By Clem Afam Aguiyi
Rather than hide his face behind a rock for lying under oath and committing forgery – two criminal felonies punishable by prison terms and made worse if the person involved is an officer of the court and federal law maker because both crimes undermines the very foundation of our justice system, Igbeke still speaks to the press from the underground through paid writers.

Mr Johnson Anyaba who claimed to be a teacher and writing from Onitsha in page 18 of Vanguard newspapers of September 21 began his poorly weaved lies with the question: ‘Who is afraid of Igbeke?’ My answer simply put and I believe I speak for the decent people of Anambra North Senatorial District  is that “no body is afraid of Igbeke”, rather our question  is: What is Igbeke afraid of?

The writer claimed that “after the PDP primaries for Anambra North Senatorial seat, Senator Igbeke having won the highest number of votes in the exercise was declared winner and his names forwarded to INEC”.

The above statement in its entirety are lies as nobody declared Igbeke winner of the said primary and nobody forwarded his names to INEC as winner or candidate. I challenge either the writer or Igbeke to publish the names of persons who forwarded his name to INEC as a winner since both state chairman and national secretariat of PDP have been vociferous and consistent in denying him.

The writer told more lies when he claimed that “Igbeke approached the court with the original certified true copies of the result of the primaries asking the court to declare him as winner having won the highest votes”.

The fact of the matter is that Igbeke approached the court with fabricated certified true copies of results purportedly issued by INEC, an act INEC and AA Umar whom Igbeke forged his signature already distanced herself from in his statement under caution to the police.

It is on the strength of the incurable fabrications and falsifications of documents that he is being prosecuted of criminal forgery by the Attorney General of the Federation in discharge of his constitutional duty to rein in every offender of the law irrespective of one’s social standing.

We are a nation governed by law.  Lying under oath undermined the very foundation of our justice system. Hundreds of ordinary citizens are serving jail terms for lying under oath and petty forgery and we are all agreed that curbing the impunity of crooks in high places is an essential step to be taken if we must safeguard our liberty and democracy.

Rather than speaking from hiding and through paid writers what is expected from Igbeke as once-upon-a-time federal law maker is to immediately fulfil his responsibility as a citizen and appear before the court where his evidence is required viva voce to clear his ‘distinguished’ name.

Being a citizen under the constitution Igbeke is subject to judicial proceeding. A situation where he has clearly shown utter disregard for the rule of law by evading the court and acting above the law is deplorable, needless and unjustifiable.

It is also laughable that Johnson Anyaba is mocking us with the question, “who is afraid of Igbeke?” when in actual sense the question should be directed to Igbeke. What is Igbeke Afraid of if he is so sure of the authenticity of the documents he presented to the court?. Clear conscience, they say, fears no accusation.

Igbeke’s issue is like the case of ‘every day for the thief and one day for the owner of the house’. Before now he has gotten away with so much because no one tries to verify his claims and bad judges who trade justice for pay did his biddings. But unfortunately for him now, his time is up, hence he stole from a Prince who will not let go of his mandate

For the records, a PDP primary for Anambra North Senatorial District was held at Joneb Holiday Resort on January 10, 2011. In the said primaries Igbeke scored 74 votes against John Emeka’s 1156 votes, Chief Denise Odife 115 votes, Hon Uzoka 33 votes, Tony Nnaecheta 27 votes and Hon Celestine Ughanze 295 votes.

All these gentlemen who participated in the said primary are all alive and are appalled by Igbeke’s desperation to falsify both history and records.

There is no debate whether Igbeke obtained an infamous judgement using questionable documents, a judgement already appealed against by Prince Emeka. The so-called Igbeke judgement was ab-initio defective and worthless because as regards to Anambra State PDP, there were plethoras of court orders including the frivolous court order Justice Kafarati gave Igbeke on March 17, 2011.

Before the Igbeke’s order and other orders too numerous to list here, there was the Arthur Obi Okafor order of first instance.

It is only reasonable for INEC to act on the judgement and order of first in-time which is that of Arthur Obi Okafor and rightly maintained the status-quo ante until a higher court will say otherwise. And being a pre-election matter could terminate in the Supreme Court.

Notably the Obi Okafor’s order of first in-time precluded INEC from accepting any other list of candidates from PDP other than the list containing the names of Senator Andy Uba, Prince John Emeka, Rt Hon Chizo Obidigwe and all other PDP members currently serving in the Senate, Federal House and Anambra State House of Assembly as submitted by Benji Udeozor-led PDP Exco in Anambra State.

It is an elementary law that only a higher court can vacate an order issued by a lawful court and not a court of same equal jurisdiction as Igbeke relied on.

All available records from the PDP, INEC to the security agencies that monitored the Anambra North Senatorial Primary are unequivocal that Prince John Emeka was the authentic candidate of the PDP for Anambra North senatorial election.

*Mr Aguiyi, a politics and public affairs analyst,  wrote from Lagos