By Batos Nwadike
Yesterday, I received with utter bewilderment the so-called judgement of the Court of Appeal in the Orlu Senatorial Election Petition of Chief Charles Ahize and the Labour Party.
For 8 months we traversed all nook and cranny of Orlu Senatorial Zone, sharing our vision to Recover Orlu, opposing hegemony, all of which culminated in the resounding victory given to Chief Charles Ahize by the good and productive people of Orlu on 25th February, 2023.
Our opponents, having lost to us on the issues and on the ballot, simply went to allot to themselves humungous non-existent votes from areas under the siege of non-state actors, and in which no election took place. Blood votes if you may call it.
At the hearing of the Petition, we tendered the Certified True Copy (CTC) of the BVAS Report issued to our lawyer, Mahmud Magaji SAN, showing 0 (zero) accreditation in all the polling units where our opponent claimed to have won in Oru West, Oguta, Orsu, Orlu and Oru East.
We also tendered the completely mutilated Local Government Collation Result, Form EC8C, of Nkwerre LGA where our votes was canceled and rewritten to favour our opponent.
In Njaba LGA we tendered the duplicate polling unit result sheets, Form EC8A, recieved by our agents, which was never collated by INEC.
We won the election resoundingly in Nwangele, Isu, Nkwerre, Njaba, Ideato North, Ideato South, and Ohaji-Egbema.
In the polling units where elections held in Oru-West, Oguta, and Oru East, Chief Charles Ahize and the Labour Party also swept the polls.
Surely, even a madman knows that elections never held in Orlu, and Orsu.
Yet the Court of Appeal said we were unable to prove that election never held in Orsu, Orlu and many parts of Oru West, Oguta, and Oru East, despite all the recondite argument of our team of lawyers by the highly cerebral Mahmud Magaji SAN.
Section 144 of the Nigerian Evidence Act provides: “Proof is not required about knowledge that is not reasonably open to question and is–
(a) common knowledge in the locality in which the proceeding is being held or generally”.
This is the same Tribunal which bolted out of Owerri, Imo State to Nassarawa State on ground of insecurity.
No doubt, we agree with Justice Dattijo Muhammad, JSC (Rtd), who said –
“The Nigerian judiciary I’m exiting from today, is far from the one I voluntarily joined & desired to serve, & be identified with. The institution has become corrupt & turned into something else.”
Today it is so unfortunate that someone who we trounced silly at the polls now bandies around with his cohorts as Senator while the people’s choice creeches by the corner of an unjust and unbridled society.
Dr. Batos Nwadike (Oyi of Igboland) was Counsellor of the Chief Charles Ahize Senatorial Campaign and Chieftain of the Imo Labour party, and writes from Umueze Umuorlu Isu in Nwangele LGA, Imo State.
NIGERIA NEWSPOINT
