Cross River State had nearly become a benchmark for election standards after the fiery civil-rights advocate, Mike Igini was appointed the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) just over four years ago. Now Igini and others are bothered.

By Emmanuel Aziken, Political Editor

HOURS to the conduct of Monday’s governorship primaries of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Mr. Mike Igini, the Resident Electoral Commissioner for Cross River State had cause to be bothered. So much so that he issued a public statement cautioning election stakeholders on the declining standards of internal democracy within the parties. He didn’t cite any party but his words could not have been lost on anyone given the near dominance of the PDP in the state.

“It’s strange that list of delegates election equivalent of voters register that should ordinarily comprise of elected ad hoc and statutory delegates for the various elections that output to be made available to all stakeholder including INEC has been a matter of conjecture and work in process,” Igini had said.

Days earlier, the party had conducted Senate primaries and almost national attention had been fixated on Cross River Central Senatorial district where two powerful gladiators were in contention for the single ticket and the process there and in some other parts of the state apparently may have offended the REC. At issue especially in Cross River Central was the alleged mystery over the delegates’ list used in the conduct of the nomination.

*Ndoma Egba

Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba, SAN, who has represented the district since 2003 was in contention with Mr. John Owan-Enoh, the powerful chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Finance. Owan-Enoh like Ndoma-Egba do not just share compound surnames, they have also shared the same number of years in the National Assembly as they both came to the National Assembly in 2003.

However, what they could not share was the same senatorial seat and hence the political battle that has raged in the constituency for months now.

When the battle ended last Saturday with Owan-Enoh carting home the booty it should have ended there, but not so as Ndoma-Egba, normally a gentleman has come out to fault the process that led to the declaration of Owan-Enoh as victor.

According to Victor Ndoma-Egba, the “exercise was fundamentally and fatally flawed as it fell short of the minimum integrity for an electoral process. The exercise was in complete disregard of the PDP’s guidelines for primary election in the following: the delegates list; accreditation, violent atmosphere, non-display of sensitive materials and non delegates voting.”

“The list of delegates used for the primaries was not made public. This was imperative as two lists were in circulation.”

Owan-Enoh was quick to reply faulting the Senate Leader for not losing gallantly. Owan-Enoh who had in the past claimed that Ndoma-Egba is unpopular in the constituency and would be defeated by him as many times as the process is repeated said:

“He is a bad loser. It shows he is a typical Nigerian politician who would do everything to discredit a process however transparent, free and fair.”

But Ndoma-Egba was categorical that the process was rigged against him alleging that “They brandished a delegates’ list which was not made public. My agent, Hon. Ernest Irek protested vehemently but was shouted down. My agent tried to impress on them that there was a list that had INEC approval but they resisted.”

That was besides the alleged use of violence to intimidate his supporters as he told the national chairman that one stakeholder in Obubra Local government area, Friday Ajaghe was killed a day before the primary by suspected militants imported into the constituency just before the nomination exercise.

Senator Ndoma-Egba also faulted the decision to sequester 152 delegates saying that they “were kept incommunicado, they were eventually bussed to the venue. Accreditation that was to start at 8:00am and end at 12:00 noon did not start until about 2:30pm, well beyond the stipulated time. This act alone should have rendered the whole exercise null and void.”

There were other alleged violations such as the failure to display the sensitive materials before the exercise.

“My agent drew the attention of the Electoral Officer, to the fact that he had not displayed the sensitive materials including the result sheets for inspection. The returning officer ignored this obvious lapse.”

Ndoma-Egba further noted that the apex of the violations was the accreditation of non-delegates to vote in the exercise as he cited 11 persons who he claimed were not delegates but who voted in the exercise.”The relevant documents from the PDP, Cross River State, of those eligible to contest and their list of those who won is grossly incongruent.