An election petition survey in Nigeria has revealed that the former
Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Senator Godswill Akpabio’s senatorial
election petition is the most widely-reported and keenly-followed by the
public in the history of the country.
According to the survey
conducted by The Street Journal Magazine, “the history of election
petitions in Nigeria started from the Second Republic when the late
Chief Obafemi Awolowo had severally approached the tribunal to upturn
his opponent’s victory in his favour.
The candidate of the then
ruling party, Alhaji Shehu Shagari of the National Party of Nigeria,
(NPN,) was declared the winner. Meanwhile, many politicians had in the
past gone to tribunals to reclaim their mandates as well. But that of
the immediate past Governor of Osun State, Engr. Rauf Aregbesola remains
one of the most-celebrated petitions in Nigeria’s political history.
Aregbsola’s
electoral petition against ex-governor, Olagunsoye Oyinlola, in 2010,
was massively celebrated by the Nigerian media, just like that of the
present Governor of Ekiti State, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, against former
Governor Segun Oni, in 2010. Same was with the former Edo state governor
and now APC Chairman, Adams Oshiomohole, who fought it out and won at
the election tribunal with the declared winner, Professor Oserhrimen
Opubor, ditto the former governor of Ondo state governor, Segun Mimiko,
who went the same aisle to reclaim his mandate from the late Chief
Olusegun Agagu, who was initially declared the winner.
Interestingly,
all went in favour of the petitioners, except that of Chief Awolowo,
whose loss was even premeditated, despite glaring and documented shreds
of evidence. In the case of Akpabio, Nigerians at home and abroad have
been kept abreast with the nuggets of the procedures in the tribunal,
thus making it one of the most-widely covered election petitions by
media houses in Nigeria, thus going down in history as a phenomenal case
that could become a reference point in electoral petitions, all things
being equal.
Senator Akpabio is challenging Senator Chris
Ekpeyong’s victory at the last Akwa Ibom North-West Senatorial District
election. While Akwa Ibomites eagerly await the Election Petitions
Tribunal’s verdict, which might be delivered any time from now, there
might likely and possibly be a repeat of the scenarios that made
Oshiomhole, Mimiko, Aregbesola, and Fayemi governors; only that this
time around, it will be at the senatorial level,’’ the survey concluded.
{Naijafinix.com}
Share your thoughts