Governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress in Enugu State, Okey Ezea, tellsIHUOMA CHIEDOZIE his grievances with the just concluded election
What are your grievances with the conduct and outcome of the governorship election in Enugu State?
We have maintained that the elections in Enugu State were fraught with massive irregularities, violence, thuggery, intimidation, harassment and other activities that run contrary to the Electoral Act. For instance, the Independent National Electoral Commission maintained that card readers must be used for the governorship elections throughout the process and that in any place card readers were not functioning, elections should be postponed to the following day so that they could bring functional card readers. And when on the following day the card readers are not functioning, the elections should be postponed to the next day, until the thing was made right. But you know the Peoples Democratic Party members never liked card readers and thus in Enugu, card readers were never used in 90 per cent of the polling booths. There was not even any attempt to make use of them.
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Also, we found out that almost every member of the PDP had thousands of Permanent Voter Cards in his custody and they were using these PVCsto do manual accreditation and vote regardless of the number of people that were registered in that polling unit.
The other issue was that of result sheets – result sheets were not available. Therefore, the election in Enugu was not anything close to a democratic, free and fair election.
What are your expectations from the tribunal; do you expect INEC to conduct fresh elections?
It is not an expectation. That is what we are requesting. That is our prayer. We want the tribunal to cancel the election and order fresh one in Enugu State.
Are you expecting a favourable outcome at the tribunal?
That is a speculative question and I am not prepared to speculate. As I am talking to you today we have till two Mondays from now to file in our papers. Therefore, there is time.
The PDP had said it has the structure and following in Enugu and could not lose the election. What is your take?
If that was the claim, why did they come out to rig? If that was the claim, why did they come out to write results? That was the same thing they did in the presidential election – they felt they were so popular, that (President Goodluck) Jonathan was more popular than Nelson Mandela. No problem. Has anybody accused Mandela of rigging elections? In Igboland, have you ever heard anybody accusing Nnamdi Azikiwe or Michael Okpara of rigging elections? But those who claim to be so popular now are there perpetrating violence, writing results, and so on and so forth. I don’t listen to such lies called structure and popularity.
What do you have to say to PDP’s allegation that you imported thugs from the Niger Delta to unleash violence on its supporters during the election?
If I had imported thugs would they have been able to attack me? Some of us have never been part of violence and thuggery. But sometimes, you see things and you begin to regret and wonder: ‘Is it better to be a peaceful man?’ Some of us never tried it. They broke my brother’s head; how can they be accusing me of importing thugs?
Are you insisting that the last governorship election was not free and fair in Enugu?
You (journalists) moved around all the polling units in Enugu and you witnessed all the violence. You newsmen witnessed what I am talking about. If I were fabricating things and making up stories, you should tell me to stop. I am talking about what happened. We cannot continue like this. If we do, our society will not grow.
Would you have won the election if it had not been allegedly rigged?
Yes. They knew we were going to win the election. It is not a matter of making a noise — the people are tired of the PDP. Let us consider the presidential election where they claimed they were so popular and all the smear campaign against Maj.-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd) of the APC, why did they still have to write results? Why didn’t they allow the will and wish of the people to prevail? Can anybody believe that I, Okey Ezea, could only get 14,000 votes for my party after campaigning vigorously for several months in Enugu State? Is that possible? They should have allowed the people to express themselves. We are not laying a good foundation for our people.
I am an Igbo man but the way the results were presented, it would look like Igbos never voted for Buhari. But that is not true. Igbos voted for Buhari. It might not have been 90 per cent, or 85 per cent like Katsina or Sokoto, but it was not two per cent, it was not even 10 per cent. It was more than 25 per cent. In every Igbo state, it was more than 30 per cent. Do you want to tell me that in Imo State, with Rochas Okorocha as the incumbent governor, or in Rivers State, with Rotimi Amaechi as an incumbent governor, they could not garner 25 per cent for the party’s presidential candidate? Is it possible? These people (PDP) cornered the election materials and wrote results and presented them. They have made our people in the South-East to become so apathetic to the electoral process because the people now believe that votes don’t count. This must stop, otherwise our society will not grow.
Look at the current scenario: there is no principal officer of the National Assembly that is going to come from Igboland because some people wrote results. Because of the way they wrote the results, it is now being interpreted that all Igbos are in the PDP. It is not true.
If you go to western Nigeria today; yes western Nigeria must have voted for the APC but it is not all the westerners that voted for the APC – some voted for the PDP. So if one gets to the South-West, one will find PDP members. One will also find APC members in the South-West. But this is not so in Igboland where some greedy elders and very greedy people wanted everything and used the money they have been stealing from the Federal Government to write results for Jonathan. Where is the South-East now? We are lost. Thus, for the next four years we are out of the mainstream of Nigerian politics. Meanwhile, it is not true that Igbos do not support APC; Igbos want change. But the truth is that some people used state apparatus to write results for Jonathan, thinking that Jonathan will give them more contracts when they eventually deliver the results and he returns as President. But they found out that before they could deliver the results, Jonathan had already given up. All these were clear through the way the votes were going. Therefore, why not allow our people to express themselves?
But that was the presidential election. What about the governorship elections?
The same thing happened in the governorship elections. They claimed they were so popular and they were going to win. But why rig when you were popular? You say you are an intelligent student and you will pass the exams yet you carried expo into the examination hall. Why go into the exam hall with any materials? Why not go in and write?
How would you assess the role of INEC as an electoral umpire?
The INEC programme, as designed by its Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, and his team in Abuja, was a perfect arrangement. The card reader mechanism was a perfect arrangement to check rigging. You come out, get accredited and when it is time for you to vote, you vote, it is counted and the results are declared. I think that until we go into electronic voting in Nigeria, there will not be free and fair elections.
Therefore, the blueprint of the INEC programme was alright except for its implementation; I score them (INEC) less than 10 per cent. All the INEC ad hoc staff member employed in Enugu State were recommended by the PDP. We saw a situation where an ad hoc staff of the INEC would go into the cubicle to tell a voter where to vote and of course it was for the PDP. They were the people that sold result sheets to the PDP. Therefore, the INEC was a failure as far as I am concerned.
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