ABIA: ONE STATE, FOUR GOVERNORS

At a time when there is confusion and hunger in the nation, and the citizens hardly can predict their next economic capability.

One begins to think that in a saner clime, these should constitute enough trouble for the inhabitants. But the indigenes and residents of Abia State will have a little more. This is made possible by the leadership crisis rocking the State,

 thereby halting governance as the sitting governor does not understand his position due to conflicting judgments from the courts.

As it stands, we can conclude that there are about four governors in Abia State right now.

1 1.  The sitting governor, Okezie Ikpeazu was ordered by justice Okoh Abang of the Federal high court Abuja to step aside on the 27th of June 2016 for Uchechukwu Ogar.  Abang held that the tax clearance certificate and income tax receipts submitted by Ikpeazu were unknown to the law and made him ineligible to contest the poll.

Though, the governor has since appealed against the judgement and a stay of execution, there is still tension in the state.

22. With the following words of justice Abang, we saw another governor, “It is hereby ordered that INEC, the third defendant should immediately issue certificate of return to Dr Samson Ogah as governor of Abia state in the election held in 2015 and restore to him all the entitlements as the elected governor of Abia.

INEC, applying the speed of electricity, issued certificate of return to Uchechukwu Ogah. The action of INEC automatically ensured that the certificate of return earlier issued to Ikpeazu was invalid. But while the sitting governor Ikpeazu was still in the government house witout certificate, the Ogah with certificate was operating from Abuja.

33.  A PDP governorship candidate in the 2015 elections, Friday Nwosu, filed a suit against the judgment of the Federal High Court which declared Ogah as governor-elect. Nwosu averred that the court, having disqualified Ikpeazu as the governorship candidate of the PDP in Abia in the 2015 polls, should have declared him as governor-elect and not Ogah.

 He argued that the court ought not to have allowed Ogah to benefit from the primary election he condemned by refusing to sign the result while also petitioning the leadership of the party and asking it to conduct another primary election.

44.    And now, the Abia State Chapter of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, has expressed displeasure over the court ruling that declared first runner up in the 2014 Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, governorship primaries in the state, Dr Uche Ogah as replacement for the State Governor, Okezie Ikpeazu.

They humbly disagreed with the consequential order by the court which directed the swearing in of Dr. Uche Ogah as the governor.  The party maintains, “This order, which we consider as a huge error, is not only unacceptable to APGA, but untenable in Nigeria’s 2010 Electoral Act as amended, which forbids any person that did not take part in all the stages of an election from being declared winner.

While Nigerians await the courts to settle the problem they aided to create, we have about four governors in Abia State.

--Asomugha Johnpaul