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Iwu deserves prompt rustication By Okey Ndibe

LAST week, Wole Soyinka captured the mood of most decent Nigerians when he described INEC's bizarre position on Anambra's gubernatorial tussle as a case of an institution shooting on the foot and the head at once. The bard's metaphor bore his quintessential signature of directness and poetic poignancy. In asking an appeal court to nullify the contested 2003 gubernatorial election in Anambra and order a new election, INEC exposed a certain depraved compulsion. In particular, Maurice Iwu, the professor of pharmacy who was a few months ago enthroned as the electoral body's chief, has given Nigerians a glimpse of the kind of umpire he has been chosen to be. It is a dreadful picture.

As a follower of Nigeria's bewildering politics, I confess to a profound uneasiness about the state of the nation. A democratic system that was at its birth in 1999 a feeble, emaciated and endangered baby seems in danger of been dispatched to an early death to appease one man's outsized ambition. President Olusegun Obasanjo has made himself a plague on the Nigerian nation, a kind of Abachaesque monster devoid of any restraint, much less a sense of irony. Nigerians' dreams of achieving a democratic ethos are, as we speak, besieged by the insouciant intrigues of a cynical president and his equally misshapen coterie of court jesters, clowns and comedians in agbada. But the more I think about Nigeria's darkening prognosis, the more I think about one name: Iwu. Iwu's INEC is being re-shaped to function, not as an impartial referee, but as the facilitator of the most callously scripted rape of the Nigerian voter since 1960 or even before. Unless the nation's democratic forces, regardless of ethnic or partisan affiliation, close ranks today and demand Iwu's rustication, we may wake up in 2007 and see that INEC has played an undertaker to the concept of elections.

A sliver of hope lies, I want to believe, in the volume and intensity of rebukes being directed at Iwu, the agency he misruns, as well as Iwu's overt and covert pied pipers. Two days ago, this newspaper carried a trenchant editorial on Iwu's scheme to deliver Anambra to anti-democratic forces through an electoral hanky panky. After exposing the legal as well as moral bankruptcy of INEC's appeal, the paper's editorial board stated as follows: "In our opinion, INEC's cancellation and fresh elections plea in the Anambra Governorship appeal as well as the other positions and pronouncements of the INEC Chairman, epitomise the dangers in allowing the President unbridled discretion to nominate and appoint the Chairman and members of INEC. We reiterate our position in our earlier editorials on the reform of Nigeria's electoral laws that the President's unbridled discretion in the nomination and appointment of the INEC Chairman and members should be removed or considerably subjected to stricter legislative control and scrutiny."

No Nigerian with a stake in the nation's survival should take the paper's words lightly. For if Nigerians ignore the portents of Iwu's strange legalistic manouevres in pursuit of a patently corrupt and untenable option in Anambra, then they would be co-operating in their eventual and larger electoral disinheritance. For Iwu and the INEC under his control, Anambra is merely a testing ground, a rehearsal for the wholesale viral infestation of the larger body politic. If Iwu succeeds in illegally handing Anambra and its treasures to the president and the Uba boys, then he would have perversely demonstrated his credentials to mangle and wangle the elections of 2007. For Nigerians, it may be a straight trip from the impunity of Anambra to the "Mother of all Shock and Awe."

Who is playing the tune to which, it should be clear to Nigerians, Iwu's INEC is waltzing? Last week, I speculated that Iwu seemed out to act out a script authored by the Obasanjo-Uba coalition. After my column's appearance, a reader sent me an e-mail whose content, if true, ought to open Nigerians' eyes to the nature of the quandary facing their democratic dreams today. The Ubas and Iwu, wrote the correspondent, go back a long way. In his Nsukka days, wrote the correspondent, Iwu and Senator Ugochukwu Uba were very close. "In fact, when Professor Iwu had to leave the university for greener pastures in the U.S. in the late 1980's, he approached Senator Uba (who was then a bachelor) to take in his son, Uchenna Iwu, until the young man rounded up his secondary school education. Uchenna Iwu now lives in the U.S." The correspondent continued: "When I heard that Professor Iwu had been made chairman of INEC, I expected that the Ubas will use him to make another move in Anambra state. I wasn't surprised when INEC started asking to conduct another election in the state."

If the information is sound, then Nigerians ought to begin to take a harder look both at Iwu's role in the unfolding fiasco in Anambra as well as his pronouncements on the conduct of the 2007 elections. One peep into the kind of elections Iwu hopes to supervise came in his famous announcement that his commission would no longer countenance foreign monitors of Nigerian elections. What is this man so keen to conceal from the gaze of foreign monitors? Unless he has been primed to take electoral malpractice to stratospheric zones, why is he so desperate to hide his hands? Given Nigeria's history of fraudulent elections, why does this brilliant pharmacist not recognise the boon of conducting an election acclaimed by local as well as foreign observers and monitors as a paragon of integrity and probity? At a time when Obasanjo's government is throwing billions of naira into a project to burnish Nigeria's image abroad, why is the nation's electoral body retreating from engagement with potential verifiers of the superbness of its elections?

Nigeria, I fear, is on the cusp of a sudden, shocking assault on its democratic dreams. The schism between Obasanjo and Vice President Atiku Abubakar appears to be widening into a battle between the retired military wing of Nigerian politics and its civialianized hordes. A president whose young son just paid more than half a million dollars in cash for a property in Brooklyn, New York continues to prate about his anti-corruption stance. A president whose term in office is constitutionally bound to terminate in 2007 continues to act and speak with calculated ambiguity as his rented acolytes orchestrate a campaign for a third term. The ruling PDP, a party now effectively hijacked by the president's loyalists, has just erased elections from its process of choosing candidates for future elections. I hope that Nigerians do not misread the signal, for it is but a prelude to the party's larger goal, the end of that democratic illusion afforded by elections.

Tony Anenih (one of the president's warmest friends) once warned Nigerians that only Obasanjo, not Nigerian voters, would decide who must succeed him in 2007. Shortly after, the president, in what some mistook as an act of modesty, announced that only God, again not voters, would determine his successor. Not of this is a mystery to me, for both men are right in their polluted ways. Anenih knows that Obasanjo thinks himself superior to one hundred and twenty million Nigerians. On his part, Obasanjo acts as if he believes himself to be some almighty deity. And since the president's god is capable of doing anything, Nigerians may wake up in 2007 to see themselves saddled still with a man who imagines himself an emperor. And there would be Iwu's signature to authenticate the legitimacy of the wondrous "electoral" abracadabra!


Prof Iwu’s evil mission Thursday, September 22, 2005 People and Politics Ochereome Nnanna

PROFESSOR Maurice Iwu’s real mission as the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission is beginning to show already, so soon after he was sworn-in. It is becoming clear that he has been sent to continue the acts of democracy subversion from where his predecessors, the late Justice Ephraim Akpata and Dr. Abel Guobadia stopped.

Akpata, you will remember, was the retired judge who, on being sworn-in, told his employer, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, the Head of State then, that he would not be like the proverbial piper who dances to the tune of the paymaster. He would collect the money of the paymaster and sing any tune he liked, said he.

It turned out, before long, that he was merely dramatising noisily to divert popular attention from a government grand agenda of imposing a post-military order convenient to its vested interests. Those who had become familiar with government’s antics, however, remained sceptical, and their reason for cynicism was made manifest shortly after. A ruling party known as the People’s Democratic Party was chosen to succeed the military. A former military Head of State, Olusegun Obasanjo, was picked to run the government in place of his murdered townsman, Chief Moshood Abiola, the winner of the annulled June 12, 1993 presidential election. In fact, Obasanjo was released from prison, pardoned for coup plotting and given the presidential ticket of the Party.

The laws forbade regional parties. Despite this, Akpata’s Commission, following a government script, registered the Alliance for Democracy (AD), though like some other regional political outfits, it did not meet INEC’s requirements. The INEC also looked the other way when the Kaduna presidential convention of the All People’s Party APP) produced a presidential candidate who neither was a member of the Party nor did he participate in the convention. Rules were gruesomely violated to conduce the transition to the skewed pacifist agenda of the retreating military, and the Akpata INEC was there to tolerate and promote them until a transition programme after the heart of the military, not those of the Nigerian electorate, was achieved.

AKPATA, still insisting that his Commission worked independently of government manipulations, died a few months later in December, 1999. Meanwhile, the regime of President Obasanjo was already inflexibly committed to a mandatory second term in office. The President took all of five months to source Dr. Guobadia with the help of Chief Tony Anenih, Obasanjo’s chief political mascot. Guobadia’s mission was (a) to return Obasanjo to a second term, (b) to ensure that the PDP won a "landslide" victory across the nation and (c) to obtain for the President a political home base, which he had lacked before then. One of the travesties of democracy that Guobadia presided over was the debacle in Anambra State, which has haunted its perpetrators like an implacable ghost ever since.

Guobadia could not clean up his Anambra mess until his retirement in May this year, when he had to yield place to Professor Maurice Iwu, an acolyte of the Uba political clan. As soon as Iwu was sworn-in, his mission in office began to manifest.

It has now become clear that Iwu has been appointed to deliver the following political objectives for the Obasanjo ruling clique through the instrumentality of the INEC: (a) to ensure, by hook or crook, the restoration of the governorship of Anambra State to the Uba family; (b) to pilot Obasanjo’s (and of course, the Ubas’) political ambition in 2007 to success, whether the President succeeds in his current maneouvres to contest again in 2007 or he decides to palm it off to a perceived arch-loyalist.

IN going about these errands, Iwu has thrown all caution to the wind. Another macabre judicial precedent is being packaged. Since the Ibrahim Nabaruma Election Petition Tribunal finally pronounced Governor Ngige the loser of the poll, Iwu’s INEC, acting out his sponsors’ script, has now filed an appeal at the appellate court calling for a nullification of the poll. INEC, which is supposed to defend the work of its own hands in Anambra State, is now the chief promoter of its nullification! Iwu wants a new election so that he can personally put an Uba right inside the Government House of Anambra State.

Another worrisome signal Iwu is sending out are that Nigeria would adopt the controversial electronic machine system of voting, and in doing so, the INEC would not tolerate the presence of international poll observers! The potential anti-democratic evils that could be wrecked through this dual policy are incalculable. If allowed to have his way, Iwu’s ideas will foreclose the polls of 2007 in favour of his sponsors in the ruling Party.

It is high time Nigerians woke up from their slumber and decided that we either have democracy or we just leave the people in government to do whatever they like. Why talk about multi-partism, the sovereign rights of the people to choose their leaders, the rule of law, the independence of the electoral umpire institution, separation of powers among the various arms of government, the judiciary as the last hope of the common citizen, and so on, when all the time, the government of the day keeps subverting these values while we watch? What good will it do to our democracy if Iwu succeeds in securing his wish for another poll in Anambra State? Democracy will be defeated for good. It be a triumph of evil, about which there will be no lawful remedy because every judicial precedent can only be built upon.

IT is time all pro-democratic forces and the entire civil society community rose to the full height of their calling to put Iwu and his sponsors in their proper places! If Iwu succeeds in Anambra State, he will become unstoppable.

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INEC: It‘ll Be Impossible to Rig Elections

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) chairman, Prof-essor Maurice Iwu, yesterday assured that when the commission’s on-going reforms are completed ahead of the 2007 general polls, it would be impossible to rig elections. BLAH BLAH BLAH!!!

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Tongue twisters and mind benders By Levi Obijiofor

Soon after the unanimous decision last week by the Appeal Court justices in which former governor Chris Ngige was told unambiguously that he had been wearing for three years a title that he acquired fraudulently in collaboration with the self-confessed chief election rigger in Anambra State, all parties to the dispute mounted the rostrum to express satisfaction with the judgment. Today, I attempt to deconstruct the official spin placed on the Anambra State political saga by just about every public officer who had a view on the Appeal Court judgment.

Of particular significance was the face saving but reprehensible comments made by the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Maurice Iwu. The Appeal Court justices had criticised INEC severely for the blunders it committed in Anambra State. For example, while the presiding Justice, Rabiu Danlami Muhammad, said that "INEC's behaviour" made a "mockery of the judicial process and is capable of undermining the credibility of the entire legal process and should be condemned," Justice Jean Omokri was more scathing: "The stand of INEC from the tribunal to the appeal shows that it is a biased umpire. A house divided against itself cannot stand. INEC is not expected to file an appeal. It should have left the parties to fight their cases. Its conduct is mischievous for calling for the nullification of an election it defended strongly at the lower court. It is a shame."

While presenting new governor Peter Obi with the Certificate of Return last week, Iwu tried but failed to assert the impartial role of INEC in the dispute. Iwu sounded penitent when he acknowledged the weaknesses of his organisation: "We are a human institution.... We can make mistakes, but we are courageous enough to own up our mistakes. In this particular case, it was a mistake, and our system said, we made a mistake and we are ready to accept it." The key question really is: how many years did it take INEC to "own up" the blunders in Anambra? Also, did INEC admit willingly its errors in Anambra or did the harsh words of the Appeal Court justices force Iwu to offer a public apology?

When Iwu described INEC was a "human institution" that was susceptible to mistakes, he created the impression that INEC officers were appointed and paid by the Nigerian state to make grave mistakes. Last week, Iwu celebrated what he described as INEC's respect for due process but he forgot that it was the same INEC which had, some months earlier, asked the Appeal Court to allow it to organise fresh elections in Anambra. Of course, the Appeal Court justices were less than impressed with INEC's sudden reversal of position. It is mind-boggling that a supposedly impartial and independent election umpire would argue for three years that the governorship election it conducted in Anambra State was free and fair and later, in a volte- face, pleaded that the governorship election in Anambra was indeed riddled with irregularities and a fresh poll should be conducted.

Far from being forthright, Iwu preferred to twist the minds of Nigerians so that everyone could perhaps downgrade the gross inequities committed by INEC and its officers in Anambra State in April 2003. There's no way INEC and Iwu would convince anyone that the election outcome in Anambra was a simple human mistake. There are genuine mistakes and there are deliberate mistakes. What INEC did in Anambra State in 2003 was a deliberate fraud planned and executed long before the election date. Shamefully it took three years of gunfights, intimidation and court challenges before INEC could own up to its blunders. By responding to the Appeal Court criticisms in the manner he did, Iwu, as head of INEC, was merely trying to hide INEC's dirty rags from the public. He did not succeed…

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Maurice Iwu's death wishBy Okey Ndibe

Maurice Iwu, the brilliant professor who is on course to be a disastrous electoral umpire, likes to prate these days about patriotism. To hear him tell it, Iwu is so determined to make the 2007 polls an emblem of integrity, transparency and probity that he has pledged to martyr himself if that's what it takes. The Punch of Thursday, May 8, carried a telling caption: "2007: I'm ready to die-Iwu". The report opened with this statement: "The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Maurice Iwu, on Wednesday said he was prepared to die to ensure a free and fair election in 2007." The Punch reported that Iwu "said he would insist on a fraud-free poll despite intimidations and the threat to his life from persons opposed to having a credible election in the country."

I beg the man's pardon, but I just can't take him seriously. He cuts an unimpressive, unpersuasive figure. In fact, if anybody epitomizes a threat to the credibility of next year's general elections, that person, I suggest, is Iwu himself. His provenance as well as his record at the helm of the electoral body inspires little confidence in his steeliness and independence. As I indicated in a series of pieces following his nomination by President Olusegun Obasanjo, Iwu should never have got the job. It's sad that the National Assembly shirked its responsibility by insouciantly affixing its imprimatur on Iwu's nomination.

The first warning signal lies in Iwu's relationship with the infamous Uba family. It is a matter of open speculation that Iwu's ascendancy was pushed by the trio of Andy, Ugochukwu and Chris Uba. Andy Uba is Obasanjo's well-known confidante and Man Friday, the dependable facilitator of the president's licit and illicit schemes. Though reticent by nature, often shying away from the spotlight, Andy is known to wield an influence within the sectors of power far in excess of his official designation. It is also known that Andy covets the governorship of Anambra come 2007.

Ugochukwu Uba is the undistinguished holder of one of the senatorial seats from Anambra state. Despite the legal triumph that upheld his election, the perception lingers in some quarters that he is something of a usurper. His emergence as a senator is as shadowy and open to question as his record in office has been, to put a mild word on it, unremarkable. If the quantity and quality of his legislative activity is to serve as a yardstick, then Senator Uba is best characterized as an absentee voice. Though representing a zone plagued by serious crises, including erosion, catastrophic federal roads as well as crushing poverty, Uba has stoutly resisted any temptation to lend his mouth to the narration of his constituents' plight. The one time he was ever heard from (and quite loud and clear) was when he waxed with the shameless minority that attempted to subvert the will of Nigerians by endorsing a third term for the president. Otherwise, Uba has been conspicuous in his silence, one of the most solid practitioners of the art of representation through muteness.

Senator Uba's quiescence is virtuous only when juxtaposed against the loud, pathetic preening of younger sibling Chris Uba, the young man whose wealth has bought him neither temperance nor a modicum of wisdom, the unfledged rustic who has become a perfect metaphor for all that is hideous and exceptionable in the breed of political godfathers. Chris Uba's curriculum vitae as a politician includes such items as orchestrating the abduction of his estranged political godson, marshalling thugs to sweep through his home state in an orgy of destruction, and gleefully confessing to Obasanjo as well as the world that he had presided over the rigging of the 2003 elections in Anambra state.

What's my point? Simply that Iwu, a candidate championed by the Ubas, should not have been allowed to work even in a subordinate capacity in an electoral body that aspires to hold respectable elections. Had members of the national legislature not slumbered when constitutional duty required particular alertness, Iwu's nomination should have been dead on arrival last year. Nigeria would not have been encumbered by an electoral chief given to pompous flights of martyrdom. When a man with Iwu's antecedents asserts that unnamed antagonists "want to kill me because I am saying the time has come to stop the people who have manipulated the electoral system for so long," his pathos should rouse us to derisive laughter. When he adds that "By God's grace, we will stop them in 2007" or proclaims that "There will be a free and fair election, even if that will be the last thing I will do in my life," we should open that beer and have a hearty laugh at the man's sense of theatre.

Iwu is tainted by reason of his supposed sponsors. His record in office is also far from stellar. His cooperation in Jerry Ugokwe's gambit to keep a purloined seat in the House of Representatives is an abiding smudge. Ugokwe, a chum of Obasanjo, had been declared an unelected impostor in the House of Representatives where he'd assumed a seat that belonged to Christian C. Okeke. Instead of accepting the rulings, Ugokwe sought to make a self-serving mockery of the nation's electoral laws by filing an untenable appeal in the ECOWAS court. Despite the clear folly of Ugokwe's expedition to the ECOWAS court, Iwu's INEC went to ludicrous lengths to frustrate Okeke's legitimate claims to a certificate of return as the duly elected candidate.

Iwu then set a new record of shame when his commission adopted a bizarre posture on the legal challenge mounted by Peter Obi to recover his gubernatorial mandate in Anambra. While the case proceeded at an electoral tribunal, INEC defended its determination that Chris Ngige of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party had won the governorship pennant in 2003. Yet, the moment the tribunal pooh-poohed that position, Iwu's commission filed an appeal claiming that the 2003 polls were irremediably defective, and seeking leave to conduct a new election. Only the politically blind could have failed to recognize what was at stake in INEC's volte-face. The commission was in cahoots with the PDP to smuggle in another governor who would be more amenable to the parasitic designs of the party's viperous godfathers. It came as little surprise when the appellate court both upheld the tribunal's verdict and scolded INEC for its scandalous petition.

Iwu's messianic complex should be exposed for what it is: a dud. Far from possessing the will and muscle to shepherd Nigeria through elections with reasonable odds of passing muster, Iwu is burdened with negatives that render him unfit for his job. This is the man who came up with the bewildering idea of introducing electronic voting, this in a nation with notorious power breaches. He also advanced the curious idea that Nigerian elections would be better served if foreign monitors and authenticators were jettisoned. How does a man with such baggage find the spunk to project himself as capable of conducting paragons of elections?

In the end, we must not forget that Iwu was entrenched in office by the same coalition of forces and interests that tried to orchestrate the doomed third term. Nigerians ought to ask themselves whether these interests have any reason to promote elections that stand the test of credibility. Let us illustrate with Andy Uba. Given his last name, his gubernatorial ambition in Anambra is a hopeless case. Yet, until the president's third term fantasy was re-made into "thud" term blues (apologies to Chuks Iloegbunam), a few pundits could state with utter confidence that Andy Uba's gubernatorial "installation" was a done deal. From most accounts, Iwu is a brilliant scientist. The National Assembly should rusticate him from INEC and send him back where he can thrive: his laboratory.

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Maurice Iwu- The full story of a fraudulent umpire
Fri 09th February, 2007 10:45:19 pm

By Omoyele Sowore & Ikenna Ellis-Ezenekwe
The debunking of Prof. Maurice Iwu’s claim of having obtained an undergraduate degree from the University of Bradford as revealed by Saharareportersthat has now been topped by the University spokesperson indicating that Prof. Iwu’s “undergraduate degree or certificate” from Cameroon as presented to the University was neither verified nor was Prof Iwu graduate degree earned through in-class work. In essence, Prof. Iwu’s study at University of Bradford, as Saharareporters discovered was earned via research work (M.Pharm by research). However discrepancies in Iwu’s backgrounds appear to extend beyond his escapades in masking gaps in his educational qualifications. New information discovered by Saharareportersreveals the shady activities surrounding Maurice Iwu and his non-profit organization – Bioresources Development and Conservation Inc {BDCP} which Prof. Iwu founded and piloted as his research outfit since 1993.

In 1999 at the 16th International Botanical Conference, Maurice Iwu made the announcement that he has found the cure for Ebola following his groundbreaking research under the auspices of his non-profit outfit-BDCP. Maurice Iwu indicated that Garcinia kola extract stopped the replication of the Ebola virus. Maurice Iwu followed his proclamation with the call that "Our limiting factor is funds. If we have a sponsor, we can do it in no time." Judging from available information, Prof. Iwu received lots of monies towards the development of his findings. As Saharareportersdiscovered, Prof. Iwu received millions of dollars. BDCP financial earnings as stated in Form 990 which BDCP presented to the United States Internal Revenue Service {IRS}. According to the form, BDCP amassed through grants and donors the amount of $425,947 in 1999, $367,870 in 2001, $640,917 in 2002 and $980,771 in 2003– totaling over $2.4million. It also stated clearly on the form that all of the monies were spent for the purpose of “medical research on the use of African herb for medicine”. However till date there appears no mention of further development of Garcinia kola extract to cure Ebola or any significant discoveries beyond some patents of which one of them was an “Alkaloids of Picralima Nitida used for treatment of Protozoal diseases” invented by Maurice Iwu et al., and assigned to the U.S. Secretary of the Army, Washington, D.C. U.S. Patent 5,290,553 issued March 1, 1994. Interestingly, neither U.S. nor European pharmaceutical houses have shown interest in following the leads.

In the Form 990 tax documents submitted to the United State Government, Prof. Iwu and his partners made a deliberate effort to hide the members to their Board of Trustees by avoiding to list their names in the form as expected. In the Article of Amendment of Bioresources Development and Conversation Program – completed in November 1994, it listed five members as members to the Board of Directors as Prof. Maurice Iwu, Dr. Lisa Messerole, Cosmas N. Obialor, Thomas F. Tata, and Dr. Chris Okunji.

It becomes automatic the obvious quandary over Prof. Maurice Iwu’s research outfit, the services it really provided and the money raised. This is as the tax forms for the year 2004, 2005 and 2006 appears missing and all attempts to retrieve them from principal officers of BDCP met a brickwall. Attempts at contacting Prof. Maurice Iwu and his partner D. Chris Okunji did not yield results, messages were left for Dr. Okunji that was not returned including e-mails messages to him, the only time our investigators spoke to him at his office in Maryland he promised to call back after a “crucial meeting” but never did. However, this dodgy behavior meshes with what a source who is a PhD holder in Pharmacy and a former colleague of Prof. Maurice Iwu at University of Nsukka told Saharareporters. The source stated, “I know that Iwu is not a Pharmacist! Knowing Iwu's penchant for publicity, he would have been featuring in all activities of Pharmacists but no, he does not because he is not one of us.” The source continues that “Prof. Maurice Iwu is not registered with the Pharmacists Council of Nigeria (PCN). Maurice Iwu couldn’t have his way in the Faculty of Pharmacy, UNN, to be Dean (the rules are clear on who qualifies to be Dean of a School of Pharmacy in Nigeria; you must hold a 1st degree in Pharmacy!). The reason Prof. Maurice Iwu left to set up the Bioresources Conservation non-profit outfit that concentrated on herbal aspect of pharmacy is because it attracted a lot of funding from the US which he used to feather his nest”. Also, Saharareporters discovered that Prof. Iwu suspicious stints while at UNN reverberated in a manner that caused his promotion to be postponed still the year he was scheduled to leave UNN.

As discovered by Saharareporters, the BDCP no longer have a physical address in the United States. Even more interesting is that the address and telephone number previously stated in BDCP’s official website as their physical address and telephone number was suspiciously changed immediately following the first publication by Saharareporters on Prof. Iwu. The new telephone number was found to be an answering service and the address fictitious one; this is according to the telephone operator who answered the call. Also raising the bar of suspicion is the manner the address for BDCP has constantly changed. The latest change of address from Maryland to a doubtful address in Washington DC as Saharareporters have discovered is an attempt to avert further prosecution by the District Court of Maryland. This is because Department of Assessments and Taxation for Maryland State has barred Prof. Maurice Iwu’s BDCP from doing business in the State of Maryland since October 3, 1995 – confirmed by a letter signed by Paul Anderson of the Department of Assessments and Taxation for State of Maryland. Also, other documents obtained by Saharareporters investigators from the District Court of Montgomery County for State of Maryland shows that Prof. Iwu’ BDCP has thus been sued by Montgomery Court on charges of non-payment of taxes under case number 060100257832006. This is according to an affidavit signed by Robert Hagedoorn – the Chief, Division of Treasury, and N. Pedersen – Assistant County Attorney that states that the “defendant and BDCP owe personal property taxes, interest and penalties”. BDCP is scheduled to appear in court on April 4, 2007.

Sources intimately familiar with Prof. Maurice Iwu’s activities while in the United States confided in Saharareporters and revealed that Prof. Maurice Iwu did not only utilize his research outfit for research purposes alone, that he used the outfit as a cover to engage in what a source called “immigration activities” for friends, acolytes and coleagues. According to the source who also indicate that she was also a benefactor, revealed that Prof. Iwu used the research outfit to as a vehicle to bring in so-called researchers into America under the guise of research work. Another source who also spoke to Saharareporters in confidence disclosed that Prof. Iwu used his research outfit to bring her into the country and that she has co-authored a few of Prof. Iwu’s research publications. She goes on to add that she still resides in America illegally because she has not been able to change her status.

New reports also unearthed by Saharareporters indicate that Prof. Iwu’s BDCP have had its share of financial dishonesty. As gathered through Court records, Prof. Maurice Iwu may have deceived the US based Citibank in the amount of $45, 000 which he used to finance The International Congress on Industrial Utilization of Tropical Plants and Conservation of Biodiversity Conference held at Enugu in February 14-20, 1993 hosted by his non-profit corporation - Bioresources Development and Conservation Programme.
According to official documents obtained from Circuit Court of Montgomery, on Monday, August 10, 1992, Prof. Maurice Iwu’s son deposited a Check drawn on the United States Treasury Department in the amount of $5,000 payable to Prof. Iwu - into his father’s Citibank checking account {Acct. number XXXX2549}. Instead of crediting Prof. Iwu’s checking account with a $5,000 deposit, Citibank erroneously credited Prof. Iwu’s account with a $50,000 deposit on August 11, 1992. The error resulted in the erroneous overall credit to Prof. Iwu’s account in the amount of $45,000. Prof. Maurice Iwu who noticed the error on the following Monday August 17, 1992, acted immediately to transfer the sum of $20,000 into his savings account on the same day. Three days later which was on Friday August 21, 1992, he transferred the remaining $25,000 out of the checking account into the same savings account. On the same day of August 21, 1992, Prof. Maurice Iwu withdrew $35,000 from his savings account and converted it to a Cashier’s Check that was then transferred to London through Chevy Chase Bank in Maryland to National Westminster Bank in London. The $35,000 was then transferred to Bioresources Development and Conservation Program {BDCP} in Nigeria “to pay for expense connected with the International Congress being hosted by BDCP”.

According to the BDCP financial statement prepared for the event and signed by Dr. Chris Okunji – the Conference Treasurer, the transferred amount of $35,000 was recorded in the document as “Donations from Overseas through Prof. Iwu”. Prior to traveling to Enugu for the conference, Prof. Maurice Iwu was approached by the bank to repay the overage. He told the bank that he has completely spent the money because he thought that the money came from one of the grants he had applied for – this is before Prof. Iwu testified in court that he brought the overage to Citibank’s attention immediately he noticed it.
But before Prof. Iwu was dragged to court, Citibank and Prof. Iwu had reached an agreement on a repayment plan both verbally and in writing from Mr. Ruppert – Vice President of Citibank in a letter addressed to Prof. Iwu and dated December 23, 1992. The letter acknowledged Prof. Iwu’s initial payment of $5,000 and outlined the agreed repayment plan as requiring Prof. Iwu to repay $10,000 in January 1993 and the balance of $30,000 in March 1993. But Prof. Iwu stopped repaying and left for Enugu to facilitate his BDCP Conference.

Upon returning from his trip to Enugu, Prof. Iwu was informed by Citibank of the laps in payments in a letter by Mr. Ruppert dated March 18, 1993 which stated in part that, “on February 3, 1993 you called and left a voice mail message indicating that you had just arrived home from an overseas trip and you would not be able to make the $10,000 payment until the end of February 1993. To date we have not received this payment.” The Vice President of Citibank, Mr. Ruppert continued in the same letter to state that, “your unwillingness to commit to a satisfactory repayment schedule implies to us that you do not intend to repay your debt.” To this, Prof. Iwu became defiant in his refusal to repay the bank as agreed. This he stated in a letter dated March 29, 1993 and addressed to the Vice President of Citibank – Mr. Patrick Ruppert. He states,“I was never indebted to you and that this whole transaction arose because Citibank messed up my project account which I operated at the bank”. In this same letter, he states, “I have been away to Europe and Africa since December 18, 1992 on previously scheduled travel in connection with my work. I returned to the USA briefly in the first week of February and promptly informed you of my inability to make any payments to you by the end of February and that I was traveling. I discussed with you during the meeting, I will pay $5,000 on or about November 15, and make subsequent payments in February, May, September and December 1993”. If, however, I receive a reimbursement from UNIDO {based on the request I have submitted} then I will pay the entire amount in full by March 1993. Prof. Iwu however made additional payments that total up to $17,000 before being dragged to court by Citibank seeking reimbursement of the remaining $28,000. Following nearly two years of litigation, both parties reached a settlement agreement and mutual release on February 22 1995 that mandated Prof. Iwu to repay the said amount. The details of the agreement stipulated for Prof. Maurice Iwu to make a first repayment to Citibank in the amount $4,000 no later than March 10, 1995, and then a second repayment of $4,000 on April 15, 1995. The remaining $20,000 owed will be repaid through monthly automatic debits of $750 into a new Prof. Maurice Iwu’s checking account which the courts stipulated that Prof. Iwu must open no later March 10, 1995. The debits were said to begin March 10, 1995 to be fully repaid in May 1997. Saharareporters has no information that indicates whether the amount was eventually repaid. Saharareporters placed calls to Samuel Iwu and left messages that have not been returned.

Also, Saharareporters discovered from official documents obtained from the District Court of Maryland for Montgomery County that on October 19, 1998, Prof. Iwu and Dr. Okunji both serving as President and Treasurer respectively to the BDCP received a $25,000 loan on behalf of Bioresources Development and Conservation Program Inc {BDCP} from Riggs National Bank. Prof. Maurice Iwu who acted as the personal guarantor for BDCP failed to repay the loan within the stipulated timeframe allocated. The bank in turn dragged Iwu’s BDCP to court. Interestingly, a Cashier Check drawn out of Chevy Chase Bank in Bethesda, Maryland was presented on December 4, 2006, by Samuel Iwu {Maurice Iwu’s son} in the amount $25,619.08 for repayment of the loan. Why the loan was suddenly repaid after Prof. Iwu mounted the throne of INEC becomes the obvious question, one may responsibly ask. As sources who to Saharareportersstate, it points suspicion to the origin of the money and nature of dubiousness surrounding the activities at Prof. Maurice Iwu’s BDCP.

Careful examination of the character exhibited by Prof. Maurice Iwu from both his backgrounds and current activities as the INEC Chairman strongly points to a man who habitually makes false promises and failed promises. His grandiose utterance that he has found the cure to Ebola messes with his latest promise to have the candidate register available to the Nigerian public on Monday February 5, 2007. Both have turned out to be broken promise. Other indicators such as his dubious escapades with Citibank and his other creditors point to the same trait of making promises that he can fulfill. For the elections of 2003, INEC registered about 60million voters but in 2007 was only able to register 57million. The concern is whether Prof. Maurice Iwu would be able to deliver a free and fair election as promised. The ball is now in the court of everyday Nigerians to determine.

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A look at people that allowed their profiles to be corrupted by village illiterates; Justice ephraim akpata, Dr. abel guobadia and now Professor maurice iwu!! From their antecedents, actions and moral view I can predict with certainty that they somehow badly cheated during their university or secondary school days. Ihe agwo muru agahi iyi agwo – a snake must give birth to a snake. - Posted by MeBiafran September 22, 2005

Maurice Iwu whom I understood to be another one of those ‘Professors’ went on failed damage control. My question to him is what’s so difficult to say hey, it was my corrupted (Abel Guobadia) robotic awusa predecessor that mangled it and my job now is to fix all the mess left behind by this awusa dude? Once said, he should not have been seen in anything that may have usurped the democratic process but guess what, he failed the Igbo people as expected of a political jobber who may in the final analysis not entitled to the prefix he bears. What institution gave this soured palm wine ‘professor’ that title, for how long and in what field, isi ewu and nkwobi? - Posted by MeBiafran March 24, 2006

Let Iwu’s apologists please know that what they see is not what it seems. Even the laboratory thing, whom will we ask – aga aju onye? - Posted by MeBiafran June 15, 2006

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Is Iwu finally unravelling?

Thursday, March 15, 2007 People and Politics
Ochereome Nnanna

WHEN Professor Maurice Iwu was appointed as the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), close watchers of the political saga in Anambra State since 2003 raised an alarmed. They felt that after the complete failure of the Uba political clan to capture the machinery of governance in the state, the appointment of an Uba acolyte in the person of Iwu (who was reportedly sponsored to the INEC Board by President Obasanjo’s choice personal servant, Mr. Andy Uba in cahoots with his elder brother, Senator Ugochukwu Uba) would make assurance doubly sure in 2007.

However, Professor Iwu embarked upon a heated play-up of himself as a man in search of a place of gold in Nigeria’s history through his position as INEC Chairman. He would make a long list of his personal achievements in Nigeria and abroad as a distinguished professor and institutional manager, assuring that there was no way he could deliberately tarnish his hard earned reputation by dancing to the tunes of vested political interests. Iwu also reiterated his Commission’s determination to abide strictly by its mandate as outlined in the Constitution and the Electoral Act, with an emphatic vow to obey all court orders.

When it started the registration of voters chose the electronic option, it was largely opposed, partly because of the technical complications of electronic polling devices in general and the peculiar challenges that the Nigerian environment pose. People also felt that an evil-minded INEC, playing to the tunes of a vested political interest, would find the system so much easier to manipulate. Iwu and his staff fought back, accusing the pessimists of peddling an unhealthy mindset that could upset the transition.

As if to reassure the general public, Iwu took some important steps. First, billions of naira donated by the European Union to assist in funding the electoral activities were voluntarily placed in a position whereby the Commission would not directly spend it without transparent and due process. Second, Iwu and his commissioners and officers threw the doors and even books of the Commission open to the public, especially the civil society groups, with which they agreed to partner towards ensuring the success of their activities. The Commission was also open to media enquirers. Third, it issued a checklist of all activities it was going to carry out till the end of the transition programme, complete with timelines.

THEN the dance step suddenly changed. The INEC exposed its hidden agenda by declaring that it would verify all documents of political candidates. This item was not in the programme and timeline earlier on released. INEC’s lame explanation was that verification was not a major activity and thus did not merit a space in the timelined programme! How do you define the word: major, if an activity that could lead to the stoppage of the political aspiration of politicians is not one?

Iwu’s INEC, which had assured Nigerians that it lacked the power and even the will to disqualify candidates, actually went on to do just that on receiving the Ignatius Ayua Administrative Panel of Inquiry report, which indicted Vice President Atiku Abubakar and others. They insisted that Section 137 disqualifies such persons. Atiku obtained a court verdict that declared that INEC had no powers to disqualify anybody – only the courts do. INEC goes on appeal to press home the fact that it can disqualify candidates!

The most outrageous act that Professor Iwu’s INEC is about to commit is the disqualification of those who threaten Andy Uba’s chances of becoming the governor of Anambra State – Dr. Chris Ngige of the Action Congress, Governor Peter Obi of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and Chief Nicholas Ukachukwu of the All Nigerian People’s Party (ANPP).

Though Ngige insists he filed his nomination, the INEC denies that. In the case of the APGA, the party’s effort to replace the name of Dame Virgy Etiaba with Peter Obi in good time before the close of nominations was rebuffed, even though Etiaba has personally written INEC that she was ceding the nomination to Obi. Even if Etiaba contests the poll and wins, INEC could always deny her the electoral certificate citing her “resignation”. In the case of Ukachukwu, not only is there no ground to disqualify him from the polls, there is a court order of mandamus that his name should be put on the ballot. And yet, Iwu’s INEC, which has always vowed to obey all court orders, has ignored it.

THE chicken is coming to roost. If Iwu does not watch it, he may box himself into a very nasty corner. He is already raising alarms about people who are after his life. And he has already placed himself in a position where two high court judges may commit him to jail for contempt of court. The integrity he said he fought hard to win in his career will not be worth a kobo soon unless he withdraws from his current path of reckless dance to the tunes of forces of evil darkness. One thing is clear though. No matter what President Obasanjo and his lackeys, including Iwu resort to, if God has written that the Uba clan will never rule Anambra State, they will never rule Anambra State. O dera, O dego!

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Me Biafran you cursed and cursed with endless loquacity and buried this man without telling your readers what this gentleman has done, yet to do or has not done. - Way1Biafra

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