Ogah, receiving his certificate of return

The political drama in Abia State that started on Monday with the unexpected judgment in which Okezie Ikpeazu, the governor was asked to vacate his office for Uche Ogah who came second in Peoples Democratic Party, PDP November, 2014 gubernatorial primaries took another turn on Thursday with the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC as the chief protagonist.

The expectations of many was that with the prompt appeal of the Federal High Court, Abuja judgment it will take a while for Ogah to eventually take over Ikpeazu seat, that is if the lower court’s decision stand at the end of the day.

This is especially since Ikpeazu’s lawyers had on Tuesday in a well circulated statement indicated that they have appealed the judgment.

But to the surprise of many, INEC choose to overlook the pending appeal to hand over the Certificate of Return to Ogah on Thursday.

While defending the action of the electoral body,  Amb. Lawrence Nwuruku, INEC National Commissioner in charge of South East who told journalists that the certificate of return was issued to Ogah on the sideline of an INEC National Stakeholders Forum said the Commission is only obeying the court order.

Nwuruku said: “The court said with immediate effect, we should issue Ogah a Certificate of Return, and that is what we have done.

“If the court tomorrow issues another order, we will obey the same.

“By the grace of God, I am the INEC commissioner in charge of the South-East. I will do the same thing, if court orders us to issue the same certificate to another person.

“In this case, the court ordered us to issue a certificate to the person who won the election; that is Uchechukwu Ogah. I was the person who issued the Certificate of Return to Governor Ikpeazu because he was declared winner.

“Now, the court is saying otherwise. One thing is that we are not above the law and we cannot refuse to obey the law of the land.

“After the court, another person we obey is God. And my conscience is my God.

“If you were in the court that day and I will urge you, members of the media, to go and study the court decision very well. It was wonderful, it was direct.”

Asked if INEC was aware that Ikpeazu had already appealed the said judgment, Nwuruku replied said that the commission obeyed the judgment.

“Our own is to obey the judgment on ground; if by tomorrow the court says give it to another person, then the INEC chairman will obey by signing another Certificate and I will issue it.

“What we have just done is obeying the Nigerian constitution. If l fail, I will be jailed and I don’t want to be jailed,” he added.

However Ikpeazu has insisted that he remained the Governor of the State. The Governor had immediately rushed to another High Court to get an order stopping Ogah from being sworn in.

But how valid is the order and was INEC right to give Ogah the Certificate of Return?

Onyekachi Ubani, a former Chairman, Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), Ikeja Branch, said the Certificate of Return given to Ogah as the governor-elect of Abia by INEC is in order.

According to him, Ikpeazu was not even qualified to run as governor in the 2015 poll in the eye of the law. He described the order stopping the swearing in of Ogah as invalid.

“It is an invalid order, one which I will describe as a ‘black market order’ especially as it was granted after a court of competent jurisdiction had given an order that Dr Okezie Ikpeazu was not qualified to run for elections in the first place.

“Both the FCT High Court and the State High Court are courts of coordinate jurisdictions and one cannot set aside an order given by the other.

“The order given by Justice Okon Abang of the FCT High Court cannot be set aside by the Abia State High Court.

“In the absence of any other valid order other than the one granted on June 27 by the FCT High Court, Mr Uche Ogah, should be sworn in as the governor of Abia,’’ Ubani said.

Wale Ogunade, another lawyer said Ikpeazu should have resigned and apologise to the people for flouting the laws of the land in the election that brought him to power.

“The right and decent thing Dr Okezie Ikpeazu should do is to resign and apologise to the people of Abia for being `dishonest’.

“In the first instance, this matter does not require an appeal as it is a pre-election matter and since the issue of tax returns was a requirement during the preliminary stage of elections, the issue of appeal does not arise as all pre-election matters should be treated before elections.

“Nobody should be above the law, one cannot pay three years tax in a day and claim that the law has been followed when the requirement is that the tax payments should be made as at when due, ’’ he also said.

“He (Ikpeazu) also has no immunity because it is a pre-election matter which arose before he was elected governor; he just got this injunction as a ploy to buy time as governor.”