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'The Lord Will Fight for Me'
"Breaking News: INEC has upturned the result of the Brazil/Nigeria match and has now awarded victory to the Super Eagles.

This is sequel to the order of an Abuja Federal High Court judge. FIFA has been directed to respect the new result." This GSM text message which has been in circulation since last Wednesday evening after the Brazilian national team overwhelmed the Super Eagles of Nigeria by three goals to nothing is rather instructive. Any discerning person can easily conclude what the joke is all about: the process that led to the emergence of Chief Adolphus Wabara as Senate President. The perception of most Nigerians today is that through executive manipulation of the electoral and judicial process, a defeated senator has been imposed on the nation as the chief law maker and and thus by implication become the number three citizen. What seems to compound the situation is that everyday, fresh facts emerge to dent the credibility of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on the conduct of the election in Abia South Senatorial District. The most poignant being the fact that the House of Representatives election for the area in disputation had no problem. But rather dramatically, elder Dan Chinyere Imo of the All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP) last night withdrew his petition and congratulated Wabara. At the end, the whole saga was resolved at the altar of ethnicity. The operative question now is: did Wabara actually win the election as he claims and would want the world to believe? Last Wednesday at the National Assembly complex in Abuja, Olusegun Adeniyi put to the embattled Senate President, for whom there is now reprieve after the intervention of his kinsmen, all the salient questions begging for answer on the controversy surrounding how he got to the Senate and other issues in the messy affair that may not easily go away.

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To most Nigerians today, a defeated Senator has become the Senate President. What is your response to this?

My response to the question is that Senator Adolphus Wabara won the Abia South senatorial election that was held on the 12th of April 2003. The Returning Officer is the authority, the man who is vested with the power to declare the winner and as far as he is concerned I am the winner. Yes, there was confusion but he has admitted he made a mistake by issuing Elder Dan Imo with a certificate because Imo's agent in the person of Mr. Solomon Obumchie Nwagbo gave him the result of the last local government election that he waited for over eight or nine good hours. It turned out however that the result was fake. So what happened is that Obumchie impersonated the collation officer for Obingwa and turned in a fake result, the fake result manufactured to wipe out the results of the five other local governments where PDP was winning by a very comfortable margin. As soon as the Returning Officer did that he corrected himself when the authentic collation officer in the person of Mr. Ifeanyi Ago arrived with the result for Obingwa local government. When the returning officer discovered what happened, that he had been conned, luckily for him Imo and his returning officer were still around so he demanded that they should return that document which was issued to them in error. Imo said the document was in his car outside the INEC office in Umuahia and he was going to bring it; that was the last the returning officer saw of him. But what happened was that the returning officer immediately cancelled the result that had been made for Obingwa and admitted the authentic result from the authentic collation officer and then declared the winner and issued me the authentic certificate I have now.

If that is the case, how come INEC is insisting Imo won and is relying on the result in his hand because it is the same result that is on the website

I think you should go and interview the Resident Electoral Commissioner and the Returning Officer for the district in Abia State. The reports they sent never got here (Abuja) but be that as it may, there cannot be two form EC8A and the returning officer has the right to declare who won, which he did, and he swore to an affidavit when Imo went to a court in Umuahia. He swore and admitted his fault and the INEC in Abia started the action he took thereafter. The winner is Adolphus Wabara and not Dan Imo because he was fed with a fake result.

If indeed you won, I fail to understand why you went to the tribunal and then dramatically withdrew your petition before you came to Abuja court to get a controversial judgment which ensured you got to the Senate.

That is a lie. A winner does not go to the tribunal. You are a journalist of very high repute so you should not confuse issues. I have never seen an election where a winner takes a loser to the tribunal. I didn't go to the tribunal, Imo went to a Federal High Court first to stop the bye-election that was initially slated for 29th April since INEC had declared the election inconclusive. He didn't get an injunction but INEC respected the fact that the matter was in court even though there was no judgment and then because of orders from Abuja, the elections on the 29th did not go on in Abia South Senatorial District. It only held in Abia Central where we have Senator Chris Adigiche. Imo went to the High Court because the tribunals were not in place, though as soon as the tribunals were in place, Imo went to the tribunal with the same prayers. The records are there and I am prepared to assist any journalist who wants to carry out an investigation so that this dirty propaganda can be nipped in the bud once and for all. If Imo was the winner why did he go to the tribunal? He asked the tribunal to compel INEC to declare him the winner using the fake results. He did not join me in the suit, I had to compel my lawyers to file a joinder which I got a week after the matter started. I was joined but I had my own petition because of the fact that election tribunals are not courts, in case the tribunal refused to join me in that matter. As soon as this happened, Imo withdrew his petition and I withdrew my own counter-cross petition. My contention is that since I am the winner there was no need keeping my own petition in the system, I also withdrew my main petition.

I have seen the two results and in the sequence of events, Imo's result, which you said was cancelled, must come before yours. But the serial number in Imo's result is 0000214 while your own is 0000213 which means your own came first. How do you explain this kind of discrepancy?

Even if you look at the date on the results, Imo's own was dated 12th yet collation was still going on as at that date but I don't work with INEC. You may have to find out from them what happened, may be the officer just picked a form EC8A that was available and issued it to Imo. I don't want to go into details because the matter is still in court. But there was even a mistake on Imo's result because collation was still going on and there was no way that result could have been given to Imo. As I stated earlier it is possible that they picked a form EC8A and issued to Imo and when they discovered that problem and they looked for another form and issued me.

But Imo is alleging that you are threatening his life after several attempts to bribe him failed.

I am a child of God and I have not seen Imo since the April 12th election and I have never sent anybody to him. Why should I attempt to bribe him? Bribe him for winning an election? He should bury his head in shame for sending in a fake result which is against the electoral act. But that is for the law enforcement agents to act upon whatever they want to do on the issue. What the man is doing is sad. He sent some people to my village, to my traditional rulers, saying I want to kill him. I am a Christian, I do not kill, if I lost that election, I would have lost gallantly and I would have congratulated Imo. I cannot sit down and allow myself to be rigged out having won convincingly in four local governments, I only lost in one with about 50 votes. They wanted to see what was happening in those five local governments so as to manufacture the results that would give victory to Imo. The reports are there. 28 ballot boxes in this Obingwa local government which were opened last were carted away by ANPP agents and hoodlums and these were my votes. If you go by the fact that there are 500 votes in one ballot box that would mean about 10,000 votes for PDP in those boxes and INEC has not seen those boxes up till today. The whole exercise was fraught with violence, even the chairman of PDP in the local government was matcheted while some of his cars were burnt by ANPP agents for them to be able to manufacture these results. When the electoral commissioner cancelled the entire result and ordered re-election, I said it was not fair, you can't cancel the election since violence was reported in that magnitude only at Obingwa. My argument was that he had the powers to cancel the results of Obingwa and declare results based on the five local governments where election went on peacefully. But he didn't do that.

There have been reports that you and the former deputy governor, Dr. Eyinnaya Abaribe, the ANPP Gubernatorial candidate who hails from Obingwa local government that polled the result you protested are now together. Is it true?

In politics there are no permanent enemies or friends but permanent interests. We have tried to clinch the governorship seat and failed, I mean our Ukwa-Ngwa people, the only other seat left for us is what God has given to us, the Senate Presidency. I think he is in that light supporting what is happening now. He was with me this morning. We are together.

So what is his explanation for what happened in Obingwa

Like I said, in politics, you have only permanent interest. Your opponent today could be your supporter tomorrow but in this case there is a hand of God in it. I was not there but God just intervened. The collation officers are all Christians and Abia State is God's own state. Don't forgot I lost in Obingwa, even with the authentic collation officer's result and by a wide margin too. But what they did was that they reduced whatever I managed to get to be able to do the damage they did to the election.

The man who was supposed to be the PDP senatorial candidate for Abia South became the AD candidate, that is Emeka Nwogwu. Can you let us into what really happened

Frankly, I fought this electoral battle on so many fronts but I always believe in Exodus 14:14 that the Lord shall fight for you and you shall keep your peace. The Emeka Nwogwugwu man picked up the AD ticket in order to fight PDP and of course he is a pure Ngwa man. Whatever votes he got, about 8,000, were mainly PDP votes because there was no AD structure anywhere in Abia State. Imo did not campaign. ANPP had no money to go around campaigning. I went to the nooks and crannies of Abia South Senatorial District and campaigned just as President Obasanjo campaigned all over the country. Some other parties did not campaign and today they are saying they won election, how did they win it? Imo didn't have bill boards. But they relied on violence and the fact that the area was Abaribe's area, so there was sympathy for Abaribe to clinch the governorship seat. Ordinarily these are my people too but the reality was that for Abaribe to show ANPP that he is on ground, I now became the victim. When they saw that they lost, they went ahead and manufactured the results.

You were part of the group that was against the governor and that is the Ukwa-Ngwa Group. It was said the ANPP even reserved the senatorial ticket for you, looking at it within the context of ethnic politics in Abia, why do you think the governor would not have fought your re-election?

The governor, I think, has realised or if he has not, will soon realise that I am by virtue of my position as a senator, the political leader of the Ukwa-Ngwa people. And, since my votes will come from them and not from the governor's zone, there was need for me to lead my people in their struggle. The wishes of my people are that they want their son to be governor but I am not a part of Otuonu (meaning one term). Otuonu is now mainly ANPP. This whole thing started when PDP decided to return the 21 PDP governors and we lost the chairmanship of the party to Okpara. Because of Abaribe's ambition, he moved to ANPP where the ticket was there for him. I remained because I had the premonition that PDP will continue to rule this country otherwise there was pressure on me to leave and join the Otuonu Group. I refused to join and when it was time for nominations to be made, they brought Imo, just to leave him there pending when I would make up my mind whether to join ANPP or not. If I had gone to ANPP, Imo would have just left the place but I believe in PDP because I was a founding member of the party. So I remained there while every other person went to ANPP, just in support of the governorship, the fight for the governorship seat. They agreed to vote for PDP in every other election but vote for Abaribe in the governorship election. In politics, one minute is too long to make a political decision, so the problem began with the order of elections. I think it dawned on Abaribe and the Otuonu people that things might not work their way. The question was: how would they convince their party that they are on ground without doing well in the first election? If they now voted for Wabara in PDP, it would have a bandwagon effect on other elections, especially on the crucial governorship polls. This was exactly why they did everything to ensure that they win this seat by hook or by crook but they were caught hands down.

Is that why you rushed to Abuja for help to get the court judgment that helped you to the Senate where you suddenly became the Senate President?

No, no, I did not rush to Abuja. Don't forget I am a Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, I was and still is up till 29th May. I came to Abuja, there was a sitting, a valedictory session. The person who rushed to Abuja is Imo and up till now he is still in Abuja. Where is this man, what is happening and why is INEC Abuja taking such a position? And I knew that Imo had penetrated, of course I had to say the true position of things. I didn't rush down there to ask Abuja to declare me winner but when it was becoming increasingly late and I knew there was a conspiracy against me, and since the South East had endorsed me, I had to come here to seek my fundamental human rights.

Did you try to meet INEC officials in Abuja?

No, I had my Form EC8A even when Imo was writing in the papers that he won and that INEC was doing one thing or another. Of course, the records are very clear at INEC Umuahia and they are there waiting for anybody to see. But INEC Abuja was more or less interfering with the decision of INEC Umuahia, so I had to go to court. I did not ask INEC to declare Wabara the winner, you can go to court and obtain a copy of the order. It says INEC should declare a winner and INEC complied, checked their records and declared Wabara the winner. It would have been a different ball game, it would have been dangerous and an interference with the tribunal matters, if the judge had said INEC should declare a particular person the winner. Having complied by issuing me a letter that I won the election but there was this other issue of certificate of return which I needed to get into the Senate. They complied with the order to declare a winner and declared Wabara the winner, how do I get the certificate? In the first place, they directed that a winner be declared and a certificate of return be issued. They declared me a winner by issuing me a letter but they did not issue certificate of return. I had to go back to court and ask the court to give another order compelling INEC to issue me a certificate of return which was what they did. But they are now confusing it as if it was only order, that was issued on the 2nd and the letter was issued on the 30th. It was a second order that was issued on the 2nd saying now that INEC has declared the winner now please complete this action by issuing the certificate of return.

But INEC is challenging that order in court now

Well, I won't know why they are doing that but that will not change the winner so that means they had me as the winner all along in their system otherwise how come they declared me and not Imo

I am not too sure of that given that Imo's name is still on the INEC web site as winner...

Well, if you had checked from the 12th to Friday after the 16th, the web site on Abia South-west was vacant, there was no name there. So he must have worked his way to Abuja, parading his fake result for somebody who must have done it for him. I know INEC Abia did not send his name because he did not win. I won't blame INEC. If somebody gives you a check of N1m for instance, and for whatever reason before you cash the check I decide to stop the check and ask you return it. If you refuse to do so, that does not mean that the check in its original form is not genuine, just like the form EC8A issued, since he did not return it. So he is parading that document because but it is worthless because in the reference of INEC Umuahia, that document has been cancelled.

Whatever had happened at the election, people still believe that the process through which you emerged as Senate President was stage-managed by the executive. While you got the court judgment, the Clerk of the National Assembly recognised it immediately while the same didn't happen in the case of Anambra case...everything showed that there were some forces working for you.

I can stretch your imagination further. Even when the matter was still on, you would recall that I never went to any journalist. People were reporting on the other contenders to that seat and I was being rated highly. I don't know who was doing that in all the papers. But the report always gave me some attention. I recall most of the newspaper review always like this: but for the legal bla bla bla of Senator Wabara, he would have been the preferred candidate for the Senate President. I never canvassed for that. But it is your own assessment, the assessment of the fourth estate of the realm. Just before the election of Senate President when I was still in court to get INEC to do what they ought to have done, somebody said Wabara could spring a surprise. Somebody also said in the paper that Wabara is an old horse, just one line but it is very powerful. All those things counted when the chips were down. I wouldn't have imagined what would have happened if God did not give that election to me. It is not a question of things being rushed. Exodus 14:14 - The lord fights for you and you keep your peace. I did not lose hope for one day and don't forget that before the elections on the 3rd, there was a communiqu・where the South-east endorsed me and said well, if you don't get our of your tribunal matters before a certain time, we will consider so and so person. My party wants to take charge of what is happening in the National Assembly unlike what happened last year. So, we had a mock election where I emerged, they went through all the documents, making sure there were no cases in the tribunal. All the matters had been withdrawn, including the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) matter. The APGA man withdrew and joined PDP and that is to my credit.

Many people believe that given the manner you emerged as Senate President, that you will not be able to assert the independence of the legislature.

As far as the independence of the legislature is concerned I think it is a misconception to talk aboput independence. There cannot be total independence of every arm of government because they are rather inter-dependent. If you talk of independence that means you will go back to the last time where we had all kinds of trouble. Both arms of government sit down and decide on what to do provided the interest of the masses is adequately taken care of. I don't see why there should be problems, I am not a boxer neither is His Excellency the President a boxer. In American democracy which we copy, the Senate President is the vice-president. He is part of the executive as well as being part of the legislature. The Americans are nort stupid, they must have good reasosn for that. If you continue to quarrel with the President you will lead the country nowhere. Maybe we should think about that so that.

Talking about your party, don't you think that the problem you have is being exercebated by people within the party, especially colleaguesfrom your zone, who are aspiring for the office of the Senate President?

I agree with you but I leave them to the judgment of God because the Bible says judge not so that you will not be judged. I know all of them but my hands are very clean. They are the ones sponsoring all the advertorial in the papers. If I didn't get out of my tribunal problem before the 3rd they would have abandoned Imo when the Senate President would have emerged and you would have seen me coming to the Senate as an ordinary Senator without hassles. Nobody would have protested my victory then because I would be no threat to their ambition. That is their plan, to prevent me from being on the Senate floor on June 3. That explains why they were shocked. I know them and they know that I know them but I will not mention names until the fullness of time. But they will see that there is God and nobody can change what God wants.

While the crisis was going on and allegations were made against you, you didn't talk. Why?

I think that was my fault. I don't like joining issues and by my background as a diplomat, we were taught to be seen and not to be heard. But that is very wrong in politics and I have learnt my lesson the hard way. I believed there was no point talking, I believed in INEC. As a civil servant, we do what we call thorough investigation on cases which I think INEC Abuja probably did not do. When Imo came and there was all this noise about the election, they ought to have invited the electoral commissioner for Abia State and the electoral officers in the local government where we had these problems to find out the true situation. Some people were interested in what was happening, I don't want to mention names, they didn't want to do that and I knew that the truth will eventually surface. Whatever document I am going to give you is in INEC record there in Abia.

But Imo is alleging that you have started collecting results from agents and they were being changed for you.

I am not INEC, INEC is the final authority in this matter. Why is he not talking about his agent who gave him a fake result? Why did that happen? Why did he do that? All we are talking about revolves round ANPP and PDP. The results of the other people were just left over. He knew what he was doing, infact it was not even him, I would say it was Abaribe because Imo is a political neophyte, we are from the same local government. I would say it was just a question of trying to rig by all means so that it would be said that ANPP won the state, but it backfired. And if they had money, it would have been history because the collation officer insisted that this was my result and that result should not be collected from another person except himself.

I spoke to some people in your senatorial zone and they said that you are always in Abuja and that you are not easily accessible to the people, even whey they come to Abuja. The insinuation is that you are an Abuja politician with no grassroot base

It's not true, I am down to earth. This is my fifth election in a row and it is not a question of having one in 1920 and another in 1945. Fifth election in a row, you probably must have met the Otuonu people and if you go by the results in the various local government areas you will know that they are telling a lie. If a man wins four out of five local governments, that shows his popularity. You must have met some people who are just there to call a dog a bad name in order to hang it. The people you met could not be our people.

Now, finally, how do you see all these things playing out? I am sure the judgment of the Almighty God will prevail. God that has done this for me and my people will sustain it.

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Tijina, I do not particularly fancy the physiological make up of Chairman Chukwu..pot belly, but I do not see it affecting his thinking faculty or his ability to manage the Super Eagles ------>WAYPOINT 1BIAFRA.

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Waypoint 1Biafra, Chairman Chukwu..look is of that a man of his age..has nothing to do with his capacity and skills as a coach---->OKWYNWUKA.

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Thanks---Okwynwuka for re-direction before that felllow confuse issues...chukwu is more fit, experience and accomplished more than the a former 'Slim" coaches...Nigeria-----NWA ARO

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And you wonder whose level of comprehension is questionable?

Hail Biafra


[ June 16, 2003, 11:34 PM: Message edited by: Waypoint1Biafra ]