The results of the 2023 elections have been one thing keeping the four major political parties in Enugu State, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Labour Party (LP), All Progressives Congress (APC), and the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), busy.
Even though the results had been announced, the state’s polity would need some time to recover from the bitterness the result had caused. This is evident from the responses that have followed the progress since the exercise was completed on March 18th.
These four political parties initially fielded their strongest candidates for the state’s three senatorial seats for the February 25 Presidential and National Assembly elections. Oyibo Chukwu, the Labour Party candidate for the Enugu East senatorial zone, was killed just a few days before the elections, though. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) used its regulations as justification for delaying the zone’s election.
The exercise did, however, take place in Enugu West and North. In the end, the LP chose the ticket for the six House of Representative seats in the Enugu North senatorial zone, while the PDP chose the ticket for the one House of Representative seat in the Enugu West senatorial zone. APGA and APC received nothing.
The political climate was shaken by this outcome, which also reignited the campaigns for the state House of Assembly and governor elections in March 2018. Every possible winning tactic was put into action. The PDP, the current government party, intended to maintain its position of political hegemony, while the LP wanted to extend its winning streak. On the other hand, the APGA and APC genuinely wanted to alter the perception that had prevented them from achieving state leadership. Prior to this, none of them had ever been elected to a seat in the state.
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Indeed, the result resembled the initial in many ways. The LP won 14 of the 24 seats up for grabs in the state House of Assembly, leaving the PDP with just 10. APC and APGA were denied seats. However, PDP was awarded the governorship following an INEC announcement. According to the Commission, Chijioke Edeoga of the LP received 157,552 votes to Peter Mbah’s 160,895 votes for the party. Frank Nweke of the APGA finished third with 17,983 votes, while Uche Nnaji of the APC received 14,575.
It took some time before the winner of the governorship election was declared and the final results released.
The state had been in a state of tension over the process’s midway suspension for four days. Following an objection from Edeoga regarding the collation of results from Nkanu East Council over what he termed over-voting and bypass of the BVAS, the process was terminated. He drew attention to the possibility that some of the over 30,000 votes the council had returned in Mbah’s favor had been obtained fraudulently, given that the BVAS had allegedly registered 7,450 voters for the election.
Collation had been put on hold, and INEC had asked the council to review the results. Supporters of the LP and PDP had occupied the Commission’s headquarters in Enugu from Sunday, September 17, to Wednesday, September 22, when the final result and winner WAS finally declared. They asked for the council to outright cancel the results or for the collation process to continue, respectively. Before the review, Edeoga had a lead of over 11,000 votes (155,697 to 143,938 for Mbah).
However, the Commission went over the ballots from Nkanu East onward. It was now decided to give Mbah 16,956 votes from the council rather than the 30,560 votes that the Returning Officer for Mbah had earlier announced, while keeping Edeoga’s initial score of 1,855 votes from the local government. This is the development that is currently upsetting the political order and paving the way for yet another round of legal conflict over the state’s governorship throne.
Edeoga is proclaiming victory, ostensibly convinced that the Commission did not do the proper thing. He has stated that he intends to take the matter to the tribunal, arguing that INEC’s selection of the election winner violated its own regulations.
Edeoga expressed concern shortly after the Commission announced Mbah as the winner, pointing out that it was inconsistent with the results of the state’s elections. He questioned how the Commission “manufactured” the numbers that were used to select the winner in a local government with about 7000 accredited voters.
“Of course, it follows from what I said earlier that the outcome of the governorship election, which INEC announced after a delay of three to four days, does not follow what I have just listed; the victories of the Labour Party in the other elections. The PDP’s victory in the governor’s race, which was decided by a margin of 3000 votes, is inconsistent with the electoral victories the Labour Party claimed.
“It is obvious that this result is at odds with the aspirations and wishes of the Enugu State population, as well as with their democratic intentions. People in the state have grown worried and agitated over this issue because it is a blatant betrayal of their democratic intentions. We have done everything we can to quell the situation by calling on our leaders to be firm and composed.
We have no doubt that the INEC officials in Enugu and Abuja who were responsible for this electoral mess will be held accountable. As a party and a people, we have decided to seek the mandate using the correct legal procedures.
“We won’t rule anything out in the legal process; we will investigate every option that is open to us. We have numerous proofs of obvious illegalities that are against the electoral laws, and the result as declared by INEC is not consistent with the votes cast, he said.
When he said that one “cannot hold accountable something that was acquired by illegitimate means,” the APGA candidate Frank Nweke, who finished a distant third in the election, toed a similar line. He called the process a “assault on the country’s democracy.”
Even the electoral umpire downplayed its own rules in a determined effort to declare a winner, Nweke, who rejected the results, said in a statement that his party would investigate and exhaust all options necessary to ensure the legitimacy of the state’s next government.
He declared that “the entire process, down to the announcement of its winner, is a complete farce and will lack legitimacy for as long as it stands.”
The results of the Nkanu East Local Government Area, which were in dispute, were reviewed and revised by INEC’s national office without any justification for the change in numbers, he continued. The result from the local government area should have been canceled if there was an overvoting situation.
“I am utterly disappointed with the way the Independent National Electoral Commission handled the 2023 elections, as it appears that the numbers were simply fabricated to fit a preprogrammed outcome and read out to the public, as can be inferred from Prof. Maduebibisi Iwe, the INEC returning officer in the state, who claimed that he was acting under authority and reading out what he had been given. The conduct of some employees of our security agencies also saddens me. Both of these state institutions betrayed the people when they were taken advantage of by a few frantic power-seekers and looters.
“If not carried out in collusion with the electoral umpire and representatives of our security agencies, the unchecked intimidation and violence, the extensive rewriting of results, and the general abuse of the people’s will would have failed.
“I have no issue losing a vote to the public’s will. But once this will has been defeated, we are forced to examine both the course of events and the final result. We will investigate and take all necessary steps to ensure the legitimacy of the incoming Enugu State government. You cannot be held accountable for something that was obtained unlawfully, he continued.
The APC, on the other hand, has kept quiet throughout the exercise. It has neither accepted nor rejected the outcome. The party’s state secretary had delivered a petition to the INEC collation center, but the state returning officer had kept its contents secret.
Mbah, however, extended an olive branch to those who ran for office in order for them to join him in advancing the state as he accepted the results of the exercise rather than responding to the accusations made against his declaration.
“I accept this news with joy, sobriety, and gratitude, and I have only one duty: to give my entire body, mind, and spirit to the task of ensuring the greatness of Enugu state. The last few months’ journey was arduous, as is the case with every electoral process. Three days ago, one of them was even fiercer. Enugu was essentially at a standstill as everyone waited impatiently for justice to be served.
Our young people were uneasy, and the entire NdiEnugu community was anxious. There was a concern that justice might not have been served. We will make you remember March 18, 2023 with a toothy smile because on the streets of Enugu, you could feel the palpable air of an overheated political system brought on by the drawn-out, tortuous road to justice of the last 72 hours.
In addition to dualizing the Abakpa, Ugwuogo Nike-Nsukka road, building a monorail from Enugu to Nsukka, Udi, and Awgu, among other things, he promised infrastructure, health, tourism, education, and development for the state as a whole. He also promised to build roads to connect the 17 council areas of the state.
However, in response to accusations of election rigging, his party, the PDP, said it was ready to face any candidate in court. The party was ready to defend the victory that belonged to the state’s citizens, according to Nana Ogbodo, the director of campaigns communications. She emphasized that the position of Nweke and Edeoga supported the party’s earlier claim that “they were not only making excuses for their expected failure at the polls, but also indirectly letting Ndi Enugu into the mayhem they planned to unleash on Enugu people, having failed to condemn the statement by the LP chieftain and other
On the other hand, Mbah has continued to receive praise for his success, and pressure is mounting on the other candidates to abandon their plan to challenge the results of the governorship election in court.
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Chief Jim Nwobodo, a former governor of the old Anambra State, urged the candidates to accept the results of the election as the will of the people and emphasized that it would not serve their best interests to continue spending money on pointless legal disputes after investing so much in the election.
“Those who urged you to appear in court wouldn’t support you all the way through. One day you might wake up alone because they would start to leave one by one. I speak from personal experience. This is my best advice as a father, Nwobodo said.
