that came with me were so mad. No one has answered our letter, so far. I believe he is right. That is why I am taking my case to Nigerians to listen to the merit of the case and to ask questions. I also believe that the president wants a lot for this country and if this case is established, he should be able to act in our favour. I am appealing to him. I am appealing to the Senate. I am appealing to Nigerians who have the ability to look into the case and act to realise that what is happening to me will probably happen to their children. This is not a Nigerian case and not an Akwa Ibom case.

How do you know you are not a threat when your score was not near the winner?

It is because of the data they realise I have collected. When I asked my agents to go in for the election, 2986 polling agents, I told to concentrate on collecting data. I told them if anybody fights you don’t fight anybody concentrate on collecting data. We have thousands of people with so much evidence. We have people that are in hospitals who were shot. We have people who were cut with machete. The interesting thing about these people is that they are not actually my supporters or from my party. Most of them are from the APC or the PDP who were brought to the hospital by their parties. The PDP made sure that their people who were injured or had problems did not report to the police so that they won’t make the whole thing look like there were problems. They told them the party will take care of the hospital bills. After the ‘show’ these guys went back and they tell them the election is over, what are you looking for? They then find a way to come to me with their data. A lot of them are aggrieved people. Everyone knows I have this information. I have enough data to prove that the process was not free and fair. It is not really about what I scored. It is that the process did not allow us to compete like every other person. That itself can annul the election. That data goes beyond how much I scored because when you go to the score, if I was allowed to compete and get my vote and votes weren’t bought then you would have gone to the scores. This is where interest now comes in to say, ‘look we don’t want this guy’s evidence to go in to the tribunal to prove what he can so that he will not annul the election.’ I believe there are interests that are trying to stop this, probably not one person or two persons. The level of impunity at which this is done, or disregard to law is so brazen. There is something behind it. It is this act that is making me very concerned about our democratic processes and what should be done to stop this level of disregard to the law.

If your concern is just to show that the process was flawed, it means you don’t care if you benefit from it at the end of the day…

I don’t care whether I become governor. I believe I have service to provide to my people. If my people say we don’t want you, that is fine, but the process has to be free and fair to pick who is wanted. Not that the person with the highest amount of money wins. Mind you, next year, we have councillorship and chairmanship election. The issue is where does the vote buying stop? When you start buying councilors and chairman, it means the people have no voice. I am saying let’s do this thing again and let the process be free and fair. If the governor wins again, I will congratulate him and even tell him, ‘Oga let’s work together to grow the state.’ The ultimate concern is to grow the state. If the process is flawed, then there is a very critical problem with the system. I am not very concerned about how it is going to end. I am concerned about the process.

How do you rate the performance of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the police in the election?

That is the reason I am asking for a rerun. I believe the police did not have enough resources in the last election. In every polling unit, we had one police man against thousands of people. The guys couldn’t do anything. In a unit where they had a little bit of fracas, the police couldn’t do anything. If we have a rerun, more policemen will be available. With the INEC, the sophistication of the vote buying process was beyond INEC. Sometimes the monies were paid in different places. INEC will not come to your house or to the football field. Of course, in many places, votes were bought and sold in the open. In other places, there were destruction of polling units and voting materials. We had places were voting did not take place at all. In majority of the areas where vote buying took place, it was so sophisticated and when you look at the pictures and the videos that we have, you will see some of them. In Oron, there was a place that a commissioner had a gig overnight. They ate and drank until the day of the election and they moved the people right from that place to the polling unit. There were different paying processes. People going to vote were told when you thumbprint hold your ballot paper up across your chest so that the agent can see who you voted for. Which is what I wanted to show at the tribunal. I have loads of data.

In some instances, the voters were given tickets with numbers so that when you vote, you can then go to a primary school to get money. They had so many ways. If these guys use all these scientific methods for progress, we will not be struggling with backwardness. We need to stop this thing before they institutionalize the process. The corruption they are bringing into this system is the corruption of the mind of the people. People feel that there’s nothing wrong with vote buying. In my polling unit, almost everyone is my cousin. They are related to me. These people come to me to say, ‘Oga how much you get? PDP put down millions of Naira here o and APC did as much. They don’t understand how wrong it is. When everyone has agreed to do something. They accept that it is the right thing. When you tell them what the government is doing is wrong, they feel that because they are part of the process, you are saying they are wrong. They are angry with you.