Senator Ifeanyi Ubah

By Royce Okoro

The journey of Senator Ifeanyi Ubah, Chairman of Capital Oil, to the Nigerian Senate came to many as a shock but for me, it wasn’t, despite contesting the 2019 general election on the platform of an unpopular political party, Young Progressives Party (YPP).

Ubah was the only candidate, who took his campaign to the grassroots. The Anambra South Senatorial District election was no doubt, a very tough contest having the likes of Senator Andy Uba of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chris Uba of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Nicholas Ukachukwu of All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) and YPP’s Ubah as candidates.

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After a very difficult contest and having satisfied the requirements of the law by scoring the highest number of votes, YPP candidate was declared the winner of the poll.

He scored 87,081 votes, defeating his closest rival, Chris Uba who got 62,462 votes.

Ukachukwu polled 51,269 votes while APC candidate, Andy Uba, got 13,245 votes.

Ubah’s victory was no fluke. He was no doubt the choice of the people of Anambra South because while other candidates were busy working on how to manipulate the election, he was busy touring all communities canvassing for votes.

Ukachukwu of APGA and Andy Uba of APC had long accepted defeat and allowed Ubah to work toward actualising his electoral promises while Chris Uba of the PDP, who proceeded to court, was defeated at the court.

Surprisingly, Dr Obinna Uzoh, who never campaigned for a day is seriously pushing to foist himself on the people as a Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria by parading bogus NECO results and sponsoring unsubstantiated propaganda against Senator Ubah.

Obinna Uzoh alleged that Senator Ubah forged his NECO results because his certificate has seven credits without failure (F9) in biology, which is clearly contained in the statement of result.

This vividly shows that Obinna Uzoh and his cronies are not in tune with the conventional practices of the National Examination Council ( NECO) in this case, and the West African Examination COuncil (WAEC) also.

Recent events have further unveiled the fact that he does not know the difference between a “Statement of result” and “Certificate of Result”.

It is also crystal clear that he does not know that INEC requires candidates to submit only “Certificate of Result” and not “Statement of Result”.

It is a well-known fact that his accuser and the claimant; Anani Cletus through their lawyer swore an affidavit before the court stating that the missing F9 was the basis of their allegation.

NECO officially responded and punctured their false claim with a letter authenticating and clearing Ifeanyi Ubah of the forgery allegation by stating that they do not include failed (F9) subjects in their certificate. Obinna Uzoh seeing that he has landed himself in another dilemma has once again, shifted the goal post.

This time, a questionable NECO certificate was brought.

Why has Ubah’s accuser resorted to propaganda instead of writing to NECO to authenticate his claim? What is stopping him and his lawyers from applying for a CTC from NECO?

Why has he not come out publicly like Senator Ifeanyi Ubah to make an official press statement or use his lawyers, supporters or family members to issue an official statement to this effect?

However, there is a letter from NECO authenticating the serial number which matches the same certificate submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) by Senator Ifeanyi Ubah. In this letter, the serial number was clearly stated twice including seven credits and excluding the F9 in Biology.

As an Ihiala indigene, I am quite sure that my fellow Ihiala brothers and sisters will not want Uzoh to represent them at Anambra State House of Assembly let alone in the Senate.

My candid advice to him and others trying to oust for no genuine reason is to desist from what they are doing.

Senator Ubah should be allowed to work toward attracting democracy dividends to the people of Anambra South Senatorial District, who came out en masse to vote him as their representative in Senate.

*Royce Okoro, a social commentator, writes from Ihiala

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