By Emmanuel Aziken, Political Editor

Businessman politician, Chief Great Ogboru was the Democratic Peoples Party, DPP candidate in the 2011 gubernatorial election in Delta State. Final decision on the case was decided in favour of Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP candidate by the Supreme Court.

Following the decision, Vanguard sought Ogboru’s opinion on his response to the chorus for him to join hands with Governor Uduaghan in the development of the state. His response in the telephone interview was, however, dismissive of the calls as he insisted on the validity of his claim of having won the poll. Excerpts:

What is your reaction to the final Supreme Court judgment that confirmed Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan as winner of the gubernatorial election in Delta State?

Frankly that judgment came to us as a massive shock, that is the truth because in Kebbi State where they had similar facts and circumstances like our own, the Appeal Court heard the appeal and they held that the appeal had merit but when it came to that of Delta State they said that there is no appeal. In that of Kebbi the Appeal Court in Sokoto gave a decision I think in December but now gave their reason in January well after the sixty days.

In that case, the Court of Appeal set two issues for determination and the first issue was to the competence of the appeal and the second issue was to the merit of the appeal and they said that if the first issue is determined in the favour of the appellant then there would be no need to go to the second issue because the appellant was asking that they should restore the judgment of the tribunal, but if that first issue went against the appellant then they would have to go to the second issue which is the merit of the case having declared that the  judgment of the appeal court which was declared after the sixty days was a nullity.

But the court did not hold that there was no appeal before them like they held in Delta State. When it came to Delta State, they now said that the judgment was a nullity. In fairness the judgment could have been a nullity but does that mean that we have no further rights?

In our own case we were complaining about the decision of the lower tribunal which was upheld by the Appeal Court without reason but what they needed to do was to go to the merit of our complaints but because they didn’t want to do that they just came and said that there was no appeal before them because our appeal was based on a nullity. We came to the Supreme Court to set aside the judgment of that court of appeal because it was wrong but that did not mean that there was no judgment.

Ogboru

In any case, the Supreme Court has powers under special sections to look at the merits of our case based on the judgment of the tribunal which we were complaining against. But in this case the Supreme Court is confirming what is obviously an illegality because we said that you cannot return a governor with unlawful votes and that the votes that we are complaining about were unlawful votes. The Supreme Court needed to treat our appeal on its merits and not to say that there was no appeal at all. They should have done what they did in Kebbi.

In any case, the Kebbi case was heard on the same day with the Delta State case on the same day and by the same panel and the conferences were done on the same day but the outcomes were different. How is it possible? The same panel heard our case with that of Kebbi on the same day and the same panel did their conference on the same day but came out with two different outcomes on the same circumstances and facts.

We are going to complain back to the Supreme Court. We are going to them to set aside their judgment and put their judgment in line with the decision they took in Kebbi State which is the proper decision. The decision they took in Kebbi State is the proper decision.

The fact that they affirmed the decision of the lower tribunal in Kebbi State did not mean that if the matter arose that they could not have gone to the merit because they set that as an issue for determination. So, they treated Kebbi as an appeal but when it came to Delta they said that there is no appeal. It is a great injustice that has been done to the people of Delta State who now have a governor returned by unlawful votes.

But having fought up to the Supreme Court don’t you think it is time you now support the government?
This is a democracy and it thrives on pluralism. We are not supposed to have a one party state and we have never disturbed the state from doing its lawful duties. When we had complaints we took them to the appropriate authorities for determination. We will always wish everybody well including the people of Delta State even that government that we don’t agree with. But what are we going to join them to do?

It is alleged that your court cases are a distraction that has prevented the governor from achieving his objectives?
Does he need three and a half years to dispose off a case that should take less than six months? Are we the ones that have been delaying the cases in the tribunal? Every time that they have been challenged that they didn’t win election instead of coming to court to state their case they would be filibustering bringing up all sorts of motions.

In one instance, they brought up over 200 motions to strike out a petition. They are the ones causing their delay. I am not distracting them, they are distracting themselves. We don’t want to go to court and stay in court for three and a half years, if we envisaged that we will not go to court but once we start a process we must see it through. We cannot be seen to be abandoning court processes because somebody does not want the case to be heard, no.

We want our cases heard and so long as they don’t want our cases to be heard we would be waiting for it when they are ready. I am not the cause, I have not led any protest against them, I have not made any comments against them, I have not criticized their budget, I have not said anything to warrant any distraction. I have only stated the facts of the matter that a man was not returned by lawful votes.

All he needed to do was to come and say ‘no, Great Ogboru with all due respects is my brother but he is wrong, these votes are lawful votes’ and it doesn’t take more than one day to prove that.
But instead of coming to talk about lawful votes, they come with very extraneous issues, unrelated to the votes of the people of Delta State, but come principally on the issues of law and technicalities.

The only thing we are complaining about is that the votes were not lawful. As we speak today, he has not been able to tell any court in the world, not the tribunal, not the appeal court, not the Supreme Court that the votes that he got were lawful votes. Everything he did were technicalities.

Look at the situation that we are faced with in Delta State. The Appeal Court did not give its reasons within a stipulated time and because of that the people of Delta State who voted for a candidate have lost their franchise, they have lost the mandate which they gave.

Is that something we should celebrate? Is that something we should encourage? But as long as we are defending the rights of the people, I do not see anything wrong in what we are doing and I do not see how defending the rights of the people of Delta State amounts to a distraction of the governance in the state.

On the contrary the people of Delta State applaud what we are doing, using our time and our resources to make sure that their sacred mandate is not lost on the platter of technicalities.