Barr. Okoli Ailika, Anambra State Commissioner of Lands, Survey and Town Planning, spoke to Tony Oraeki in Awka on the legal implications of agitating for the cancellation of the governorship election held on November 16 2013.
T
he November 16 election has allegations of irregularities, thus calling for total cancellation. At this level, what is your legal opinion?
Certainly, the election cannot be cancelled and it is certainly impossible. The position of the law is very clear; election has really taken place in Anambra State on the 16th day of November, 2013. Election we all know is a procedure. It starts from the unit to the ward, to the local government. Elections are procedurally categorized as stated above.
Fundamentally in Anambra State, we have 21 local government areas and 36 wards, we have 4,608 units and that election took place in the substantial areas of the local governments, and was conclusive in at least 19 local government areas.
So, if you go by simple mathematical calculation, you are talking about 19/21, that is more than substantial and it is almost absolute. Once an election has taken place, another election is in substantial compliance to the law, and the electoral body has announced the result of the election at the unit level by the presiding officer and ward level by the ward collation returning officer, at the local government level by the local government returning officer. And then, at the state level by the state returning officer, nobody and no court has the right, the power and or the jurisdiction to interfere with the announced result except the Election Petition Tribunal, properly setup to that effect. That is the clear provision of Electoral Act.
Election being a procedure or a process is not expected to be full proof, in absolute compliance to the law. It is not possible because perfection and absolutism do not avail humanity. So, any human enterprise is most likely to be affected by one act of omission or commission, either intentionally or unintentionally. That is why the law made provisions for such errors and the law says that what an election is in substantial compliance with the law, that election cannot be looked aside.
Therefore, in Anambra State, we have 21 LGAs, even if we want to concede to what Dr. Chris Ngige is claiming, if you exclude Idemili North and South for purpose of argument, that election never took place in those two local government areas, 19/21 LGA is substantial by any standard.
I also appreciate the fact that we have pockets of complaints that in isolated instance, election could not be held. As a matter of fact, the electoral body enumerated those areas to be 221. So if you have 4,608 units and election for whatever reason could not go on in 221 units, by simple mathematical calculation, it means that election was substantially conducted in accordance with the law in 4,608 units, minus 221 units.
So, what does the law say in a situation of that nature. That is where section 26 subsection of the Electoral Act comes in.
It says that if for any reason, the election could not be conducted in certain area/s because of cogent or verifiable circumstances, the Electoral body is in law, enjoined and empowered to postpone election in those specified areas. That was exactly what INEC did. They isolated 221 areas affected by one thing or the other which warranted non-conduct of election in those areas, and INEC postponed election in those areas.
It will be unfair, unjust, unprocedural, illegal, in short, it will be affront to common sense to now say you want to cancel election in 4,608 units because there were issues in 221 units.
When you marry the situation on ground, you eventually realize the truth.
So, when people bandy about with unfaced argument that there were widespread irregularities, they are being unfair to Ndi Anambra and they are not talking or acting in tandem with the reality on ground.
The true position is this, that the election cannot lawfully be cancelled. The election has been lost and won, the only thing that is holding the formal declaration of a winner is that INEC has not made a return. These are two different things in law, you announce the result, and you will now make a return.
As I said, INEC has lawfully announced the result, and INEC also lawfully said they will not make a return because going by the ex per se, the voters register, the number of registered voters in affected 221 units, the number is above the margin which APGA candidate who scored over 174,000 votes, PDP 94,000, APC 92,000 shown that the number in the voters register is far above. It is because of the fact that there is need to observe the formal requirements of the law. And that is why INEC is saying they are not going to make a formal return.
It is just to enable INEC to observe the formal requirements of the law, what the bible will say, ‘the fulfillment of all righteousness’.
INEC knows, Ngige knows, PDP knows, as a matter of fact, the PDP national leadership has acknowledged the lawfulness of the election, the peace that pervaded during and after the election.
There is one special feature of that election, nobody has accused APGA or her candidate, Willie Obiano of ballot stuffing, ballot snatching or any form of electoral malpractice. Not even Ngige, in his wildest ambition have not said APGA bought votes, APGA brigandage.
All they kept on saying was that election should be cancelled, with reasons that materials did not arrive on time. They didn’t bother to go further to find out the percentage of the affected areas, the degree of the irregularities of non compliance and above all, the position of the law.
Anambra is a state governed by the rule of law, so whatever you do; you must trace your action, justifying your action and ensure that action comes within the ambit of the law.
Therefore, all INEC did is within the ambit of the law. So, somebody cannot go out there just to heat up the polity unwarrantedly and say he wants the election to be canceled. When they knew that that call in good faith and in good conscience, is not only unwarranted, it is unjustifiable.
Then, in law and equity, that is impossible because the law provided what will happen in a situation where election could not take place in certain areas for certain reasons.
Somebody’s emotions, no matter how expressed cannot override the clear positions of the law either without alter the basic facts on ground, the law has been stated.
Ngige accused police of thumb-printing for APGA during the election. Is there any way the election could have been rigged with all the sophisticated introductions made by INEC?
Ngige as a person knows very well, I think he doesn’t want to tell his paymasters the truth. Ngige is living in the vain glory of yester years. Ngige as a person today, is no longer Ngige of yester years.
If APGA as a party had intended to thumb print, why engaging police into that when there are APGA polling agents and supporters.
Why engaging the police? Though, he said that so as to embarrass the security agencies.
The best way to present it to give it some infantile coloration is to bring in the security agencies because he knows that if he says that APGA people are thumb printing, people will laugh at him. So, he wants to bring in some elements of seriousness but in the process, he exposed himself.
Ngige knows what he is doing and all he is doing is simply to cast some unjustifiable aspersions on an election that was adjudged the freest.
However, I want to use this medium to appeal to our good brothers, the PDP, APC and LP candidates that it is in the overall interest of everybody that we come together as Ndi Anambra and move the state forward, engaging in political grounds standing, casting unnecessary aspersions, seeing politics as a do or die affair will not benefit anybody. The bottom line is let us work proactively for the benefit of Ndi Anambra. We should all be sports manly, humane and humble in instance of victory.