IT was on December 19, 2015, that the final arbiter in legislative election matters, the Court of Appeal, ruled that the lawmaker representing Etsako West State Constituency II in the Edo State House of Assembly, Yakubu Gowon, of the All Progressives Congress (APC) should vacate his seat for Sylvanus Eruaga of the PDP. The court, sitting in Benin City, asked the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to withdraw the Certificate of Return issued to Gowon and give to Sylvanus Eruaga (PDP) a new one as the duly elected representative of the constituency.
The judgment meant so much to the opposition PDP as the state governor, Adams Oshiomhole is a member of Etsako State Constituency II. Last December, members of the party embarked on a victory dance around communities in the constituency celebrating Eruaga’s victory. They boasted that a PDP lawmaker would now represent Governor Oshiomhole in the House of Assembly. For the victorious Eruaga, his expectation was that he would become a state legislator upon the resumption of the House after the Christmas and New Year break. That dream, however, has not come to fruition two months down the lane, as Eruaga is yet to be sworn-in by the leadership of the Edo Assembly.
Eruaga said he had met every condition stipulated for his swearing-in, adding that he had equally presented himself for swearing-in several times. He said: “The Speaker keeps saying they will get back to me. Court officials served the House through the clerk a Certified True Copy of the Enrollment of Order. They said they wanted a Certificate of Return, I brought it. The Speaker later told me that my matter was not in his hand. He said he had minuted on it and sent it to the governor.”
To make matters worse, Eruaga alleged that in utter and flagrant disregard of the Court of Appeal, the Speaker of the Edo State House Assembly, Honourable Victor Edoror, allowed Yakubu Gowon, to sit in the hallowed chambers of the assembly after his removal by the appellate court.
According to him, the first indication that the assembly was up to something came when it refused to accept a Certified True Copy of the enrolled order of the Appeal Court judgment, as those charged with such responsibilities made themselves unreachable. He noted that the enrolment order was finally accepted by a National Youths Service Corps (NYSC) member attached to the House of Assembly complex. He alleged that for accepting the order, the corps member received the beating of his life and was admitted to the Benin Central Hospital.
Irked by the unfolding scenario, Eruaga’s party, the PDP, held a press briefing to inform the public the plight of its candidate. State chairman, Chief Dan Orbih, described the refusal of the Edo Assembly to swear-in Eruaga as an attack on democracy. He alleged that Governor Oshiomhole was behind the act, claiming that “the list of court orders disobeyed by the governor was long, adding “This is one court order we will not allow him to disobey.”
The embattled Eruaga also used the media briefing to display to journalists a Certificate of Return issued and signed by the chairman of the INEC, Professor Mahmoud Yakubu, a Certified True Copy of Enrolled Order and clearance papers from the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) to back his claim that he had fulfilled the conditions stipulated by the Electoral Law to be sworn-in. He added that he personally served the clerk of the Edo State House of Assembly the original Certificate of Return after which the clerk made a photocopy and returned the original to him.
Before the media briefing, Eruaga, through his lawyer, Mr Dele Igbinedion, had written a petition to President Muhammadu Buhari alleging that Governor Oshiomhole and Speaker Edoror were preventing him from joining his colleagues in the Edo Assembly. In the petition, Eruaga claimed the Speaker on February 1, 2015, said he was awaiting directives from the governor before undertaking his swearing-in since the governor had allegedly warned him not to swear him in without his prior permission.
Speaking, however, Speaker Edoror disclosed the real reason the assembly had not been able to swear-in Eruaga, claiming that it was investigating a case of alleged forgery of Certificate of Return by Eruaga. Edoror said the assembly was not an apron string of the executive arm of the state government. He alleged: “We are investigating a petition concerning forgery of certificate of return against him” and “until that is exhausted, he cannot be sworn-in.”
Counsel to Eruaga, Dele Igbinedion, however, described the allegation as laughable, saying it was never communicated to his client. In a letter sent to the assembly through courier, he said the allegation painted his client as a criminal who is unworthy of public trust or office since he could condescend so low as to forge a Certificate of Return for an election which he won convincingly and which was pronounced by the Election Petition Tribunal and upheld by the Court of Appeal.
“Mr Speaker, till date, you have not bothered to inform our client of the existence of the purported petition to afford my client the opportunity to respond to it since you rely on it for not performing our client’s swearing-in ceremony. Instead, you went to great length and much fanfare to publish the damaging allegations to the whole world with the premeditated objective to severely damage, denigrate and demean our client’s hard earned reputation,” Igninedion alleged in the letter.
As the drama unfolds, it appears Eruaga is looking at other avenues to ensure that he becomes a state lawmaker. Expectedly, one of such is to return to the court to enforce the order giving him victory. He, however, disclosed that he was exercising caution in fighting for his mandate, ruling out staging a protest to the Assembly. He disclosed that the people who do not want him in the Edo Assembly are watching every move he makes and are waiting in the wings to use them against him to further prevent his swearing-in.
Some pundits said the unfolding scenario was not the first of its kind in the state. They recalled a similar scenario occurred between 2009 and 2010 during the speakership of Zakawarnu Garuba. “This is not the first time this kind of thing is happening in this state. Around 2009 or 2010, the then Assembly led by Zakawarnu Garuba refused to swear-in an ACN candidate, Uwamose Amadasun. Even after the PDP candidate, Elizabeth Ativie, departed the Assembly, it still took a little while before Amadasun took his seat. Though the then Assembly pointed out that a case instituted by Ativie was responsible for the delay, I don’t think the Assembly acted in accordance with the law. Maybe, this is the time the PDP should be paid back in their own coin,” a public commentator remarked.
Politics of swearing-in in Edo Assembly
The two men and the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto, Bishop Hassan Kukah, spoke at the 10th annual luncheon and awards of the Bible Society of Nigeria, BSN, held in Lagos.
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