WHILE Governor Rochas Okorocha and his erstwhile Deputy, Sir Jude Agbaso try to exorcise the spectre of mutual suspicion hounding them, the election that threw them up is at the centre of the confusion and corruption at the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Imo State. The summary of the goings on in Imo INEC is that the place stinks. While accusations of financial impropriety fly about like bees, allegation of voodoo and such weird stuff buzz around the INEC office at Port Harcourt Road, Owerri, as in a beehive.
The Resident Electoral Commissioner, Prof. Selina Okoh, is being accused alongside the Administration Secretary, Engineer Moses Udoh, of misappropriating about N3.8 billion, being allowances for ad hoc staff engaged by Imo INEC for the cancelled National Assembly election in the state. Imo State has 3, 500 polling units and each ad hoc staff is entitled to N11, 000. The duo is also alleged to have stopped the payment of N20, 000.00 monthly imprest meant for Electoral Officers in the state, even as they were said to have flouted the commission’s rules for employment of junior officers on salary grade levels one to six.
A concerned INEC staff from Imo State, one Mr. Chinedu Opara, was so embittered by the development that he petitioned the state Governor, Owelle Rochas Okorocha complaining about the wrong appointment of junior INEC staff in the state. In the petition dated March 19, 2012 for instance, Opara stated that out of 17 drivers employed only one of the successful candidates hails from Imo State. “The rest are from Abia, Ebonyi, Rivers, Cross River and Akwa Ibom States,” he declared, adding that the opportunities reserved for Imo people had been usurped. He noted that Chapter one section 1.06 (9) of the INEC staff conditions of service states that ‘All appointments on grade levels 01 through 06 (states/FCT) shall be indigenes of the area in their respective states. “But in flagrant breach of the foregoing provision, of all the 31 junior officers employed by Imo INEC from 2010 to 2012, only one person with file number C.551, is from Imo State,” the petition added.
It contended that in an attempt to explain the lopsided employment against Imo citizens, officials of Imo INEC claim that there was a letter from the Federal Character Commission, (FCC) introducing a ratio of 75 percent to 25 percent between indigenes and non-indigenes. While he asked Governor Okorocha to investigate the claims, Opara warned that “to avoid catastrophic and cataclysmic situations that may put Imo INEC staff and structures in great danger,” something should be done to ensure that the people do not unleash “their anger against the Commission.” The petitioner informed Okorocha that Heads of various Departments in INEC always share or sell the positions ear marked for Imo citizens in spite of the fact that, “there are much more qualified and better Imo citizens who applied for the jobs.”
The petitioner went further to allege that it was “in continuation of this policy of strangulation and marginalisation against Imo people that the ad hoc staff used for the cancelled April 2, 2011 National Assembly election, were not paid their allowances as was done in other states and federal capital territory, (FCT).” A list containing thirty names of junior staff employed within the period, which The Guardian obtained revealed the following statistics: Abia, (10); Anambra (7); Akwa Ibom, (5); Ebonyi, (4); Rivers, (3) and Imo (1).
Petitions have also been sent to Prof. Attahiru Jega on the stench in the Imo State office of INEC.
For instance, one of the petitions from EOs (Electoral Officers) and HODs (Heads of Departments) complained: “It is with a sense of responsibility and patriotic zeal that we write you this letter. While your commission battles to sanitize the nation’s electoral process and bequeath a sustainable legacy/culture of transparent, credible, free and fair elections and write your name on the positive side of history, the happenings in the Imo State office of the commission, not only rubbish such efforts, but also expose the electoral body to odium and loss of public confidence.
“More so, as the image damaging cases in the state office when confirmed, are seemingly swept under the carpet there in Abuja, thus giving rise to more sordid and embarrassing things, to go on in Imo State.”
The petitioners alleged that the report of the investigating team, sent to the state from Abuja in March 2012, “which unearthed/confirmed sleazy deals, is yet to see the light of the day almost a year after the visitation. One of such facts, though a notorious one is the non-payment of ad hoc staff in the state for the cancelled April 2, 2011 National Assembly election, so much so that today, INEC has been slammed with a law suit in the federal High Court over the matter. Now, wouldn’t this earn the commission an embarrassing negative public commentary while the case goes on full trial?” they noted.
They added that the investigating team confirmed that since the Administrative Secretary, Udoh, came on transfer to Imo in 2009, EOs and HODs stopped receiving their monthly imprest, unlike in other states and the FCT. The petition read further: “And this situation was earlier brought to the knowledge of chief Lawrence Nwuruku by the EOs from Imo when he came to Enugu at the head of the personnel audit team from Abuja. Now the latest embarrassment INEC faces is the nullification of the Oguta House of Assembly election on the ground that the so-called results from seven wards (out of eleven) certified by the Administrative Secretary in respect of the botched April 26, 2011 Governorship/House of Assembly election, cannot be anything but a bundle of forgery.
“It was a notorious fact that during the supplementary election, INEC deployed men and materials to the entire eleven wards in Oguta. If this is so, how come the Imo INEC came up with what can pass as stranger than fiction, a claim that they had results from seven wards in Oguta from the April 26, 2011 election? And the question that arises is had the supplementary election in Oguta local council been successful, would Imo INEC had claimed that the earlier poll on April 26 produced results in seven wards.”
The petitioners noted that, “it was a pitiable sight when the Administrative Secretary was seen sweating in the witness box trying to explain to the consternation of the court audience how he came about results he certified, which one Odikwe E. J. took to the court to tender as genuine.
“Is this not an embarrassment and shame enough to the commission? The point we wish to make is that if the commission, is really serious about its image and integrity, those whose dishonest and manifest fraudulent conduct negate these cherished virtues must be disgraced out of office as the public in whose domain the foregoing matters are is watching,” they surmised.
The ad hoc staff, who have already taken their case to the High Court in Owerri stated that they were engaged as ad hoc staff for the April 2, 2011 cancelled National Assembly election, stressing that on that day they all went to their various locations to carry out the duties assigned to them. “Half way into the conduct of the election the INEC chairman announced over the radio and television that the election had been cancelled,” they alleged, saying that it was no fault of theirs that the process was called off midway.
Interestingly, their solicitor, Amadi-Obi and company from Ezelukwu chambers told The Guardian that after evidence was shown that the national headquarters of INEC released the money for the payment of the ad hoc staff, they decided to sue the Resident Electoral Commissioner, Prof. Selina Okoh. Mr. Sylvester Amadi-Obi, principal partner in the chambers explained that when Prof. Okoh received the letter from their chambers, she called him to ask whether the letter was sent to INEC headquarters. “I told her we did but after several attempts to reach her on the matter, she raised a stone wall and we filed the suit against her and the Administrative Secretary,” Amadi-Obi added. Part of the solicitors’ letter dated November 8, 2012, to the chairman of INEC, Prof. Jega, read: “We are solicitors to all the ad hoc staff of INEC in the April 2, 2011 cancelled National Assembly election. That our clients’ counterparts in other states were paid their honoraria and other allowances in respect of the above referred election. That till date our clients have not been paid; our clients are aware that as a result of their protest, you sent an investigating team to Imo State, who at the conclusion of their investigation found that our clients have not been paid. In spite of this, our clients have still not been paid.”
The solicitors then demanded that the ad hoc staff be paid what is due to them, warning that, “If this demand is not met within 14 days …we are under instructions to take out legal action against your commission.” Barrister Amadi-Obi disclosed that as at April 11, 2013, INEC was yet to file any response, hinting that his chambers would be forced to enter a motion for judgment.
And in what looked like an attempt to browbeat the EOs and divide them, the REC was said to have asked them to sign a letter meant for the headquarters, denying that they ever complained against the nonpayment of imprest. Though a woman from one of the departments challenged the REC, The Guardian gathered that some peevish ones signed the letter.
However, as the matter of non-payment of ad hoc staff honoraria awaits court adjudication, sources within Imo INEC confided in The Guardian that there are reasons to believe that INEC commissioners from Ebonyi and Abia States, Nwuruku and Mrs. Gladys Nwafor are reluctant to allow the findings see the light of the day.
“We know that these people do not want to expose those who breach the rules regarding employment of junior staff and payment of ad hoc staff allowances in Imo INEC,” the sources hinted. They disclosed that ever since the complaints gained momentum, staff of the commission says, they have continued to notice voodoo and fetish substances most mornings when they turn up for work. They also accuse the Administrative Secretary, Engineer Udoh, of “exploiting the mediocrity in the commission” to commit administrative absurdities. “It is public knowledge that, but for the intervention of Prof. Maurice Iwu, Udoh would have been dismissed in 2008; this synonym of corruption was sent to Imo INEC by Prof. Iwu,” they stated. The Guardian gathered also that Udoh, engineered massive punitive transfer of staff when it was discovered that the details of the employment racket were in public domain. At the height of the confusion, a web of conspiracy was said to be wound around one Barrister Owette Emmanuel, who became the only Administrative Officer to be removed during the ill-fated National Assembly election for his excessive show of interest in the welfare of staff.
Attempts to reach the Resident Electoral Commission, (REC) Prof. Oko could not bear fruit. Calls to her phone were not returned. For more than one week, this copy was delayed in anticipation of the REC’s reply to the questions sent via small message service to her GSM phone. Is Jega serious to cleanse Nigeria’s electoral Augean stable? The resolution of the prevailing muddle in Imo State branch of the commission would show.
Author of this article: From Leo Sobechi, Abakaliki
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