11/12/2023
HON. CHIJIOKE EDEOGA : THE REAL WINNER, FINALLY SET TO RECOVER HIS CROWN
By Chike Udechukwu
Hon. Chijioke Jonathan Edeoga has always been a winner right from time immemorial. As a local government chairman under the defunct UNCP, he won by a landslide defying the then Abacha government's 'government candidate' machinery, which largely determined who won or lost election under that brutal regime. A man of the people, Edeoga initiated grassroots projects including daily markets, schools, health centres, culverts and water facilities all of which marked him out as an uncommon visionary who could have done much more had he lasted beyond 14 months in office. It would be recalled that Gen. Sanni Abacha's death in June 1998, led to the termination of the dictator' s wobbly transition programme and the collapse of democratic institutions.
A golden fish they, say has no hiding place. The stakeholders in the post Abacha order, once again spotted Hon. Chijioke Edeoga as the man to beat, if the newly formed PDP could win the Enugu East| Isi Uzo federal constituency in the general elections. Edeoga was offered the ticket and he won by a landslide and represented the constituency in the House of Representatives between 1999 and 2003.
When due to an internal agreement, the federal constituency representation moved to Enugu East in 2003, Hon. Chijioke Edeoga, nonetheless, became a toast for strategic federal appointments, including that of Special Adviser to former President Goodluck Jonathan, among others. When his party, the PDP lost the presidency in 2015 , Edeoga heeded the clarion call to return to his state to serve in whatever capacity required of him to rebuild the fledgling state. That call he graciously heeded, becoming the shining light in Ugwuanyi's administration until his resignation in March 2022 to contest the governorship election. Many today say that former Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi only began to lose direction and focus after Hon. Chijioke Edeoga resigned from his government.
The moment Chijioke Edeoga declared his governorship ambition, the entire state went agog, as his appeal, goodwill and pedigree easily dwarfed those of his co-contenders, including Ike Ekweremadu who was then considered his main rival in the governorship race. Very little was then known about Peter Mbah who unknown to many, was Ugwuanyi's secret candidate, strategically kept in limbo , despite his unpopularity.
As the primaries of the party drew near, Ike Ekweremadu quit the process, having discovered to what extent the former governor was prepared to go, to frustrate his ambition. The coast was then clear for Chijioke Edeoga to pick the ticket since there was no other aspirant capable of matching his popularity. That was not to be as Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, openly manipulated the primaries held at the Nnamdi Azikiwe stadium, in order to impose Peter Mbah, an unknown quantity on the party members. It was revealed to the former governor that the plot won't be easy as majority of party delegates came to the stadium to elect Chijioke Edeoga and no one else. To push his plan through, each delegate was not only paid the sum of N400, 000 to vote Mbah but also monitored by a local government chairman stationed right in front of him, to ensure that he or she kept to the bargain.
That was the first election Chijioke Edeoga won as a gubernatorial aspirant of the PDP but which was denied by ungodly forces. It is a fact that denying a highly popular candidate victory in an election, always comes at a huge cost and Edeoga's case was no exception. Because of the indignation and bad blood the manipulation of the primaries caused in the PDP, Chijioke Edeoga was openly beckoned by PDP members to join another party without hesitation, to enable them follow him.
Although the Eha- Amufu born political tactician, hesitated before joining the Labour Party, about a month thereafter, his defection almost totally collapsed the pillars of the PDP as virtually all that mattered in the party either joined Edeoga openly to his new party or stayed back to sabotage the party as a way to register their resentment.
In the Labour Party, Chijioke Edeoga picked the gubernatorial ticket unopposed , but the evil and petty Ugwuanyi and Peter Mbah would still not let him be. They planted one surrogate called Odengene to attempt take away the ticket he already had but the Labour party refused to fall for any of Ugwuanyi's intrigues. The party formally announced Chijioke Edeoga as its gubernatorial candidate after its primaries held on 4th August, 2022.
Still unwilling to give up, Ugwuanyi and Mbah began a long drawn legal tussle to retrieve the ticket from Edeoga up to the Supreme Court but all to no avail. They shamefully lost alongside their puppet Odengene. But why was Ugwuanyi and his co- travellers too desperate to stop Edeoga? They knew that allowing an Edeoga on the ballot unmistakably meant his election as governor, taking into account his popularity, widespread acceptability and support base across the state. It was therefore a typical case of prevention being better than cure. That carefully woven plan was however aborted by the Supreme Court.
Having no other option, Ugwuanyi braced up to meet Chijioke Edeoga at the polls with his jaundiced and encumbered candidate, who aside from being relatively unknown, presented a forged certificate to the Independent National Electoral Commission.
After the March 18 polls, it was common knowledge that the Labour Party and it's governorship candidate Chijioke Edeoga beat the PDP hands down. Before the March 18 election, the Labour party had in February, taken the PDP to the cleaners, winning overwhelming majority in all the federal constituencies in the state. At about 2.pm of 19th March, 2023, all but the results of Nkanu East Local Government Area had been received and collated at the INEC's collation centre and which showed that the Labour Party was leading with over 11, 000. votes. That was about to be the second election which Chijioke Edeoga won in this dispensation but was denied by forces of darkness. The clueless, good-for- nothing governor, colluded with Mr Festus Okoye , the then National Commissioner for INEC , to impose Peter Mbah as winner despite the recorded observation by the whimpy Returning Officer Professor Maduebibisi Iwe that there was no correlation between the votes cast in Nkanu East Local Government Area and the number falsely manufactured for the local government area, and upon which basis Mbah was declared winner. That collusion with INEC was said to have cost Ugwuanyi the sum of N1 billion.
The impostor, Peter Mbah has ever since been governing without the mandate of the people, something that is despicably intolerable in a constitutional democracy.
Having taken his case to the court of law in search of justice , Edeoga, expected nothing else other than the nullification of the victory of Peter Mbah having been procured by fraud, but the courts have so far disappointed the Enugu electorate who stood in the scotching sun with a view to ending PDP's 24 years of misrule and impunity. From the overwhelming attendance of Labour Party members at the tribunal, the preponderance of evidence tendered, appearance of the NYSC witness, among others, it was clear to everyone except the heavily compromised election panel that Chijioke Edeoga and not Peter Mbah should have been sworn in on 29th May, 2023.
The same thing happened at the Court of Appeal where the panel members could not even read the judgement which took them two months to prepare and instead read another which they hurriedly put together just to deliver Peter Mbah and give their reasons later. Yet again, Edeoga won but was denied.
At the Supreme Court, the highest court in the land where a precedent is set with every single judgment delivered , many are of the opinion that Peter Mbah's cash and carry time is over.
Aside from Edeoga having an impeccably genuine case, the imminent destruction of the National Youth Service Corps, if the the Supreme Court also decided to ignore evidence and facts, is one many stakeholders think could have grave implications not only for the organization but also the nation's electoral justice as a whole. This is so because if official witnesses subpoenaed to give evidence in tribunals, will have the same evidence rejected for not being front-loaded before the court order was given, such witnesses will naturally stay away from election tribunals in future, making the quality of justice dispensed without them, nothing to write home about.
The stakeholders are of the opinion that if they failed to intervene to defeat the evil forces led by Peter Mbah, both the country and her jurisprudence will suffer for a very long time.
