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Another Imo miracle appears to be shaping up before our very eyes in the 2023 governorship battle in Enugu State. Most people see the Imo miracle as a judicial imposition of a contestant who finished fourth as the winner of the 2019 Imo State governorship election. In the case of Enugu, the governorship race may well end in favour of a third-place finisher. This will make the two frontrunners currently engaged in mortal combat look foolish in the end. It appears they are not fully conscious of the danger posed by a third candidate who may be smiling indulgently at them from the sidelines.
To provide a context, Enugu State voters will file out on March 11, 2023, to elect a new chief executive to take up tenancy in Lion Building. I think that most people have resigned to the expectation that it is a straight fight between the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party (LP). It is a battle between the forces of continuity and change. The change is, however, cosmetic since both candidates are children of the same party who parted ways after their governorship primary.
Expectedly, both camps are deploying propaganda, misinformation, disinformation and outright mischief in their efforts to outshine each other. What each party fails to realize is that the real battle may not be won at the polling booths but at the Supreme Court. This is where it is beginning to look as if we will have another Imo miracle in Enugu. The legal battles may, ironically, decide the vote for Enugu people, regardless of what they say with their PVC in March.
The PDP is defending a court action against all its candidates. Last week, a Federal High Court in Enugu threw away this action. Undeterred, the litigant immediately appealed. This appeal may likely stay in the cooler until after the March election. The petitioner, an opponent of Gov. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi for the Enugu North Senatorial District, wants to see the governor disqualified from the race. As a matter of fact, he wants all 36 Enugu PDP candidates fielded for the 2023 national and state elective positions removed from the contest. He claimed in court papers that PDP broke the law by not giving proper notice of its primaries to INEC, the electoral umpire. He hopes the action will succeed, given a similar Zamfara High Court ruling against a similar action. If he succeeds, the judicial decision will jeopardize the governorship aspiration of the PDP candidate.
The Labour Party is also enmeshed in a court battle. A disfavoured aspirant dragged LP to court for denying him the right of contest. In court papers, he claimed that LP state executive took his money, issued and received his completed nomination forms, but held the party primary at a secret location to which he was not invited. He cleverly avoided joining the candidate that emerged from the primary, taking careful aim at the party and its alleged breach of the law. A federal high court in Abuja ruled in his favour but the ruling was knocked down on appeal. Expectedly, the disfavored candidate has taken the matter to the Supreme Court, where it may not be decided before the election. A judicial decision in his favour will jeopardize the governorship aspiration of the INEC-recognized party candidate.
So, there you have it. Imagine a situation where both PDP and LP governorship candidates are disqualified by the courts for alleged infractions of the electoral law. There will be potentially two dangerous consequences.
For the PDP, the party risks losing it’s 20-year iron grip of Enugu State in one fell swoop. The Federal High Court in Enugu ruled against the governor’s tormentor. But he reportedly appealed the ruling. If he succeeds, no PDP candidate for state and federal elections will escape the hammer. Interestingly, this is the outcome that petitioner wants. At one point, he took to Facebook to say this: “I will be contented for being listed in the annals of history as one of the proponents and facilitators of the New Enugu State, devoid of the PDP Cabals.”
As for the Labour Party, it also risks losing a chance to govern Enugu by default. Most Labour candidates nationwide are opportunistically riding on the coattails of its popular presidential candidate. With very few exceptions, most are not strong enough to win elections on their own. They hope to benefit from a bandwagon effect of the presidential vote.
If, therefore, the Enugu Labour Party wins the state governorship election but the INEC-recognized candidate loses at the Supreme Court, two possible scenarios will emerge. The disfavoured candidate may end up being recognized as the candidate and winner (as happened with Gov. Chibuike Amaechi in Rivers), or Labour is disqualified from the election for failing to heed the judgement of the High Court to hold an alternate governorship primary within 14 days of the first judgement.
Each of the scenarios, therefore, envisages a potential judicial displacement of winner of the election. This is why it is of interest to look at the candidate most likely to emerge in third place during the elections. Both parties must pray that the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) does not finish in third place. If he does, ebenebe g’egbu! It is, therefore, imprudent for supporters of Enugu PDP and LP to continue fighting as if the battle is only between them. They should look behind to see the APC laughing at them from the sidelines.
Is it late to suggest that LP and PDP consider an inhouse solution that averts a potential APC entry into Enugu State? This calamity is what the Igbo consider “kwocha aka, tielu okuku aki.” Loosely translated, it references the agony of a man who washed his hands to crack a palmnut only to have it fly off to land in front of a passing fowl.
Déjà vu
Despite the poor visioning and divisive rhetoric of most presidential candidates, Elections 2023 looks a lot like the 1979 presidential election in one respect. Nigerian voters will choose from three candidates coincidentally representing the legacy regions of Nigeria. There is, therefore, this eerie feeling of déjà vu as we watched their weekend closing arguments. One can’t help noticing this from the body language of the major candidates.
One of them carries on as if 2023 is a replay of 1979 when three regional titans battled for the ultimate prize. The ultimate victory, however, came through a twelve two-third judicial interpretation and ruling. It is similar because pundits do not see an outright winner emerging from Saturday’s vote. The contest will be decided through byelection rather than judicial adjudication, they say. If this happens, it will be the point of difference between 2023 and 1979.
Another candidate hopes to re-enact the election magic of 1993. An army general who arrogated the title of President to himself annulled that popular election won by a candidate with a campaign slogan, “Hope 1993.” Today’s candidate is running on “Renewed Hope 2023.” Will this enable him to replicate the feat of 1993 and, if it does, will his election be annulled? Fortunately, we do not have a military President who, if the “Renewed Hope” prevails, will summon a meeting of his cabal to cancel the election results. To that extent, therefore, he will be praying that, if he wins, Renewed Hope 2023 turns out differently.
In the 1979 cycle, the third candidate posed as “the beautiful bride,” courted by two frontrunners for an arranged marriage. Today’s candidate is also a beautiful bride (of youths) with potential to do better in national spread than his kinsman of a bygone era. The difference between him and his illustrious predecessor is the target demographic.
One cannot escape the feeling that one have seen this before, until Saturday decides otherwise.
