Smarting from his loss at the Supreme Court which affirmed the election of Dr Okezie Ikpeazu as the governor of Abia State, the candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Dr Alex Otti has said the apex court erred in law by confirming the election of his opponent.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday, February 3 in a marathon judgment, affirmed the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Dr Ikpeazu as the validly elected governor of Abia State in the April 11 governorship election and the supplementary poll on April 25.
But Dr Otti took exception to the judgment, saying the Supreme Court failed to do justice to the case filed at the apex court by the PDP after it lost at the Appeal Court. Daily Sun brings excerpts of his interaction with a select group of journalists in Lagos.
What is your reaction to the Supreme Court judgment which affirmed the election of your opponent, Governor Okezie Ikpeazu of the PDP?
You will all recall that elections held throughout the country in April 2015. We ran for the governorship of Abia State on the platform of APGA . The election was on April 11, 2015. The election was declared inconclusive and on April 26, a supplementary election held. The PDP candidate, Dr Ikpeazu was returned as duly elected and because we felt he did not score majority of the lawful votes and did not satisfy the conditions under which he could have been declared duly elected, we proceeded to the governorship election tribunal. I believe that the rest is history. I must say that at the lower tribunal, the facts of our case, was not carefully looked at and the tribunal mistakenly misunderstood the case and reaffirmed the election of Ikpeazu. We were dissatisfied and proceeded to the Court of Appeal where on December 31, 2015, we were declared as having won the election. But because the matter had to go to the Supreme Court, we waited for the PDP to approach the Supreme Court which they did. And just on the February 3, 2015, the Supreme Court gave a judgment reaffirming his victory. For us in APGA and me particularly, I will like to start by thanking God for the opportunity to offer myself and ourselves to serve the people of Abia State. This is because what we came to do was for service. For us, it is not a matter of life and death.
We have accepted the judgment of the Supreme Court even if we do not agree with them. But they are the highest court in the land and I believe that in their wisdom, they have given the judgment the way they understood it.
But it is very important to underscore here that the ladies and gentlemen of the Supreme Court are human beings. To that extent, we do not expect that they cannot make mistakes or that they are infallible. As human beings, I believe they have delivered the judgment the way they did. But for us as a political party and candidates, we did not think that justice was done to the case but it is a matter we do not want to push beyond this. We also think that the way and manner the Supreme Court affirmed all the election was not proper. If you have watched the trends of their judgments in recent time, they affirmed every election –be it Ebonyi, Lagos, Delta, Akwa Ibom, Rivers. Name it, all the ones that came to them, they affirmed. I am not in a position to say they should not have affirmed but it looks like a bandwagon effect and that a position had been taken that every matter that came before them that the election would be upheld.
The danger in that is that people can resort to self help like it happened in Abia State knowing full well that the Supreme Court would endorse it.
But having said that, I want to use this opportunity to thank the people of Abia State for coming out enmasse to support us. Those of you who followed the trend in the 2015 election would agree that Abia had never seen it like that in the past and that is what democracy should be about. It should not be that one person has spoken and everybody should fall in line. What we came to provide was an alternative voice. We felt that things could be done differently. We felt that governance had suffered in the state. We did our research properly and we had facts and figures and we were able to convince our people that there could be better governance. On that basis, majority of our people signed on and carried our campaign that we had very clear ideas of what we wanted to do to improve the lot of the people in Abia State. And that is the reason why they came out enmasse and voted for us. Because what is at stake here are the lives of the people of Abia, our position as a party is that we would let sleeping dogs lie. It is not all the time that you would get justice but we also believe very strongly in God. We believe that for God to allow this to happen, there must be a purpose. So, while thanking our people in Abia, we would like to call on them that nobody does anything that would not have our approval. We need to do everything to ensure that the state moves forward and we want to ensure that things get better for our people. Our people have suffered a lot. We also want to call on the government to avoid anything that would lead to breach of the peace. We have received a lot of phone calls and text messages of people alleging victimization for not supporting the government. I really do not think it is in the best interest of anybody. If somebody had been declared winner, I believe it is God that said it should happen that way. One of the best ways to thank God, is not to victimize and intimidate people; eople should be free to air their views once it is consistent with the law.
Now that the election is over, are you going to wait and continue rebuilding your party, APGA in your state or are you going to go back to your banking career?
I do not think that there is anything to rebuild. If you followed what happened in Abia State, you would agree with me that APGA is the strongest party in the state. At some point, I would find time to speak to our people in Abia State. For me, I also do not think I have any problem on what to do. If you know a little bit about me, at the risk of sounding immodest, I would say that I am very skilled. There are a lot of opportunities and it is only for me to decide on what I want to do. It may be in the banking industry or elsewhere. So, there is nothing to worry about.
From your experience, what do you think needs to change in our electoral process?
There are many things that need to be changed in our electoral process. We have a long way to go because a situation where somebody won an election clearly and it is awarded to somebody else should not even happen at all. The change has to start with the people who pride themselves as politicians; there are a lot of things you see out there and you marvel. People say I am a politician and I have been in this business for 16 years and you ask yourself what business. Elsewhere, politicians have jobs they are engaged in and I think that is where we have to start from. When you have a set of people who do not do anything; they are absolutely idle, there is a problem. They tell you they are politicians; they can do anything to get to power. Though some would say it is not democratic but we need to actually redefine who should actually call himself a politician and who should contest election.
What is your take on the judiciary?
Lawyers, I used to hold them in high esteem particularly the successful ones but what I saw with some of the very high profile lawyers is that they speak from both sides of their mouth. You will see a very senior SAN representing the PDP in state A and is making one argument that card readers should not be used because the PDP in state A rigged election. He shows up in state B as representing APC and he says that card readers should have been used. And this is the same election, the same time and season. Do these lawyers and senior advocates have children; if they do, what do they teach them. One of the things we teach our children is not to lie. When you take them on that, they tell you that there are no two cases that are the same. I also want to appeal to senior lawyers to save their profession.
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