There have been incessant controversies among the people of Alor-Agu community in Igbo-Eze South Local Government Area of Enugu state, after the Commissioner for Rural Development of the state cancelled their town union election.
The cancellation of the Alor-Agu Progressive Union (AAPU) election, which came after the Union’s Electoral Committee could not manage pressure from agitation that started after some candidates got disqualified on the election day as a result of nomination form forgery, has caused a lot of arguments, but no casualties as earlier reported online by some people.
Alor-Agu community witnessed a slice of bedlam a few hours to the town union’s National Executive Council (NEC) election on Friday, 19th March 2021 and has faced differences of opinion among her residents and indigenes so far.
The union being the apex organization in the community had in their last meeting on the 27th December 2020 unanimously agreed to hold their election on the 19th March 2021. This decision was reached in the meeting after the town union’s NEC led by Bar. Cosmas Amaechi Ugwu informed the general assembly of the expiration of their tenure, and also conscientiously encouraged interested members of the union who are financially up to date as stipulated by their constitution to get the nomination forms as soon as the electoral committee are constituted.
Subsequently, the committee was constituted and they encouraged all aspirants to follow the constitution while acquiring the nomination form; as stated in the AAPU constitution (“The Alor-Agu Progressive Union Constitution”) in Article 6, Section 2, Paragraph i and j:
“(i) No candidate who is not an up to date financial member in his branch of the AAPU shall be qualified to be issued with a nomination form by the Returning Officer for election into any office of the AAPU NEC. Nomination forms for elective offices shall be issue at no cost to the contestants and should be endorsed by the Returning Officer.
(j) candidate’s nomination shall not be valid unless his nomination is seconded by at least two (2) financially up to date members present in the General Assembly and prior presentation of a letter of attestation certifying his bonafide membership and non-indebtedness to his AAPU branch.”
The electoral committee also sent memos to all the branches of the union as a reminder to field qualified candidates for the election. And the posts involved in the election include; President-General, Secretary-General, Financial Secretary, Provost, Public Relation Officer (P.R.O) etc.
Few weeks after this was announced, the community started to witness different forms of campaigns for the election and some pre-election tussles got muddled the more as the “19th of March” got closer, especially on social media platforms. Also, over eight (8) aspirants were reported initially to have shown interest to contest for the Union’s president-general position which is the peak of the organization’s hierarchy.
On that fateful morning, election day, the electoral committee subjected all the candidates and nominees to pre-election exercise (accreditation) to maintain conventional voting ethics.
The accreditation which was initiated to ensure there is no doubt regarding the validity of the election outcome were going on peacefully until it was the turn of one of the candidates contesting for President-General, Mr. Jonathan Ikechukwu (Devo) who is also an SA to the Executive Governor of Enugu State, Rt Hon. Ifeanyi Lawrence Ugwuanyi on New Media. Mr. Jonathan was verified and got accredited but some nominees from his faction who were vying for different positions respectively got disqualified as a result of tendering fake nomination forms to the electoral committee.
The culprits who were involved in the forgery and submission of fake nomination forms were immediately reported to the policemen present by the electoral committee and the delegates who came to observe the election from the ministry of rural development. It was also reported that the names of this suspect were forwarded through a report to the Police Area Command Nsukka and have been invited for interrogation.
On the other hand, as soon as the sad news of the disqualification and likely-prosecution of the forgers got to the proposed election venue where most of Ikechukwu Jonathan’s group were waiting for the accreditation results, the problem started.
Most of them got enraged and trooped towards the hall where the screening was being conducted. Consequently, it sprung a chaos and the electoral committee chairman, Eng. Samuel Ugwuanyi moved to calm the situation so as to spell out to the furious agitators why those affected were disqualified. Unfortunately, all his efforts were to no avail. The more he tried to reinstate peace, the more they advanced toward him aggressively, despite the barricade beefed up around him by the joint security operatives present. The situation continued to worsen and as a result, he fled for his life at once.
One of the election observers who spoke with news men anonymously explained that the chairman fled for his life immediately he sensed that the agitation has grown out of his control.
He said:
“I think the chairman did the right thing. He noticed that there is a high possibility of those agitating from Devo’s camp hurting him, and he had to escape for his life immediately. Seriously, from my observation, if he had stayed a lit longer, the election could have been marred by possible clashes between the agitators and the security men and vandalism would have been inevitable”
The observer also reiterated that even if those with fake nomination forms were not disqualified, that the conduction of the election could still have been faced with some degrees of tension as there were too many non-indigenes of the community seen among Devo’s camp.
He noted that when the list of the eligible voters were being compiled, it was also discovered that the home branch of the town union alone submitted over 1,900 names for the election, whereas, in the last General Meeting of the union, held on the 27th December 2020, they recorded less than 500 members in total from all branches.
He explained further:
“The total number of the whole AAPU members from all branches is not up to 500 members during the AAPU December general meeting last year, but we were surprised that only home branch produced over 1900 members because of this election.
This mind-blowing figure from the home branch alone shows that some people want to hijack the Union election by hiring non-indigenes from the neighbouring communities to come in and vote.”
We also gathered that the Commissioner for Rural Development, Hon. Emeka Mamah arrived when the Chairman of the electoral committee had fled for safety.
However, the Commissioner addressed the crowds that no election is taking place that very day as he needs to see the Chairman of the committee before they could consider the modalities and conduct the election.
The commissioner who pleaded in the community’s local dialect, appealed to the prospective voters for the inconveniences they might or have faced as a result of the cancellation.
He said:
“We are all one and nothing can divide us. Considering the way things are now, most people are already tensed up and there is no good public address system to speak to everyone’s hearing, there is no even enough security on ground, no order for the election as the chairman is not here. Please, we will start the election afresh and I will handle the election myself following every step as stated in your constitution”.
Our correspondent also interviewed Mr. Salisu Ayogu (Dede), one of the three AAPU home branch chairmen and also the PDP Chairman of Alor-Agu ward. He started by debunking the report that there were “gunshots” in the community on the election day, including “violent exchanges between security operatives drafted to the area”.
Dede narrated: “There was nothing like gun shuts in our community on that very day. Though, there were arguments and agitations from Devo’s group after the electoral committee disqualified some candidates from their side.”
He continued to explain that, even though the members of Mr. Ikechukwu Jonathan (Devo) were protesting injustice from their perceived intimidation by the electoral committee, some of the disqualified nominees confessed in presence of some security men and the delegates sent from the Ministry of Rural Development that they forged their forms using Jonathan Ikechukwu’s copy as a sample.
“Seriously, even though those agitating were causing confusion everywhere after some of their candidates were disqualified as result of submitting fake nomination forms, some of them who suffered the disqualification because of forgery, confessed in front of some policemen and the delegates that they redesigned the nomination forms using Devo’s copy as a prototype”.
The PDP ward chairman also said that the people of Alor-Agu community are law abiding and cannot be so stupid no matter the level of their desperation to shoot themselves because of AAPU NEC election. He advised those behind this kind of fake news to desist from it.
“I want to advise everyone supporting any kind of evil or lies in this community because of AAPU NEC election to stop it. I am saying this because Alor-Agu is a land of holiness and any evil you do, must come after you. You cannot escape the karma”.
Also, the present town union president-general (PG) of the community who is also contesting for second term, Bar. Cosmas Amaechi Ugwu, when contacted, confirmed there was no gunshot in the community, either before, on or after the date that the election was supposed to have been held. He also expressed a huge disappointment at the degree at which some indigenes of the community could go in selling fake news just to gain attention and unmerited popularity.
The president-general remarked:
“There was no shooting in Alor-Agu community on Friday, even before or after that Friday, we never heard of any gunshot. The only issue was that some members of Devo’s camp only had disagreements with the electoral committee immediately they disqualified some of their members from contesting. So, in reaction to that, even those who do not understand the statutorily processes involved in the accreditation did not even allow the electoral committee chairman to address them on reason behind the nominees’ disqualification”
He also pinpointed that the electoral committee chairman did not actually boycott conducting the election unreasonably, but only beat a hasty retreat to save his life as the pressure from the crowd seemed uncontrollable even by the security men.
The town union president further advised everyone to continue to be patriotic and law abiding, as Alor-Agu remains one big family no matter their differences and political interests. He as well implored every resident of the community to desist from causing unnecessary tension in the community that will drastically truncate the efforts of the peaceful and hardworking Governor of the state.
Our correspondent also spoke with the Chairman, Alor-Agu Neighbourhood Watch, Hon. Chidi Onah and he also said there was no shooting on the day of election, as there were about 50 joint security personnel that include Neighbourhood Watch security men, Forest Guard personnel and other security personnel.
Another man who also chose to be anonymous, said that he suspects the issue to have been perfected by one Mr. Joel Ugwoke (Mmagha), who has been doing everything possible to see that his candidate Mr. Festus Kanayo Omeje wins the AAPU President General election.
He alleged that the same person, “Mmagha” even approached one of the AAPU branch Chairmen to buy all the votes from his branch with some huge amount of money, and had even settled some boys in the community with N5,000 and above to rig the election in his candidate’s favour.
He also appealed to the Commissioner for Rural Development to direct the electoral committee to collate and submit all the registered list of all AAPU members from each branch starting from December 27th 2020 backward as these have been the actual members of the union and not those who just joined so they can become eligible to vote in the election.
