By Morgan Adikwu
Late Chinua Achebe was arrested for failure to report an alleged inkling of a treasonable felony, chronicled in his prophetic piece, “A man of the People” published in 1966, a few days before the “Khaki boys” through Coup de’tal overthrew the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa civil government.
Just as the non-compliance to the new electoral Act, party’s guidelines as well as the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria were relied upon to nullify the Party Primary elections in Ogun, Zafara, Taraba, Adamawa, Rivers States, etc, and created suspense in Benue, Achebe premised his defense on the prevalence of corruption, irresponsible governance, repression, civil unrest, etc, as the propellant that precipitated the ground for the military takeover in Egypt in 1952, Sudan 1958, Benin Republic 1963, Togo 1963, Algeria 1965, etc, which provided an analytical tool for the inevitable coup de’tat in Nigeria in 1966.
Therefore, hypothetically referencing the recent court rulings in Ogun, Taraba, Adamawa and Rivers States, the All Progressives Congress (APC), Gubernatorial Primary election in Benue State, WILL BE NULLIFIED and with Achebe’s above defense, this writer, yours truly has dodged the subjudice hammer.
Recall that the APC held its gubernatorial primary election on the 27th May, 2022, that was initially supposed to be an indirect mode, which abruptly metamorphosed into a direct method without the consent or adoption of all the aspirants amidst a wild controversy and outright rejection of the results.
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An Appeal Committee Panel was constituted by the National Secretariat of APC that was led by Princess Uzoama Onyeama to meditate over the dissatisfaction that arose from alleged biased Primaries.
According to the report of the findings of the Appeal Committee, ” No election took place on the 26th, 27th, 28th May 2022 and the results so submitted by the primary election committee members were an allusion, mirage, facade and at best a YAHOO YAHOO result sheet”. The appeal committee also, queried the magic of not having a single invalid vote out of the 815,452 votes cast.
In spite of the appeal committee recommendation on the cancellation of the primary, the contumacious Rev. Father is being paraded as the presumed winner and gubernatorial candidate of APC, which made Senator Barnabas Gemade, Chief Michael Aondoakaa (SAN) and Prof Terhemba Shija to approached the Court for the interpretation of Section 29, 82, 84 of the New Electoral Act, Article 20.3, 20.4 of the APC guideline.
More worrisome is Section 84(4) that has caused the Benue APC uneasiness, which states;” A political party that adopts the direct primaries procedure shall ensure all aspirants are given equal opportunity of being voted by members of the party and shall adopt the procedure outlined”.
The question is, did Sen. Gemade, Chief Aondoakaa SAN and Prof Shija adopt the direct primary procedure? Bearing in mind the nullification rulings in the aforementioned states, particularly, in Rivers where the Judge specifically warned APC to strictly adhere to the provisions of the new electoral Act in the conduct of it’s Primary elections.
Thus, the court cases against the APC Gubernatorial Primary election in Benue, which have the properties of non-compliance to the new electoral Act and APC guideline will be used as in the referenced states to nullify the “Yahoo Yahoo” Primary and the suspended Rev Father restrained from parading as a candidate.
