Senators Uzodinma/Izunaso And Nigeria’s Justice System

Senators Uzodinma/Izunaso And Nigeria’s Justice System
Emmanuel Onwubiko
— Nov 4, 2015 6:37 am | Leave a comment
The election petitions tribunals have being turning in verdicts in the different categories of electoral disputes that arose from the April 2015 general elections with many of such judgments not going down well with keen observers.
Imo State is of particular interest because both the All Progressives Congress and the Peoples Democratic Party have had changing fortunes in such a way that many of their supposedly elected officials have had their election victories overturned. APC and PDP have in equal measures suffered spectacular judicial successes and failures going by the outcomes so far of the first courts of instance that adjudicated the various election disputes in Imo State to be precise.
There have however been a lot of shocks and surprises because in Imo West senatorial zone the popular expectation of the people is that the election victory awarded to Mr Hope Uzodinma of the PDP as the winner would be overturned and a rerun ordered. The tribunal in their own inexplicable wisdom validated and approved the election of Uzodinma and dismissed the petition of the APC’s Senator Ositadinma Izunaso for failing to prove beyond reasonable doubts that the election was marred by irregularities. The tribunal also hammered Senator Izunaso’s legal team for abandoning the salient issues it initially raised in their originating prayers.
This judicial decision validating Hope Uzodinma as the senator representing Imo West is likened to what the late musical legend Mr Fela Anikulapo Kuti would call ‘government magic’ because the world read a news story during the course of this disputed 2015 general election that Hope Uzodinma was caught allegedly thumb-printing ballot papers inside his country home. Uzodimma has since denied the allegation.
How come that a man allegedly caught on the wrong side of the law has now received judicial licence of the same election during which news report told the whole world that he was caught cheating? Shockingly, the Nigeria Police Force that reportedly carried out the said arrest appeared as a respondent in this same matter and gave a clean bill of health. Could it be that some under the table deals may have taken place and the police operatives have entered an accord to pretend not to have seen any evil or heard any evil during the said election in Orlu/Imo West senatorial zone? Your guess is as good as mine.
Is it only in Nigeria that the law is meant to look truly like an ass? The panel that gave this ridiculous verdict against the APC senatorial candidate in Imo West is composed of Justices Ali Garba (as chairman); M. N Obi; and D.M Iguese as members and the 73 pages judgment was read on October 13th 2015. Izunaso instructively has appealed.
Meanwhile, the rerun election in the local government was almost marred by pockets of violence and irregularities, Premium Times reported.
Premium Times is one of the most respected online newspapers in Nigeria and so is somehow reliable. But this story didn’t see the light of the day in most other print media, thus sparking off the suspicion that money bags may have killed the story even as Senator Uzodinma stoutly denied ever being arrested for election fraud. Premium Times reported further that at Oru East local government area, which has majority of the polling units where rerun election were held, some officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) were caught thumb-printing ballot papers in favour of one of the political parties.