FOR the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), the ruling last Friday by the Enugu State High Court was all too familiar. It was yet another ruling. The party was simply adding another feather to its ‘illustrious’ caps of litigation.
The only time in the last 13 years that APGA had known relative peace was at the early stages of her formation. Thereafter, while other parties waged the battle to win votes, members of APGA stayed in the courts to contest cases with one another.
The ruling by the State Chief Judge, Innocent Umezuruike, who presided over by the court, dealt another blow on the party. In a ruling that lasted over one hour, the CJ stated that APGA’s National Executive Committee (NEC) was illegal. He sacked Chief Victor Umeh and described his continued occupation of the office of the party’s national chairman was unconstitutional, null and void.
Umezuruike ruled that Umeh should stop parading himself as the party’s national chairman since, “his tenure ended on December 2, 2010.” The Judge asked members of the party to take steps to convoke a national convention for the purposes of electing members into the party’s NEC in line with the party’s constitution.
Umezuruike was ruling in a case brought by former chairman of the party for Udi council, Jude Okuli asking the court to determine whether by virtue of the proper interpretation of Section 18: 2,3,4 and 5 of APGA constitution, Umeh should remain the national chairman after four years in office without re-election.
Okuli also asked the court to declare Umeh’s continued stay in office without a party convention as illegal, and ultra vires the APGA constitution. He reasoned that the violation of the Section 18 of the party’s constitution, which stipulates that there must be an election into the party’s national offices through properly a national convention, was the source of disenchantment in the party.
On February 10, 2011 at Awka, Anambra State, Umeh had sought the consent of the party to continue as the national chairman after the his first four years in office, which he began in 2006, after the unceremonious exit of Chief Chekwas Okorie, the party’;s founding national chairman expired.
Leaders of the party at the Awka convention reaffirmed the continuation in office of the Umeh led executive for another four years. They claimed that NEC had earlier ratified their decision.
Justice Uwazuruike held that the process, which threw up the leadership, was faulty and unconstitutional. In barring Umeh claiming the office of the national chairman, he noted that Umeh could seek re-election in a properly fixed national convention.
He said: “The letters of the said constitution, which the court is invited to interpret are clear and unambiguous. I cannot see how the presence of APGA was necessary that it can assist the court one way or the other in interpreting Section 18 of the party’s constitution.”
According to him, Section 18 (4 &5) provided for a national convention properly fixed to elect the party’s national leadership by secret balloting. He added that the members vying for re-election into office of the national chairman must have vacated office at least two months before the convention.
He said: “In the instant case, it was gross travesty of article 18 of the party’s constitution, the meeting of the NEC was not convoked by party executive, no secret balloting was prescribed as the officers had to be returned by voice vote as recorded by the minutes of the convention before the court.
“When things are done regularly in accordance with constitution, the court has no business, but when it is the other way, it will be an invitation of court. The court cannot run away in terror because it is the domestic affair of the party. The court has a duty to protect law and order.”
Umezurike therefore, declared that the convention of February 10, 2011, that elected Umeh was “unconstitutional, null and void,” adding that there was no validly national officer elected at that convention.
“Umeh’s tenure ended on December 2, 2010 and he was not re-elected in accordance with article 18 of the party constitution. I therefore declare that he ceases to be the party national chairman from December 2. Members shall take immediate steps to elect members into the NEC of the party in accordance with its constitution.”
How would APGA handle this new challenge? Some members noted over the weekend that this ruling “would decapitate APGA.” How would the party put herself together again to regain the confidence of the people?
Umeh did not express much surprise at the position of the court. Perhaps, his reaction was the most predictable way out for him and still the party. He said: “I am going to appeal immediately, put a stay of execution on this judgment until the Court of Appeal reviews it. I also have a right of further appeal to the Supreme Court.
“The sponsors of this ignoble act against me have nothing to profit from the judgment because the judgment has not created alternative leadership for APGA. He is still directing the NEC of APGA to meet and elect a new leadership. The time he is talking about, the expiration of tenure, of the chairman of NEC, I was the chairman of the convention and no other organ of the party is empowered to do this. The Board of Trustees (BoT), had only one surviving member, Dr Tim Menakaya, and his tenure expired on January 11, 2013. The Judge has finished his business and we will test it at the appeal.
“By sacking the party’s National Working Committee (NWC) that was elected at the national convention of February 10, 2011, Justice Umezulike has completely decapitated APGA and left it without a leadership. This is like removing the head of a trailer and the bodies of the trailer can no longer move.
“By this judgment, there is no organ of the party left to execute the orders he made, therefore the orders are in vain. Nobody, including Anambra State Governor Peter Obi, the sponsor of this suit, can derive any benefit from the judgment until the matter is determined at the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court.”
The national chairman of United Peoples Party (UPP), Okorie, told The Guardian that, “I have said it several times that Umeh was never elected national chairman of APGA by the constitutional provision of the party, but his media apologists and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) ignored my outcry and partnered with Umeh for years to deceive Nigerians.
“Now that the Court has delivered a judgment that Umeh was never APGA’s national chairman, what would INEC say? What will be the fate of all those Umeh nominated for 2011 elections, including Imo State Governor Rochas Okorocha. Where is the Supreme Court judgment in which Umeh claimed he was declared national chairman? This judgment has exposed the corruption and hypocrisy of some INEC staff that connived with Umeh to commit illegalities.”
Dr Chidozie Igwe, an APGA sympathiser and public affairs analyst said though the decision of the court was a blow on APGA, especially those whose offices have been tampered with.
He said that what the judge did was to strengthen democracy, stressing that “until Nigerians learn to do things in accordance with rule of law, the country would continue to frog-jump.
“It is a problem for people who go against the rules they set for themselves. We have a situation where APGA has said it will elect leadership at a proper convention through secret balloting and where the same members equally agreed that candidates to this office must have left their previous appointment at least two months before the election; if that agreement was not followed and the court is saying it should be followed, I do not see anything wrong. Let them go and do the right thing.
“It is about APGA today, it could be another party tomorrow. Affirmation by the veto power of the leader of the party is the problem with the party politics.”
The judgment has not only opened another vista in the crisis-ridden party, and for many people, “happenings in APGA have defeated the aim of the founding father of the party. Ndigbo, which had always claimed marginalisation in the affairs of the country had hoped to use APGA to attain to the to the highest political office in 2015. How can the party win elections in the five South East states? What will the party use to bargain if it wants to even join the so-called merger? How long will the appeal by Umeh take? Will Umeh decide to dump the appeal and seek other ways to save APGA from political extinction?
Okorie was the first victim of APGA’s protracted court cases when he was removed as chairman and later expelled on account of alleged corruption and anti-party activities. Okorie and Umeh had and resorted to courts to settle the leadership issue in APGA until the Supreme Court finally dealt with the matter last year.
Although it could be said that the party in spite of the litigations before now continued to forge ahead and going into elections, how it would operate with the recent court pronouncement that has removed life from its national leadership leaves much to be desired.
With the present situation of the party, APGA’s faces confusion over the election in Anambra where it hopes to produce a successor for Obi, whose second term will soon end. The situation is more uncertain because, with the dislocation of Umeh and his NEC, coupled with his proposed move to appeal, the matter is unlikely to be concluded before the 2014 governorship election in Anambra.
The former Deputy National Chairman of the APGA, Chief Onwuka Ukwa in an interview alleged plans to collapse APGA after Obi’s tenure, warning of the negative implication of another crisis in the party. Warning that the party may not survive another crisis, Ukwa insisted that the court ruling was a sour point for the party. “The founders of the party would be disappointed should this party collapse, and I wonder if APGA ever fly again,” he said.