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May 7, 2009

Disputed State Election Boosts Possibility of Further Legal Challenges by Nigerian Opposition
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http://enews.voanews.com/t?ctl=241B12C:A6F02AD83191E16081A53A549A184D9970AD7039DCD7B7E4&
 
Ekiti state gubernatorial replay prompts Action Congress Party to
consider raising new charges of voter fraud 
Segun Oni, the candidate of Nigeria’s ruling People’s Democratic
Party (PDP), has been declared winner of a hotly contested gubernatorial
race in southwestern Ekiti state. The opposition Action Congress party
(AC) is vowing to challenge results of Tuesday’s re-run of the 2007
governor’s race, charging the vote again was rigged. Washington
attorney Emmanuel Ogebe says that a disputed outcome could have an
unfortunate impact on Nigeria’s Independent Electoral Commission,
INEC, and on the conduct of the country’s 2011 national elections.

“This is actually a litmus test for things to come. For a government
that came in under universally discredited elections that involved not
just disappearing ballot boxes, but disappearing electoral
commissioners, this is really a sad commentary on how badly things have
gone,” he said.

A two-year legal battle over the Ekiti governorship recently ended in a
Nigerian appeals court decision that annulled the 2007 contest,
necessitating Tuesday’s replay of the faceoff between Oni and AC
candidate Kayode Fayemi. Ogebe, who is a special legal consultant on
Nigeria focusing on human rights issues, says that all signs point to
the opposition continuing to seek a reversal of this week’s results. 

“Ekiti state is one of the states where the opposition did a very
wonderful job of documenting the abuse that occurred in the last (2007)
elections. And I believe that this time around, there were further
abuses that occurred that will once again go to litigation. So we’re
definitely going to see an appeal going back to the courts,” he
predicted.

Shortly after Oni, who was turned out of office two years ago on charges
of mass vote fraud, was announced as Tuesday’s winner by a margin of
about 4,000 votes, protesting youths in the state capital Ado-Ekiti
began setting bonfires. Police say the situation has calmed down since
then. Attorney Ogebe points out that a lot was at stake for the Action
Congress Party and its candidate in this race, and they are not about to
drop a legal challenge without a fight.

“Whether the youths in the state will stop the violence, allow the
judicial to continue is anyone’s guess. But Fayemi, the candidate for
the AC, is a well-known activist who fought for democracy globally. And
I don’t see him giving up that easily on this election,” he
observed.

Ekiti holds strategic value for both the AC and the ruling PDP. So much
so that reform-minded Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua went to great
lengths to risk the integrity and commitment of his national
administration to political reform on the conduct and fair outcome of
the just-ended Ekiti campaign. Nigerian-born Ogebe says the stakes in
southwestern Ekiti state are high.

“It is of strategic value to the ruling party because the south has
generally been a stronghold of the opposition and they couldn’t afford
to lose a key state like Ekiti,” he noted.

A loss for the AC also dampens their search for a viable national
candidate to take on the powerful PDP two years from now. However, Ogebe
says that continuing tumult and troubles for Nigerians at the ballot box
signal a potential loss of confidence, not only in incumbent President
Yar’Adua, who has promised to enact political reforms in parliament,
but also toward INEC, which he says shows no signs of improving the job
it is doing.

"We are literally weeks away from the second anniversary of the
administration, and they came in under suspect elections and promised
electoral reform. There’s precious little on this landscape to show
that any steps have been made to reform the electoral system, and what
has just happened in Ekiti has further dampened the spirits of Nigerians
and crushed their belief that there is going to be any change between
now and 2011,” he claimed.
				
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