Follow Us on Google
When the Supreme Court gave the verdict that removed Rt. Hon. Emeka Ihedioha as governor of Imo State on January 14, 2020, and replaced him with Senator Hope Uzodinma, I made in intervention in this column on the 23rd of that month wherein I noted there seemed to be something divine about the verdict. It was impossible at that time to know that the court would reaffirm its verdict two days ago.
Ihedioha had gone to the court with evidence of error where he told the apex court that the implication of its verdict was that there would be more votes than accredited voters in the state, a bizzre ridicule of the electoral process. The court did not look into the matter of his call for a review, but threw up its hands in despair, insisting that it could not review itself. The apparent error, therefore, stands. There was a dissenting view wherein one of them agreed that Uzodinma deceived the court into giving the verdict. In his view, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) ought to withdraw the certificate of return from Uzodinma, and give it to Ihedioha. That was his minority view, which cannot assuage the damage already done by majority ruling of the court that denied Ihedioha his hard-won victory.
One cerebral lawyer did a rather tight analysis of the earlier verdict, and submitted that the Justices at the Supreme Court would reverse the verdict in the face of overwhelming evidence it was founded on a rather fundamental error. I read the piece and told him that my gut feeling was that the Supreme Court would rather live with this error than reverse itself. I did not speak from the point of view of law, but I had anchored my position on the ridicule the apex court would expose itself consequent upon such reversal.
We have moved beyond that point and come to the reality that Uzodinma is to govern the state for four years. Imo people will have to live with that reality, and accept that Uzodimna’s ascendancy is beyond politics. There may well be something divine about it. I did opine in the the intervention I mentioned that Senator Hope Uzodinma has this divine opportunity to redeem his image, which, in the past, had been marred in all sorts of debilitation aspersions. It was, therefore, something of the positive hew to hear the man describe himself the other day as a born-again Christian. That would be the best transformation his new political abode would have done to him. His performance would bear him out. His work would ender him to the people in spite of their political leanings.
His calculations, and the agreement of the those in Supreme Court could only have worked because the there is a divine intervention in his favour. The truth is that virtually all politicians rig elections. In their strategy, they build in rigging. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it falls flat. Uzodimna applied his own strategy at the legal level, and it worked. It would have been expected to fail but there was a divine force that wanted him to mount the saddle. He must change his narrative about the Supreme Court affirming the will of the people. No such thing happened. The apex court just affirmed the will of God, which is why I recommend that he should simply say that the Supreme Court has affirmed the will of God. The current governor of Bayelsa state, who came via the Supreme Court, says that the court has helped make the will of God come to pass. Uzoninma ought to toe that line rather than offend the sensibilities of people with the cliché that “the Supreme Court has affirmed the will of the people.” Uzodinma and his followers must accept that the man mounted the saddle through a higher authority, not the will or vote of the people. The indices at the time of his declaration was a clear indication that the people loathed his party, which had further been balkanized by an attempt by the immediate past governor to ensure that his son-in-law mounted the saddle as his successor. That attempt fell flat at the party nomination level, forcing the governor to dig up his long-forgotten political party and make his son-in-law run under its banner. The All Progressives Congress (APC) was not in the reckoning, which was the reason it came fourth in the election. Uzodinma’s emergence is, certainly, not the collective will of the people. But the state of Imo is the land of hope, and there is a divine intervention in the matter.
That divine intervention, and its outcome, ought to guide his operations. He would now employ his governance as the tool to woo the people to his side. Already, politicians, who are motivated by the direction of the pendulum of power, have defected to the APC, such that the House of Assembly has now been populated by APC, from zero point. It is a typical case of moving from zero to hero.
There is a hard feeling pervading the confines of the aggrieved party. They are evidently full of angst for having been robbed of electoral victory. They must understand what has happened as an intervention beyond the ordinary. The deed is done, and they must accept it as a finality. The immediate past Secretary to the Government, Chief Uche Onyeagocha, a lawyer, was rather steeped in bitterness when he stated that he would never accept Uzodinma as governor of the state. He described Uzodinma as “Supreme Court-imposed Governor of Imo State.” That spirit runs afoul of what should to pervade in a situation where Imo ought to come first. It is about the people, not individual ambitions. The Supreme Court raised its hands helplessly in apparent despair about inability to review its verdict, in spite of glaring evidence that the figures did not add up, an indication that the said votes from the 388 poling units that swung the election in favour of Uzodinma probably did not exist. That the Lordships took the votes line, hook and sinker is an indication that it is not ordinary. The force in operation wanted Uzodinma to mount the saddle, and that has come to pass. The question for Senator Hope Uzodimna is this: Now that you have power what will you do with it? That is the crux of the matter. The dust of election struggles and litigation has settled. The mantle has fallen on Hope Uzodinma. I implore the people to put Imo first, and take the situation with equanimity. The fight will linger and stagnate the state if the current victors continue to flaunt their victory on the face of the aggrieved and stir the known resistant spirit, which rears its head in such circumstance.
Uzodinma must bring reconciliation to the table, and be seen to be doing so. It shall be well with Imo State.
