The apex court had on Tuesday sacked PDP’s Emeka Ihedioha as governor, and ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to return Hope Uzodinma, candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) who came a distant fourth in the election.

Addressing a conference on Thursday, Uche Secondus, chairman of PDP, said the supreme court judgement must be reversed in the interest of justice.

“In the light of extraordinary circumstances that vitiates that judgment as a product manipulation and a clear coup d’etat against the will of the people of Imo state, we demand that the decision of the supreme court on the Imo governorship election be reviewed and reversed in the interest of justice,” he said.

“Furthermore we demand that Justice Tanko Muhammed, the CJN and his colleagues on the Imo governorship panel recuse themselves from the remaining cases involving PDP in the supreme court.

“We state for the records that the supreme court under Justice Tanko Muhammed shall be held responsible if there is any breakdown of law and order in any state as a result of judgments procured solely for political rather than judicial reasons as is currently happening.

“The supreme court, in a host of cases, the latest and most celebrated being Atiku V Buhari & Ors, consistently decided that for a petitioner to succeed in an allegation of infraction of any provision of the electoral act especially one complaining about malpractice, as in this case, wrongful exclusion of votes, the petitioner must call witnesses polling unit by polling unit.

“The question is, how many witnesses did Uzodinma/APC call from the 388 polling units from where the supreme court allocated votes to him.

“The so called results from the 388 Polling units were rightfully rejected, in line with several decisions of the supreme court, by the tribunal and court of appeal as it was merely dumped on the tribunal in a Ghana Must Go bag, by a policeman who had no mandate of the police to testify at the tribunal.”

He said the PDP has it on good authority that the chief justice of Nigeria (CJN) and his panel are working on instruction from certain forces in the presidency to use the supreme court to take over states lawfully won by the PDP and award them to the APC.

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The tenure extension, which is effective from Saturday, was one of the resolutions of the party at its Non-Elective National Convention held in Abuja.

The caretaker committee was constituted on May 21, 2016 at the party’s National Convention in Port Harcourt, after the dissolution of the Sen. Ali Modu Sheriff-led National Working Committee.

Its mandate was to organise an elective convention within 90 days, but the tenure was extended by 12 months in another convention in Port Harcourt on Aug. 17, 2016 following leadership crisis that engulfed the party.

Minority Leader of the Senate, Sen. Godswill Akpabio, who moved the motion for the new extension, said that it would enable the committee to organise an elective convention that would produce elected national leaders of the party.

The motion which was seconded by a former governor of Jigawa, Alhaji Sule Lamido, was unanimously adopted by the convention delegates.

The delegates also ratified the dissolution of the factional executive committees of the party in Anambra, and authorised Makarfi’s committee to set up a caretaker committee in the state.

The motion on the Anambra issue was moved by Gov. Nyesom Wike of Rivers, and in adopting it, the delegates mandated the national caretaker committee to organise congresses at all levels in the state as soon as possible.

Also ratified at the convention was the dissolution of executive committees of the party in Adamawa, Borno, Kebbi, Ogun, Kwara, Osun and Lagos, and fresh congresses were ordered to be in the states within three months.

The delegates agreed that the crises in the states should be resolved within the period but prior to the congresses.

The convention also ratified and reaffirmed the election of the party’s executive committees in zones and states where congresses were successfully conducted.

The motion on this was moved by Prof. Jerry Gana and supported by Chief Emeka Ihedioha, a former Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives.

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Okorocha, who spoke to journalists at the Government House in Imo State early Monday, said the supplementary election would have been unnecessary if INEC had considered the number of Permanent Voters Card distributed in the affected areas instead of the number of registered voters.

The INEC Returning Officer of the State, Ibidapo Obe, announced that the election was inconclusive because the margin (79,529) between the frontrunner, Okorocha and his contender, Emeka Ihedioha of Peoples Democratic Party, was less than the number of registered voters (144,715) in wards across the state where elections did not hold or were cancelled due to violence.

He said a new date would be announced for a supplementary election.

Though Okorocha recognised the provision of the electoral law in respect of the number of registered voters, he said INEC should have considered distribution of PVC in the affected areas instead of registered voters as only voters with PVC can vote.

“The electoral act has talked about registered voters and in the workings of that act and in the spirit of the law, you cannot not make use of number of registered voters, you have to make use of number of PVC collected.

“When you look at the number of PVC collected, you find out that there is no need for this supplementary election because the number of PVC collected will be less than the 79,000 votes difference between me and the PDP candidate.

“But now they are basing on the number of registered voters. Number of registered voters do not cast the vote; it is the number of PVC collected that does,” he explained.

He, however, said he was ready to participate in the supplementary election and in fact went ahead to claim victory in the election.

“You can only change the date of a burial but you cannot change the burial. From the results available, the fact speaks for itself, we have won this election despite all the irregularities,” Okorocha.

Beaming with confidence, Okorocha said he was in fact ready for the total re-run of the election if INEC deemed it necessary and guaranteed that it would be conducted fairly, insistING that his contender cannot defeat him in a free and fair election.

“Let me say that there is no basis for comparison when I’m told that I’m in contest with the PDP candidate and he scored some votes it is not true. I think I’m in contest with more unseen elements than the candidate himself. If this election is conducted in the way it should be conducted in a free and fair manner, my opponent would have up to 100,000 votes. Never. Not in Imo State; not at all,” he boasted.

Okorocha said he would have won the election with a landslide if his contender, abetted by men in security uniform, had not perpetrated widespread electoral fraud.

“If you look at what has happened in his areas of jurisdiction and his local government, Mbaise local government, Ahiazu, Ezinnite, Aboh Mbaise, where he gave himself almost 80,000 votes.

“Can you imagine in Aboh Mbaise, you have 51,000 voters when the actual PVC collected is about 60,000 and in Mbaitoli where you have over 100,000 PVC collected the total votes there is about 30,000 so that tells you the manipulation. What we saw in those areas was simply the militarisation of the entire process – snatching of ballot boxes and violence and what have you.

“But because of these manipulations and writing of results and taking result sheets and going to somebody’s house – escorted by security agencies- to write the result and come in the private car to INEC headquarters, that is why many people think there is a contest. So I’m not in contest with that gentle man, I’m in contest with the entire manipulation of the system and the election,” he said.

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Ohakim, who lamented what he described as maladministration of Imo state by the incumbent governor, Rochas Okorocha, said the level of unemployment his administration curtailed by massive employment scheme has risen beyond proportionate level due to the politically-motivated sack of over 4,000 civil servants by the current administration.

Ohakim, who said he has put behind him issues and circumstances that led to his defeat in the 2011 governorship election, stressed that life is not about falling, but be able to rise again.

According to him, “the character of a man is judged by his ability to rebound from adversity and turn it into advancement. If certain things in life work out for us effortlessly, it does not mean that life is without difficulties. All heroes are those who surmount difficulties’.

With this in mind, he said he has decided to contest the 2015 governorship election in Imo state on the platform of his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), explaining that one of the basic reasons for him to contest is to implement his programmes and projects that have been ‘bastardised’ by the current administration in the state.

One of the programmes which he initiated but was allegedly bastardised by the Okorocha’s administration, he said, is the drive to provide employment for the vast army of unemployed youths in the state.

The former governor explained that as a policy, Imo past administrations had placed embargo in the state for over 18 years and that to address this, he contacted a consulting firm, KPMG to help in the recruitment of the unemployed youths.

Before this, he said in the schools, especially in the primary and secondary schools, there is a ratio of 189 pupils to a teacher and that the average retiring age of civil servants in the state was 58 years coupled with the fact that most of the civil servants kept changing their age to enable them remain in the job. But on assumption of office in 2007, he employed KPMG to address the growing question of unemployment in the state.

According to Ohakim, “the consultant, the KPMG came up with its report that there are over 700,000 applicants in the state civil service to compete for only ten thousand vacancies”, explaining that the objective of getting a consulting firm like KPMG was to enthrone transparency in the recruitment exercise.

He explained that, due to the transparent recruitment exercise by the KPMG, only 8,000 applicants were successful, but the criteria had to be lowered to enable additional 2000 applicants to qualify. In this, he said 5,000 teachers (75 per cent of these were science-based teachers) were employed with over 250 judiciary officers.

Apart from Ohakin, others that are jostling to contest for the 2015 governorship election in the state include the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Emeka Ihedioha, Senator Chris Anyanwu, Senator Ifeanyi Ararume and Chief Mike Ahamba (SAN).

All of them would be contesting on the platform of the PDP while the former Minister of Internal Affairs, Capt. Emmanuel Iheanacho, would be contesting on the platform of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) and the incumbent governor, Rochas Okorocha, would be contesting on the platform of the All Progressives’ Congress (APC).

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Sambo said this when he formally declared open the campaign of Tony Nwoye, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state.

He declared that the election would be a “one man, one vote, one woman one vote, one youth one vote’’ exercise, adding that the Federal Government is committed towards making the Nov. 16 election a free and fair exercise,’’ the vice-president said.

Sambo commended PDP’s choice of Nwoye and his running-mate, Dr. Amamchukwu Ezike, for the election and declared that their administration would enjoy the support of the President Goodluck Jonathan-led Federal Government when elected.

The party’s National Chairman, Bamanga Tukur, later presented the PDP flag to Nwoye and Ezike as the party’s governorship and deputy governorship candidates respectively.

In his speech shortly before the presentation, he urged members of the party in the state to join hands to the PDP wins the election.

Tukur said Anambra people had given the state to the PDP at the inception of the current democratic era and urged the people of the state to return the state to the party.

“Nwoye is an energetic youth who had earlier given the party good leadership when he was the party’s chairman in the state.

“With the massive support he enjoys from the grassroots, especially from youths, he will certainly win the governorship election for the party,’’ he said.

The PDP chairman called on youths across the country to “relocate to Anambra to deliver one of their own’’, assuring that they would be provided with adequate security.

He however said the task of winning the governorship election by the party would not be an easy one.

The event was also attended by many of the party’s national stalwarts, including Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu and the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Emeka Ihedioha.

Others are Gov. Ibrahim Dankwambo of Gombe state, a former PDP national chairman, Dr Amadu Ali, a former Deputy Senate President, Sen. Ibrahim Mantu, and Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu.

The rest include the Special Adviser to the President on Politics, Sen. Ben Obi, as well as Prince Arthur Eze and the PDP National Women Leader, Mrs Kema Chikwe.

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