Candidate of the Ebonyi South senatorial zone in the Labour Party, Hon. Linus Okorie has issued a press statement eulogising the decision of the Appeal Court’s President, Justice Bengbam Mensem last week to relocate the panel of election petition tribunal from Abakaliki to Abuja over security reason.
The tribunal was immediately relocated. Okorie in his press release signed by him stated as follows:
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Relocation of Ebonyi Election Petition Tribunal: The Judiciary acted rightly in the interest of justice for all!
(- Being a Press statement detailing my take on Ebonyi APC’s protest over relocation of the Election Petition Tribunal to Abuja by the Appeal Court)
My attention has been drawn to the press release by the Secretary of the Ebonyi Elections Petition Tribunal Holden at Abakaliki announcing the relocation of the sitting in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State to Abuja and a subsequent leaked letter by the APC Ebonyi State Chapter to the Party’s National Chairman seeking his intervention in reversing the said decision.
In the letter signed by the duo of the Ebonyi APC Chairman, Stanley Okoro Emegha and Secretary, Charles Chukwuma Ofoke; they listed the acclaimed strong rooting of the APC in Ebonyi, assumed peace/law abiding nature of the State and expected high cost of mobilizing witnesses to Abuja as grounds for the protest and call for reversal.
It should be noted that Stanley Okoro Emegha, the State chairman of APC is also the State Security Consultant who supervised and is yet superintending over the notorious and obnoxious activities of the defunct Ebubeagu militia and the later day State Neighborhood Watch and Vigilantee Groups formed by the Umahi administration.
The excesses of the disbanded Ebubeagu militia under Okoro Emegha are of national notoriety; including but not limited to: killing of innocent citizens, maiming, torture, dehumanization, intimidation and illegal detention of persons in secret dungeons and particularly running a torture chamber in the old Government House, Abakaliki.
It is instructive at this point to unmask the character, Okoro Emegha who co-signed the said protest letter as arguably the principal architect of some of the key security challenges, murdering and torturing of some opposition elements in the State particularly since Umahi’s second term in office.
Ebonyi State in the period under review was consistently in the news for widespread political violence, allegedly undertaken by APC thugs under the leadership of Okoro Emegha, during the last general elections. These violent attacks in different parts of the State among other breaches of our extant laws led to the unfortunate killing of one Oyibo Nwani- an AA party agent in Onicha, Onicha LGA, one Peter Nweke, PDP Chairman, Ezza North LGA, inflicting of severe injuries to several innocent citizens and voters, including INEC Adhoc staff and the destruction of several INEC offices where electoral materials were safely harboured across some Local Government Areas of the State.
On October 16, 2022; I was abducted by Okoro Emegha’s Ebubeagu goons; taken to the Old Government House for indescribable torture, detention and dehumanization; before I was rescued by the Police, arraigned and incarcerated for 45 days in prison on trumped up charges of murder. While these lawlessness lasted, Emegha was not only in touch with my abductors but was dishing out the commands. My only offense was contesting the Ebonyi South Senatorial seat against the incumbent Governor of the State, David Umahi Nweze.
On the 26th of December last year, the Emegha’s Ekoli Edda community was boiling over his clash with a rival politician from the area which resulted in the killing of some innocent citizens including his own younger brother and the burning of his house by some irate youths. On New year Eve and in the same Edda, Afikpo South Local Government Area, a pregnant woman was murdered in cold blood by the same armed militia suspected to be working for the State government.
Needless to emphasize that the blood letting that prevailed in Ebonyi long before, during and after the recently concluded 2023 elections are very widely published in the various mainstream and even Social media.
All along, well meaning Ebonyians had urged the State government to relieve the said Okoro Emegha of the sensitive responsibility of the state security consultant to protect it from partisan machinations without success. To date, he still holds on to those two security-contradictory positions.
Accordingly, I wish to commend the President of the Court of Appeal for perceptively acting in the best interest of justice and Ebonyians too by moving the sitting of the Election Petitions Tribunal to Abuja. At least, this singular act will save lives in Ebonyi State and guarantee justice for all parties. It is evident that security reports on the officially induced insecurity and constricted democratic space which Ebonyi has long become abound in quarters that matter.
For many petitioners and even their supporters, the fear had always been that without moving the tribunal sittings out of Abakaliki, the APC leadership of Okoro Emegha would make it impossible for the opposition; who are mostly the petitioners to freely prove their cases. Reports already had it that the State APC Chapter, archetypal of it’s hurried disposition to always copy evil had allegedly concluded arrangements to frustrate the cases of their opponents by adopting the recent Rivers State model of blocking access to the tribunal venues for all non-APC litigants in the State. The safety of the Honourable Tribunal Judges cannot also be guaranteed nor their zeal to dispense justice be assured under such a pervading threat of intimidation and insecurity.
How, for instance, can I who was abducted, tortured, nearly killed and jailed for merely expressing my wish to run an election against the State Governor confidently prosecute the case I have filed at the tribunal against the same Governor; if Abakaliki remains the venue of the tribunal sittings?
While urging the APC and its Ebonyi leadership to eschew crass partisanship in pointing fingers at the opposition, it should blame itself for the relocation of the tribunal to Abuja for adopting intimidation and insecurity as near deliberate policies of State.
The Party should also be reminded that the Rivers State petitions tribunal had earlier been moved to Abuja without the PDP throwing wild accusations against opponents or seeking to politically destroy the bureaucratic systems of the judiciary that makes for easy, effective and efficient dispensation of justice through it’s partisan haranguing.
As costlier as it may become to mobilize witnesses to Abuja, we should all be reminded that no expenses is costlier than the life of any citizen and no sacrifice is higher than the peace of our dear the State.
Therefore, let us all accept the wise decision of the President of the Court of Appeal in good fate and move on in the greater interest of justice and the sustained peace, development and progress of Ebonyi State.”
Signed:
Rt. Hon. Linus Okorie,FCA
Labour Party Senatorial Candidate, Ebonyi South.
28/04/23