Time Will Tell

Tribunals’ verdicts against Wike, 20 Rivers lawmakers won’t stand — OCJ Okocha

P.M. NEWS Nigeria P.M. NEWS Nigeria / pmnews / 25 mins ago

Okafor Ofiebor/Port Harcourt

Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State

Former President of the Nigeria Bar Association, NBA, and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Mr Onueze C. Okocha, has joined the fray of those expressing shock at judgement of the Governorship tribunal that nullified the election of Governor Nyesom Wike in Abuja last Saturday.
OCJ Okocha, whose immediate elder sister, Justice Daisy Okocha, is the Acting Chief judge of Rivers State, said although he was not in the minds of the judges at the tribunal, “I am baffled by this judgment, because personally, from what I have seen and read, there is no justification for it.
“I have not gone through the judgment per se, but I have read and heard from others who have read the judgment and from commentators, that the main ground upon which the judgment was delivered was that INEC officials did not comply with their regulation which stipulated that they should accredit voters with the card reader machine.
“And that having failed to do so, they ought to have postponed the election to the next day instead of going ahead with manual accreditation.”
He said he finds position strange because the Court of Appeal had already ruled on this matter- that card reader machine and accreditation by card reader are not part of the electoral laws.
According to him, “Electoral Act provides for manual accreditation. You have to come there physically and show your voter’s card. I personally cannot understand why the failure of INEC to observe its own internal regulation is what is being visited upon us; and upon our party, and upon our Governor by the nullification of the election.”
The former Attorney-General in the state said, “Nobody ever alleged malpractices, the other thing they alleged was that the election was marred by violence and thuggery: that is a criminal conduct and in my own understanding, that is a fact that has to be proved beyond reasonable doubt. I am baffled why the panel based judgment on card reader after a superior court has ruled on it.”
He stated further, “We have what is called hierarchy of courts and principle of judicial precedence which dictates that if a superior court has taken a particular decision on a particular issue every lower court is bound to follow that decision.”
Okocha a former Commissioner for Justice in Rivers State, averred that he has counseled the 20 lawmakers in the state House of Assembly whose elections were also nullified and the governor to appeal the judgment, and proceed to the Supreme Court if need be.
He dismissed the rumour making the rounds among members of PDP that the Federal Government may use machineries of state to sway the election in favour of the All Progressives Congress, APC.
“The President cannot dictate who should be voted for by the people of Nigeria, particularly by the people of Rivers State. I maintain it that this state is a PDP state. If the election is conducted afresh and as many as one hundred times, the PDP will still prevail.
“APC is not on ground here. What we had before was a surrogate APC government because the governor and some lawmakers elected on PDP platform defected towards the end of their tenure,” he maintained.

“PDP will win every election conducted in the state at this present time. Federal might from Abuja cannot determine how the people will vote. I know that people rig elections but if you are strong on the ground, nobody can rig the election. There is no way a minority party will override the majority party. The challenge is to have this decision of the tribunal upturned by the Court of Appeal.”