David Mark’s nemesis an ex-student activist, just in his 30s

“Thank God I have been vindicated! Court of Appeal Makurdi just nullified Sen. David Mark’s election and ordered fresh election!, ” was the simple tweet posted by Daniel Onjeh, the  candidate of the All Progressives Congress who just did the unthinkable, getting the election of former senate president, David Mark cancelled at the appelate court.

David Mark became a senator for the Benue south district in 1999 and has always had stiff challenges at every election cycle. But with his PDP fully entrenched in the state and in Abuja, he always had his way, notwithstanding deep national suspicions that he always rigged the vote.

Some  of the stiffest contests he had was against  Usman Abubakar, alias Young Alhaji in 2003 and 2007. In 2003, Young Alhaji contested against Mark, using the platform of the United Nigeria Peoples Party. INEC declared Mark the winner. But Young Alhaji  believed he defeated the army general and went to court. The matter was settled with the intervention of Senator George Akume, who was the governor of the state then. In 2007, Young Alhaji challenged David Mark again. Contesting on the ANPP platform, the daring man was again rigged out. He took his case to the court. After a long drawn battle, Mark’s election was voided by the tribunal  in February 2008.  But in a surprising twist, the court of appeal in Jos, upheld Mark’s election, voiding the order for rerun by the lower court.

Young Alhaji was gutted by the position of the higher court and issued a statement lambasting it and questioning whether the rule of law really exists in Nigeria.

“If men like us cannot get justice from our courts after convincingly defeating men like David Mark, the rule of law is a charade and democracy is under threat.”

In the  press statement entitled: “Weep not for me, weep for the rule of law, democracy and Nigeria,” Young Alhaji  described the verdict of the Court of Appeal as a threat to democracy in the country.

“There is no Idoma man or woman who can swear on the Holy Bible, Qur’an or Alekwu (our ancestral deity) that I did not defeat Senator Mark in all the nine local government areas that make up the Benue South senatorial district. There lies my apathy and disillusionment in the judicial process as the last hope of the common man,” Young Alhaji stated.

“The unfortunate decision of the Court of Appeal, Jos Division, on July 15, 2008 in my case with the Senate President, Senator David Mark, climaxed my complete apathy and disillusionment in the project called Nigeria.

“The judgement, which I prefer to tag the great murder of justice, ushered in dusk for the rule of law, gloom for democracy and agony for due process.”

Now enter  Daniel Onjeh, whose name should actually be  ‘David’ Daniel Onjeh, who has reversed the electoral experience of Young Alhaji. Onjeh lost at the lower court, but won at the appeal court. The real David of Benue politics is in his 30s and had a taste of politics in the student union movement.  He is an alumnus of University of Ghana, where he read Political Science and Economics,  an alumnus of the Federal University of Technology Minna, a former president of the National Association of Nigerian Students, NANS  in 2002 and former president of the West African Students Union.

When he declared his plan to run against Mark in February 2015, he was in no doubt about the Everest Mark he was up against, but he believed he could spank Mark because of Mark’s ‘unpopularity’ among the Idoma people in Benue state.

Onjeh, a former student union activist used his manifesto launch to go for Mark’s jugular, painting him as a senator who had only been concerned about his personal interest and his pocket.

 

What meaningful development has David Mark attracted to our region and its people in the last 16 years? Believe me dear constituent, Sen. Mark has only largely used his office for his personal aggrandizement and the stupendous enrichment of himself and few of his cronies and privileged family members, at the expense of the generality of the Idoma people’, Onjeh wrote.

 

“Sen. David Mark has been representing the people of Benue South in the Senate since 1999! One of the Chicaneries of David Mark is that he will facilitate the creation of Apa State for the Idoma people. Recall that the agitation for the creation of Apa State actually started over 28 years ago! Are we still going to fall for that gambit this time around? If he couldn’t make Apa State a reality in 16 years as a Senator, out of which he was Senate President for 8 full years, then do we still believe or hope that he can perform that feat if given another four years to represent us at the Senate? What meaningful development has David Mark attracted to our region and its people in the last 16 years? Believe me dear constituent, Sen. Mark has only largely used his office for his personal aggrandizement and the stupendous enrichment of himself and few of his cronies and privileged family members, at the expense of the generality of the Idoma people’, Onjeh wrote.

He urged his people to use their thumbs to free themselves from David Mark on election and also admitted that he did not have the war chest of the former senate president to prosecute the election.

“I have nothing to offer to you in the form of money, omo, maggi, rice and lies! But I am sacrificing myself for the change that we need. Coming up against Sen. Mark is certainly not fun, or a mean feat for a young man! But I am prepared to go the whole hog, to liberate us from incompetent and defocused leadership.

“Sen. Mark continues to cling unto the senate seat by intimidating and subjecting of the people to perpetual poverty and underdevelopment. During elections, fragments of what has been amassed is doled out to the electorate, to make them feel like they are being done a huge favour. If we analyze this so-called “Stomach Infrastructure” politics, we will see that on the average, every beneficiary hardly carts home N500! Is that paltry sum enough to change their destinies over the next four years? We must be determined to fast if necessary, to vehemently resist PDP’s Okpa and pure water money, in order to salvage the future of the Idoma nation.”

The Idoma people appeared to have heeded Onjeh’s sermon, which is what gave him the self-belief that he trounced Mark in the 28 March election, after campaigning for just six weeks. That belief has now been confirmed as solid by the Appeal court.

It however remains to be seen if the Idoma people in Benue South would repeat the feat they accomplished on 28 March by throwing off the Mark yoke, whenever the rerun is held within the 90 days, prescribed by the court.