By Damian Nwanjoku
These are trying times for the Rivers State chapter of the APC. Two governorship candidates emerged from two parallel primaries. Tonye Dele Cole through indirect primary and Senator Magnus Abe by direct primary.
Cole, an architect, is the product of the pro-Amaechi group being propelled by former two-term governor of Rivers State and Minister of Transportation, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, while Abe, a lawyer, representing Rivers South East Senatorial District is the main cast for about 80 per cent of elected and political appointees that served in Amaechi’s government.
For the record, all elective candidates in the pro-Amaechi camp were elected through indirect primary while the pro-Abe’s group chose it’s candidates by direct primary. Instructively, a Rivers State High Court has nullified the outcome of the indirect primary, and consequently, nullified the selection of candidates that were the product of indirect primary.
According to the court, the indirect primary were conducted in fragrant disobedience of an existing court ruling that faulted the process through which the delegates were elected on May 19, 20 and 21, respectively.
Justice Chiwendu Nworgu, had on May 30, nullified the ward, local government and state congresses through which the delegates were elected. That substantive suit was still pending in court when the pro-Amaechi group went ahead to conduct it’s indirect primary.
The pro-Abe’s faction of the Rivers APC, however, selected it’s candidates for elective positions for the 2019 general elections through direct primary which was earlier recommended by the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the party in Abuja.
Barely a week after the NEC of the party ordered that Rivers State should choose it’s candidates for elective positions through direct primary, the National Working Committee (NWC), issued a contrary directive ordering Rivers APC to select it’s candidates for the 2019 general elections by indirect primary.
It was in a haze of two conflicting orders from the leadership of the party that both the pro-Amaechi and pro-Abe’s camps organised two parallel governorship, National and State Assemblies primaries in the state.
Both camps are laying claim to either of the orders from Abuja that favours it’s interest. As it is, the National Chairman of the APC, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, who heads the party’s NWC has submitted the names of Tonye Dele Cole and that of Victor Giadom as governorship and deputy governorship candidates to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Anticipating that the high court in Rivers State might nullify the process that produced it’s State Working Committee (SWC), the Rivers State Chairman, Ojukaiye Flag-Amachree of the APC approached a federal high court, in Abuja, to secure a perpetual injunction, preventing its national chairman from dissolving the state Exco.
What is clear is that the suit filed by 23 aggrieved APC members was on and pending months before Ojukaiye went to the federal high court, in Abuja, to obtain the perpetual injunction restraining the national chairman from dissolving the state SWC.
There are about four cases concerning the Rivers State APC filed by pro-Amaechi and pro-Abe’s supporters. Some of the matters have inched their way to the Court of Appeal.
The judgment of the Rivers State High Court, on Wednesday, October 10, have further complicated the complex web of intrigues that the Rivers APC appears entangled. The pro-Amaechi group say it will appeal Justice Nworgu’s judgment.
Although, the national leadership of the APC has not made any pronouncement on the thorny situation as it concerns Rivers State APC, it appears Cole’s name is still at INEC as its candidate for the 2019 governorship election, pending the eventual outcome of the appeal.
Going by the judgment of the Rivers State High Court, Cole’s candidate is defective by law. And that situation can only change if the pro-Amaechi’s group win at the Supreme Court. The same legal interpretation applies to the SEC of the Rivers State chapter of the APC.
Justice Nworgu in his judgement cited the case of Amaechi versus INEC in 2007 which stated that Amaechi in the mind of members of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) to which Amaechi belonged at that time regarded him as the party’s authentic candidate because he emerged through a proper elective process organised by the party.
So, how does the Amaechi versus INEC case apply to Senator Abe who emerged from the direct primary held by its group? In the direct primary through which Abe was chosen, over 4, 000 card-carrying members voted in the 319 wards in the 23 local government areas of the state.
During the fratricidal skirmish that severely polarised the PDP over whom was the authentic national chairman between Senator Ali Modu-Sherrif and Senator Ahmed Makarfi, the court ruled that the NEC of the party was the superior organ of the party. And, therefore, it’s decision superceded that of all other organs of the party.
Senator Abe’s group is holding on tenaciously to this judgment. According to the chieftains of the pro-Abe’s group, it conducted it’s direct primary in adherence to the instruction of the party’s NEC, which it claims is superior to the party’s NWC.
According to Elder Chidi Wihoka, representing iKwerre/Emohua Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives, he and Senator Abe were present at the NWC meeting where the decision was taken that Rivers State should conduct it’s governorship primary using direct primary.
As far as they are concerned, they are on the right path of the law because from judicial precedence, the NEC of a political party supersedes the NWC of the party. Both groups will still have to go back to the courts for a final judicial pronouncement on the matter.
While the pro-Amaechi group will approach the courts to set aside the judgment of the Rivers State High Court that nullified the ward, local government and state congresses, and consequently, the candidature of Cole, the pro-Abe’s group will apply to a Federal High Court, asking the court to grant an order of mandamus, compelling INEC to accept and publish Abe’s name as the governorship candidate of Rivers State APC.
And since Cole’s name was submitted before INEC’s deadline, it appears that a window of opportunity for Senator Abe should it’s group win at the highest peak at the court, can be substituted as the authentic governorship candidate of the APC in Rivers State, who claims to have been legally and procedurally elected to be the party’s governorship candidate for Rivers State in 2019, on the grounds that he was chosen in a direct primary ordered by the NEC of the APC.
Judgments relevant to politics and politicians from Rivers State are bound to well up in legal citations as the current imbroglio in Rivers State APC as the various cases pick their way up to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court judgement of Amaechi versus INEC, involving Minister of Transportation, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, who was Abe’s boss as governor; and another Supreme Court judgement, involving Modu-Sherrif and Makarfi, that Amaechi’s successor, Governor Nyesom Wike, also played a prominent role in enlisting lawyers, will be crucial in deciding who will fly the APC flag in the governorship election in Rivers State in 2019.
