By Ochereome Nnanna
IT is now more than three years since the 2007 general elections were held. The Constitution and the Electoral Act empowered those who are not satisfied with the way elections are handled by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and any of the other concerned parties to take a petition to the Election Tribunal and later to the Court of Appeal if necessary.

In Nigeria therefore, an electoral process is not complete until the “combatants” have exhausted all these steps if the need arises.

In very few cases, the losers of the 2007 polls let matters be after the end of the process at the Appeal Court . In the unique case of Jigawa State , once the INEC announced Alhaji Sule Lamido winner of the gubernatorial election, those who contested against him allowed him to start work. Go to Jigawa State and see the result of letting the winner work for the people with a settled mind which comes from an atmosphere devoid of distraction. Even in the Anambra State governorship poll of February 6, 2010 which the All Progressives Grand Alliance’s (APGA’s) Mr Peter Obi was pronounced winner by the INEC, some of the politicians went beyond the Jigawa politics without bitterness by actually congratulating the winner.

Thus doing, the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP’s) candidate, Professor Chukwuma Soludo and the Labour Party’s Chief Andy Uba, made the Anambra election look like an event from an advanced democracy. It was not as if there were no problems in the Anambra election.

The voters register was still the same comically flawed one that INEC used to conduct the 2007 elections, whereby even the names of known foreigners were imported into the register. There was massive disenfranchisement of the electorate as evident in only about 300,000 voters casting their votes out of about 1.8 million people.

The world saw the milling and disenchanted electors who were denied the right to vote because the election was televised live on major networks. In spite of these, Soludo and Uba and later, Hon Uche Ekwunife, who stood for the Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA) did not insist on fighting at the tribunal because, according to them, the interests of  Anambra State were above the personal ambition of any single individual.

In Nigeria, three years after the governorship polls of 2007, combatants in at least four states – Imo, Abia , Niger and Sokoto are still slugging it out in court.

That of Imo State is particularly laughable because it has gone beyond a case of someone fighting for his right to contest election results in court. It is a clear case of someone doggedly grabbing at loose straws in the hope that somewhere, somehow, a panel of judges will take pity and give a favourable judgement.

After all, that was what happened to Hon Chibuike Amaechi of Rivers State , whom the Supreme Court made a governor, even when he did not contest any governorship election. It also happened to Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State and Governor Olusegun Mimiko of Ondo State . Or did it?

The case that Chief Martin Agbaso (Ochudo) has been pursuing against the election of Governor Ikedi Ohakim is what I would like to describe as “judicial dice throwing”. Agbaso is an intelligent, hard working man with rich tastes and excellent breeding, but I suspect that he has fallen victim to the wiles of job-hungry lawyers.

They have been taking him on a judicial merry-go-round, feeding fat on his hard-earned money and denying him the breather he needs to mount a more telling challenge for the governorship seat of Imo State in 2011.

It all started when the PDP in Imo State withdrew from the governorship race and decided to support him in the April 14, 2007 election. Unfortunately for him, there were problems on election day and the INEC felt compelled to stop the election and shift it to April 28, 2007, as many verdicts in court as well as legal opinions agree that they have the power to do.

Within that hiatus, situations changed and the PDP decided to back one of its own who was now contesting on the ticket of the PPA, Sir Ikedi Ohakim. That was how Agbaso’s moment passed and his ordeal started.

He tried to stop INEC from holding the rescheduled poll through a suit at a high court (since he claimed he was coasting to victory before the INEC stopped the April 14 election) but failed. Rather than proceed on appeal, he went ahead to contest the April 28 election, which he lost. He sued at the election petition tribunal and lost.

He went on appeal, the supposed last bus-stop, and lost again. He went back to his unfinished pre-election case. He is expecting the Appeal Court in Abuja , which will rule shortly on his application, to try the pre-election case afresh.

Whether his request will be granted is something we are watching with interest to see how it will be decided.
Why I think this is just a case of someone refusing to accept defeat is that the APGA candidate agreed to contest the April election after he claimed to have won the April 14 inconclusive poll. Why did he not exhaust that claim in court?

Why did he go for the second election which INEC concluded and announced a result that did not favour him? If the INEC had pronounced him winner of the second poll would he even remember the first one?

This is why I think his lawyers are not handling him well. They are only interested in the job and his money. The sorry thing about it is that he is fighting against an opponent who has won all 19  previous cases arising from the election and does not even need to spend a dime from his personal savings.