Dear INEC Chairman: We are counsel to the Democratic Peoples’ Party [DPP] and upon their instructions we write in connection with the aforesaid matter.
Dear INEC Chairman: We are counsel to the Democratic Peoples’ Party [DPP] and upon their instructions we write in connection with the aforesaid matter.
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On the 9th of November 2010, the Court of Appeal, sitting as a full panel of five Justices in Benin City Edo State, nullified the utterly bogus election which fraudulently produced Dr. Emmanuel Ewetan Uduaghan as the Governor of Delta State.
Dr. Emmanuel Ewetan Uduaghan illegally occupied this position for three and half years. This illegality was actively aided and abetted by INEC officials who are still strutting about the hallowed corridors of INEC under your watch!
The greatest threat to INEC as a democratic institution and the very concept of free and fair election are those, who with impunity, declared results and returned Dr. Uduaghan as governor when no election was conducted at all in Delta State!
This egregiously felonious act must not be allowed to go unpunished. Not to visit such persons with the full wrath and weight of the law is to send a signal that the Commission condones and will condone electoral brigandage and brigands. The strongest signal that the commission must send of its resolve to conduct free and fair election in Delta State is the immediate prosecution of those INEC officers who with impunity aided, abetted and sustained DR. UDUAGHAN’S illegal occupation of the Delta State government house for a staggering period of three and the half years by means of false results!
These perfidious INEC officers are still walking free and working in INEC, waiting to unleash their perfidy on the people of Delta State and Nigeria as a whole. The time has come to match words with decisive action in the country’s match towards true participatory democracy. The condonation of electoral offences and offenders by the body charged with the statutory function of prosecution is an open invitation to electoral fraud and the usurpation of the peoples’ mandate.
The brazen electoral offences committed by INEC officers and Dr. Uduaghan is brought into bold relief by some excerpts from the recent Judgment of the Court of Appeal in the case of CHIEF GREAT OVEDJE OGBORU & ANOR V DR. EMMANUEL EWETAN UDUAGHAN & ORS CA/B/EPT/38/10. At pages 48-49 HON. JUSTICE DONGBAN-MENSEM JCA held,
“……….It is difficult to fault the contention of the counsel for the appellants that the so-called elections of April 14, 2007, were characterized by what may be termed electoral due process deficit……………….the irresistible conclusion is that the said election was afflicted by an irreversible electoral due process deficit. The deficit was so corrosive that it infested the entire process with an incurable or untreatable virus. Any vote returned in such circumstances for any particular voting unit must be, invariably, infested with that virus of undue electoral process………..That is our finding in this case!”
Again, at page 52, the Law Lord held,
“The implication of the absence of these constitutive acts that define an election is that the votes which the third respondent returned for the first respondent on April 14, 2007 were not obtained through the due electoral process…….The consequence is that since 2007, the said first respondent has been sojourning under the roof of a veritable house of cards; worse still, a house of cards erected on the slippery quicksand of electoral jiggery pokery! [Emphasis Supplied]
Furthermore, at page 54 the Court held,
“In the circumstance, we have no choice than to enter an order dismantling his over three and half years’ illegal occupancy of the Government House which is the very symbol of the people’s mandate: indeed, his illegal habitation of the said Government House for the said period of time is a mockery and, indeed, an affront to the indefeasible rights of the electorate in Delta State to elect their Governor through a free and fair contest.
It is unfortunate that the law would permit this sort of anomalous situation: an unfortunate situation where a man who usurped the sacred mandate of the people would be allowed to fritter away their common patrimony without their due authorization: authorization that should come through free and fair elections where the said electorate, in whom sovereignty resides in a democracy, are afforded the opportunity of exercising their franchise.”
The Court concluded at page 55 as follows
“In the present appeal, the petitioner, who was duly sponsored by the second appellant, contended that the third respondent did not conduct any election on the said day. From all we have said above, there is considerable merit in his complaint.”
Emergent from the dictum of the Law Lord are the following indubitable facts
1. The votes which INEC returned for Dr. EMMANUEL EWETAN UDUAGHAN on April 14, 2007 were not obtained through due electoral process at all.
2. Dr. EMMANUEL EWWTAN UDUAGHAN usurped “the sacred mandate” of the Delta people. This is surely a most serious electoral offence!
3. Deltans were not afforded the opportunity of exercising their franchise.
4. No gubernatorial election was conducted in Delta State on the 14th of April 2007 but results were generated by INEC officials _ results illegally put Uduaghan in the Delta State Government House for three and the half years.
The inescapable conclusion from the aforesaid is that right from the polling units to the ward, local government and state level, results were simply generated in favor of Dr. Uduaghan by certain INEC officers without any election!
The result declared by the then Resident Electoral Commissioner for Delta state, ALHAJI ISMAILA ABDULKAREEM, on Form EC8E, when there was no gubernatorial election on 14th April 2007 is by the force of the aforesaid judgment a totally false document. It was not a product of any “due electoral process.” This is an offence under Section 130 subsections 4, 5 and 6 of the Electoral Act 2006 which provides as follows
“(4) Any person who announces or publishes an election result knowing same to be false or which is at variance with the signed certificate of return commits an offence and is liable on conviction to 36 months imprisonment.
(5) Any returning officer or collation officer who delivers or causes to be delivered a false certificate of return knowing same to be false to the Commission or a State Independent Electoral Commission, commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a maximum of imprisonment for 3 years without an option of fine.
(6) Any person who delivers or causes to be delivered a false certificate of return knowing same to be false to any news media commits an offence and is liable on conviction to imprisonment for 3 years.”
Illustrative of the falsity of the declaration made by ALHAJI ISMAILA ABDULKAREEM, is the manifest irreconcilable conflict between the entire Forms EC8A for Warri South West Local Government and the Form EC8C for the self same Local Government. Whilst the entire Forms EC8A, the supposed primary evidence of voting at the polling units, bore only the name and scores of PDP, the Form EC8 C for the selfsame Local Government bore the names and scores for thirteen political parties including the PDP! Needless to say there is no accord between the scores on the Forms EC8 A and the Form EC8 C for Warri South West. There is no result of any of the other 21 local governments in Delta state that does not bear the scar of electoral malfeasance, from the mundane to the most outrageous! This patently bogus result was of course collated by ALHAJI ISMAILA ABDULKAREEM as evidenced in the Form EC8D!
The Form EC8C for Warri south West Local Government was allegedly signed by one POPO ARIYO GODWIN as the collation officer. His purported signature bears no feature of identity or similarity at all with the signature on the statement on oath which was sworn at the Tribunal Registry in Asaba on the 13th of June 2007. This complete discord in the signatures of the so-called collation officers on the Forms EC8C and the statements sworn at the registry of the tribunal is replicated for the remaining 21 local governments in Delta state whose purported results were collated!!
Each of the 22 alleged collation officers, whose names are attached and who all claimed to be Assistant Electoral Officers, all violated the provisions of section 130 subsections 4-6 of the Electoral Act 2006 in propping up patently false results for the local government. It should be noted that no Electoral Officer signed any result for the Delta state gubernatorial election of 14th April 2007!
Furthermore the complete absence of Forms EC.17C, Affirmation of Neutrality by Election Officials, Forms EC25, Electoral Material Receipt Forms and Form EC 40C Ballot Paper Account and Verification Form further underlines the falsity of all the results generated in Delta State by INEC officers working hand in gloves with Dr. Uduaghan.
Finally we wish to highlight summarily some characteristics of some of the Forms EC 8 A used to produce Uduaghan as Governor,
a. One Form EC8A with the exactly the same serial number was used for several units in different wards and local government areas in delta State!
b. In some Form EC8A, everything, apart from the manifestly altered names of the presiding officers, are exactly the same!
c. Signatures of purported presiding officer are either absent or totally or partially deliberately obscured with double stamping of purported INEC stamp!
d. Total absence of signature of any party agent [PDP included] in several of the results sheets but almost 100% turn out of voters!
e. Vicious unattested alterations of figures, cancellation, mutilation etc in almost all the results sheets in varying degrees of crudeness. None of these were countersigned by any party agent or the purported presiding officer save in respect of one unit in which the purported signatures of the purported presiding officer against the mutilation was palpably so dissimilar it was risible!
f. There is a total discord on the forms EC 8 A of the names and number of political parties that contested the election. Some result sheets contain the names of only 2 or 3 or 4 or 6 and 13 parties. But outrageously is the whole of Warri South West, which contained the name of only PDP
We urge the commission to immediately set into motion the legal machinery for the immediate prosecution of DR. EMMANUEL EWETAN UDUAGHAN, the former Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), ALHAJI ISMAILA ABDULKAREEM, who returned Dr. Uduaghan when no election was conducted and all the 22 collation officers whose names are attached herewith.
Yours Faithfully,
ROBERT EMUKPOERUO, Esq.
LIST OF ASSISTANT ELECTORAL OFFICERS THAT SHOULD
BE PROSECUTED FOR PUBLISHING FALSE RESULTS
1. JUDITH ADAOBI ……………………………………... ANIOCHA NORTH LGA
2. JACOB OKOMEYAMONO …………………………... BURUTU LGA
3. OYEDIRAN EZEKIEL ……………………………….. ETHIOPE WEST LGA
4. SERIGBANA BENJAMIN ……………………………. BOMADI LGA
5. AYODELE SUNDAY ………………………………… NDOKWA EAST LGA
6. FRANCIS EPUWA …………………………………… ISOKO NORTH LGA
7. YAMAH ABIOLA …………………………………… OSHIMILI LGA
8. OSEMEKE RITA …………………………………….. OSHIMILI SOUTH LGA
9. AKANJI MOSES ……………………………….......... OKPE LGA
10. OKONKWO THERESA ……………………………… NDOKWA WEST LGA
11. OLUNDEGUN MUSKIRU……………………........... UGHELLI SOUTH LGA
12. RITA MOKUOLONYE ……………………………… ANIOCHA SOUTH LGA
13. EMEKA NWANUA ………………………………….. WARRI SOUTH LGA
14. OKWUNGBOWA GRACE ……………………………WARRI NORTH LGA
15. POPO ARIYO GODWIN …………………………….. WARRI SOUTH-WEST
16. AZANI ALOZIE ……………………………………… SAPELE LGA
17. OMOWOLE PELUMI ………………………………… UVWIE LGA
18. BADAMOSI ADEDAYO ……………………………... PATANI LGA
19. OKONTA JOY ………………………………………… IKA NORTH EAST LGA
20. HENSHAW BOBO ……………………………………. IKA SOUTH LGA
21. ABEGUNDE; A. O. …………………………………… ISOKO SOUTH
22. ALHAJI ALIYU IGE ………………………………….. HEAD OF OPERATIONS, INEC, ASABA
TO: THE CHARMAN
INDEPENDENT NATIONAL ELECTORAL COMMISSION
ZAMBEZI CRESCENT MAITAMA
ABUJA
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