By Oyinloluwa Akeredolu
THE controversy over the conduct of last April’s National Assembly elections in Anambra State appears to be causing disquiet and mutual distrust within the Abuja Headquarters and Awka, Anambra State offices of the Independent National Electoral Commission [INEC].

In fact, the indiscipline and administrative challenges in the Commission’s office in Awka are so obvious that the Resident Electoral Commissioner [REC], Professor Chuwuemeka Onukaogu, was recently invited to Abuja to meet with the INEC Chairman , Professor Attahiru Jega, over the issue. Following the August 23, 2011 summons, the INEC boss promptly queried the Anambra State REC.

A furious Jega, sources said, was so bitter with the goings-on at the electoral body’s Anambra office that he openly berated Professor Onukaogu at a session attended by the commission’s senior management. Chief among Jega’s grouse – for which he demanded urgent answers to – included the fact that Professor Onukaogu, as the commission’s REC, allowed one Mr. Alex Ejesieme, a lawyer in the Abuja legal unit of INEC to “hijack” an electoral matter, for which the Commission had previously mandated Dr. Onyechi Ikpeazu [SAN] to represent it.

Among other things, the INEC Chairman also directed the Anambra REC to explain the rationale behind the reported removal of the head of the legal unit in the Anambra State office, Barrister S. Ibrahim.

Notedly, the case in question was a pre-election suit filed by one Chukwuka Onyema over the Ogbaru Federal Constituency House of Representatives seat won by Hon. Victor Afam Ogene, in the April elections.In the case still pending at the Federal High Court, Awka Division, Onyema had, allegedly, imported a fake result into his suit, and on the basis of that is urging the court to declare him winner of the said election. Hon. Ogene had severally petitioned INEC headquarters over the conduct of some of its officials/lawyers, who he stated in one of the petitions, “gravely compromised my position and that of INEC in the matter”.

The INEC Chairman expressed surprise that Barrister Ejesieme of the Commission’s legal unit in Abuja – who was removed from Anambra State as head of the legal unit in 2007 – could, without any authorization from the Commission, go to a court in Awka and unilaterally present himself as the counsel representing the electoral body in a case already being handled by Dr. Ikpeazu [SAN], if there was no personal interest.

In Professor Onukaogu’s response to the INEC Chairman’s query, dated September 9, 2011, it was further revealed that Barrister Ejesieme, who is now under suspension, acted on his own volition in a bid to protect some interested parties.

Onukaogu’s response reads in part: “I do not at all know anything about suit FHC|AWK|CS|247|2011 between one Chukwuka Onyema versus INEC. The case was never brought to the notice of this office. As my HOU [legal] has narrated in his response to the above-mentioned memo, the legal service unit of this office has no knowledge of this case… Barrister Ibrahim, the head of the legal unit has completely disassociated this office from the case. I am completely at a loss regarding how the case has been linked to me for I do not know Mr. Alex Ejesieme, neither have I set my eyes on him”.

Onyema had on May 5, 2011, asked the Federal High Court in Awka to grant an order of mandamus compelling the INEC to declare him winner of the then inconclusive Ogbaru Federal Constituency election, but Ikpeazu had told the court, through his written submission, that it is not competent to hear the case since it was an electoral matter which both the Constitution and the Electoral Act 2010, as amended, empower only Election Tribunals to entertain.

INEC sources, however, suggest that the suspended Ejesieme may have been taking directives from a certain INEC National Commissioner who they said has vested interest in the Anambra State National Assembly elections.