How can a sensible party like Action Congress pick DR. Chris Ngige, ‘an oath taking ritualist’ as its governorship candidate in Anambra state?Some of the reprehensible behaviors of Ngige include: patronage to satanic shrines, attempt to poison the winner of the election in 2005, procurement of 425 fake witnesses and a fake forensic expert, thuggery and brigandage, bribery, political violence, falsehood and campaign of calumny, threats to critics’ liberties and frivolous litigations among others. (Picture left shows Dr. Chris Ngige)
The foregoing forms the kernel of a petition fired to the national leadership of the party by International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law. The petition, among other things, protests Ngige, described as court-declared illegal governor of Anambra state, protests the party’s action. Excerpts:
Our Ref: Intersociety/NG/Vol.01/07/09/AC/Chairman/ABJ/FRN
The National Chairman
Action Congress Party
The AC’s National Headquarters
Zone 5, By Magistrate Court
Federal Capital Territory
Abuja 14/07/09
Dear Sir,
That Your Highly Respected Party (AC) May Not Be Turned Into The Party Of The Good, The Bad And The Ugly
We, in the International Society For Civil Liberties And Rule Of Law, Intersociety, wish to write to your respected office concerning the subject matter above mentioned.
On Tuesday, 7th day of July 2009, the national and the Anambra State leaderships of your highly respected party presented your party’s flag to Dr. Chris Nwabueze Ngige, the Court-declared illegal governor of Anambra State, to run as your party’s gubernatorial candidate for the upcoming gubernatorial election in Anambra State. In the Court-declared illegal gubernatorial election of the April 14, 2007, your party also presented him as its gubernatorial candidate.
As you are aware, Dr. Chris Nwabueze Ngige, made history as the longest serving illegal governor in Nigeria. Prior to the 2003 general elections in Nigeria, he allegedly joined forces with electoral buccaneers and stealers of people’s electoral mandate, and crudely stole the sacred mandate of the Anambra electorate.
Apart from three years, which it took the true winner of the election to get the sacred mandate back, judicially, several undemocratic and uncivil means were employed in order to sustain the stolen mandate.
Some of these retrogressive means are: alleged patronage to satanic shrines, alleged attempt to poison the winner of the election in 2005, procurement of 425 alleged fake witnesses and a fake forensic expert, alleged thuggery and brigandage, alleged bribery, political violence, falsehood and campaign of calumny, threats to critics’ liberties, frivolous litigations, among others.
We are also aware that your respected party’s decision to present Dr. Chris Nwabueze Ngige as its gubernatorial candidate stem from his ‘popularity’ among Nigerian society. But your party seems to have lost the sight of the fact that heroes and villains wear the same toga of popularity. Besides, acts of criminality can produce a “hero”. Also, in the elementary meaning of the dictionary, prominence and eminence are not the same.
In political parlance and in a sound democratic setting, legitimacy is divided into input and output legitimacy. The nucleus of it is input legitimacy, which deals fundamentally with process of attaining democratic power, while the output legitimacy is the art of governance in a democratic setting. By fixing a number of strategic roads in parts of Anambra State and by resisting his alleged co-travelers in electoral buccaneering, including Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, Dr. Chris Ngige, earned notoriety in the eyes of the lettered apostles of democracy and ‘popularity’, in the eyes of the unsuspecting Nigerian populace. Unfortunately, your party has toed the path, toed by the unsuspecting Nigerian populace.
Dr. Chris Nwabueze Ngige’s ‘popularity’ may be likened to the popularity of Dr. Chinwoke Mbadinuju, during the dark era of the Bakassi Boys. He not only proclaimed himself the “Commander-in-Chief” of the Bakassi Boys, but also he received numerous awards from media and students’ groups, in return for alleged bulky brown envelops. He was adored and worshipped by the unsuspecting Anambra public, to the extent that Your Mother-party, the Alliance For Democracy, AD, adopted him as her consensus candidate in the 2003 gubertorial election. Today, over 5000 Anambra residents and over 10 prominent citizens butchered during his regime are still demanding for justice from their graves. Our question still is: who killed the Igwes, Odigwes, Oranus,Okekes,Uzokwes, Okonkwos, Ikebudes, Nwagboos, Egbuawas, Onwuazos, etc?
Therefore, we find the action of your respected party to amount to conferring legitimacy to an illegality. Accommodating those who allegedly made sound democracy impossible in Nigeria, rubbishes your highly respected party. As a matter of unequivocation, your party has by this singular act, becomes a party of the good, the bad and the ugly. If our electoral offences were criminalized, Dr. Chris Ngige, Dr Olusegun Agagu, Senator O. Osumbor and their accomplices should be spending their days in jail.
Your highly respected party cannot afford to fail or be doomed. The destiny of Nigerians, especially the true lovers of democracy are in the hand of your party and other genuine democratic forces. The roles of your party, the NBA, etc at ensuring sound democratic tradition in Nigeria, are extra-ordinarily commendable. Your party has become a beacon of hope for teeming helpless Nigerians who clamored for, and still clamor for sound democracy and good governance. But extreme care must be taken by same to avoid being peopled and influenced by reactionary forces who are unrepentant riggers of elections, etc.
The only way to remedy the issue under discussion is by sponsoring the likes of Dr. Chris Ngige and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar to undergo training programmes in Ghana, Botswana, the United States and the United Kingdom and Wales so as to learn the arts of electioneering, rigging-free elections and good governance. It is also necessary for your highly respected party to set up the Action Congress Institute for Democracy and Good Governance, for re-orientation of the repentant electoral brigands and other democracy deviants.
As the 2010 gubernatorial election in Anambra State draws nearer, we wish to inform your party that we are in the forefront of efforts at ensuring popular participation, sound and credible election. It is our information that INEC is at it again. Despite our letters, which we sent to same in March and June 2009, the Commission has refused to commence fundamental preparations toward the said forthcoming election.
As we write, teeming Anambra residents do not know how many electoral wards and electoral booths or units to be used for the election and where they are located. The registration of voters and the updating of voter register exercises are no where to be seen. This is not to talk of civic education programmes, which are supposed to have been initiated by the Commission.
Instead, rumours are making the rounds that the Commission is engaging in massive falsification of voter register with intent to register cows, goats, fowls, infants and the dead in the form of “eligible voters in the human family”. The time to compel the Commission to be alive to its constitutional duties and expose its illegal conducts is now before it is too late.
We have concluded plans to approach a federal high court for an order of Mandamus, forcing the Commission out of its shell. We wish to assure your respected party that the only language we hear and speak is popular participation in electoral process, open and free elections and sound governance. We respectfully welcome your respected party’s partnership with us so as to make this maximally achievable.
We sincerely trust in your highly respected party’s prompt and judicious response to this important letter.
Yours Faithfully,
For: Intersociety-Nigeria
Comrade Emeka Umeagbalasi Comrade Justus Ijeoma
Chairman Head
Board of Trustees Publicity Desk
+234(0)8033601078 +234(0)8037114869
botchairman@intersociety-ng.org
CC:
1. Senator Ahmed Bola Tinubu (Former Governor of Lagos State)
2. Governor of Lagos State, Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN
3. Governor of Edo State, Comrade Adams Oshomoile
4. United Nations Secretary General
5. UNO High Commissioner for Human Rights
6. President of the United States
7. President of the European Union Federation
8. The Prime Minister of Canada
9. The National Democratic Institute, USA
10. Amnesty International, London, UK
11. Human Rights Watch, New York, USA
12. United Action for Democracy, Nigeria
13. Campaign for Democracy, Nigeria
14. Civil Liberties Organization, Nigeria
15. Committee for the Defence of Human Rights, Nigeria
No comments:
Post a Comment