The Federal High Court has ordered Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu to vacate the office of Governor of Abia State immediately, and has asked the first runner up in the primary election, Samson Uchechukwu Ogah, to replace him.
Governor Ikpeazu, a trained biochemist, was ordered to relinquish his governorship as the court ruled that he was unqualified to have run for the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) primary elections held in 2014. The plaintiff and now governor elect, Uchechukwu Ogah, was the runner-up in the party’s primary election gathering a meagre 103 votes compared to Dr Ikpeazu’s 487 votes.
The governor was found guilty of failing to file his tax clearances in 2011, 2012 and 2013. Justice Okon Abang, who presided over the case, held that the 2011 tax clearance certificate and income tax receipt submitted to The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) before the 2014 PDP primaries contained false information and that Dr Ikpeazu committed perjury by lying on oath when he said that he had fulfilled all the requirements to contest in the 2015 elections. “To give effect to the judgment of this court, the plaintiff, Dr Samson Ogah the candidate of the PDP in the 2015 gubernatorial election in Abia, is the person entitled to the certificate of return in the election for the office of governor of Abia State of Nigeria in the election held in April 2015. It is hereby ordered that INEC, the third defendant should immediately issue certificate of return to the plaintiff, Dr Samson Ogah as governor of Abia state in the election held in 2015 and restore to him all the entitlements as the elected governor of Abia,” said the judge as he rendered his final verdict.
Who should take over?
The judge’s ruling makes clear that the runner up in the PDP primary election, Mr Ogah, is to be appointed governor with immediate effect, according to the constitution, but should it be so? Should the governorship automatically be handed over to an individual without a single gubernatorial vote to his name? Does this not undermine the democratic process?
The provision in the constitution allowing for ‘within’ political party transfers of gubernatorial power in this case, implies that citizens vote for political parties not candidates. However, this is not necessarily the case. Voters who came out en masse to vote for the individual with said record may feel shortchanged upon discovering that their candidate of choice was replaced with a candidate they didn’t know but contested in the political party’s primaries.
The contention becomes clear when candidates in a party’s primaries are on opposite sides of the ideological spectrum and the losing candidate is suddenly called upon to rule an entity that voted for a candidate with an entirely different mandate. America operates a presidential democratic system similar to Nigeria and in theory, a similar system of federalism. Voters over in America would be incensed to discover that Bernie Sanders replaced Hilary Clinton if the latter were to win the upcoming presidential elections. Both candidates, although from the same party, have opposing ideologies and characters that the act of replacing one for the other will do a clear disservice to the voters. While Sanders advocates for a complete overhaul in the healthcare system, punitive taxes for the rich, high environmental taxes and tougher foreign policy tactics, Hilary opposes all the aforementioned policies.
It is indeed fair and just that unlawful activities in the democratic system be brought to book and this is especially so in the case of tax evasion, which is often treated with kids gloves in a country that relies on petrodollars for most of its income. However, it is a gross disservice to the voters for a candidate who is unknown to them and, importantly, of whom a single vote was not cast to his name to suddenly preside over them. Nigerian politicians are not known to have vastly conflicting ideologies so the problem in this case may not be as stark as that of the American candidates previously mentioned. But, even a difference in methods of implementation and modus operandi can have huge implications for who benefits and who loses out as a result of such an automatic change in leadership. As Nigeria’s young democracy grows and voters become more demanding this may well pose massive problems in the future.
An alternative approach would be to appoint an interim on the back of an order by the court for the incumbent to vacate his position. With an interim in place, another round of elections should be scheduled and conducted, allowing the populace to elect their candidate. The questions of who should act as the interim and to what extent the interim governor can exercise executive powers will inevitable arise, but this amendment will at least accommodate for the principle of democracy to be exercised.
“Don’t panic I still remain your governor,” Dr Ikpeazu told his supporters as he shows no signs of stepping down without a ‘fight.’ The governor has appealed the decision given by the federal high court and maintains that “he remains the governor of the state according to law and will await the final determination of the matter by the appellate courts.” The judgement is yet to take effect and although the next step (appointing Dr Ogah) is constitutional, the act should be revisited in line with the fundamental democratic principle of ‘a government of the people.’
