Dr. Okezie Victor Ikpeazu’s Electoral Lead Vis A Vis The Integrity Of Professors Chukwuma Benjamin Ozumba And Selina Omagha Oko.

In keeping with the reversed electoral time schedule, the Independent National Electoral Commission; INEC, conducted her second and last phase of 2015 general election on Saturday 11th April, 2015 in twenty-nine states of the Nigerian Federation. Inclusively-speaking, Abia State, which had her last governorship election in 2011, was one of the states the election took place in on the said date.

According to news reported by some media in the country, the election was marred by violent disturbances in some parts of Nigeria, even to the extent of many Nigerians losing their lives.

In Abia State, to the glory of God, no case of political assassination has been recorded since Chief T. A. Orji emerged as Governor. This is because the Governor and the People's Democratic Party; P.D.P, do not believe that politics must be played with bitterness, hate and violence.

During the governorship and House of Assembly elections in the State, the opposition All Progressive Grand Alliance, APGA, that came into the contest, like a chicken infested with coccidiosis, exhibited unrestricted and inordinate ambition that was characterised by desperation and violent tendencies.

Inspite of all provocation, members of the People's Democratic Party in the State maintained the discipline, maturity and equanimity for which they have always been known. As a Party that has its focus on the people, it successfullyresisted every attempt by the APGA to drag her into violence and wanton destruction of lives and property of precious Abians.

No wonder, despite all clandestine manoeuvres by the opposition and few unscrupulous electoral officials, Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu still led his closest opposition rival; Mr Alexander Otti, with a record margin of eighty-three thousand and fifty-three (83, 053) votes in the gubernatorial election that the Returning Officer, Professor Chukwuma Benjamin Ozumba, declared inconclusive.

Suffice it to state, at this juncture, that the Returning Officer in the said election; Professor Ozumba, is a personality that should, ordinarily, be accorded a lot of respect and honour, taking into consideration his various degrees of accomplishment in medicine, academics, administration and social engineering. There will be hardly any person that would go through his profile as a Professor of Gynaecology, a one-time Dean of Faculty of Medical Sciences, a former Provost of College of Medicine of the famous University of Nigeria Nsukka, the initiator and founder of Professor Chukwuedu Nwokolo Annual Lecture Series and currently the Vice Chancellor of University of Nigeria, Nsukka that would hesitate, even for a second, to infer that Professor Ozumba deserves dignity and reverence from his fellow country men and women.

Even though the erudite Professor of Medicine may not be a learned gentle-man, as lawyers, out of professional sophism and braggadocio would put it, he must have been familiar with the duties and functions associated, if not by law, by convention, with a returning officer.

It may not be out of place to remind whoever that cares to listen that the good essence of Professor Attahiru Jega; a former Vice chancellor, drafting his colleagues in as electoral returning officers in Nigeria's electoral system is to reduce, at least minimally, the human problems of imperfection, pettiness and gullibility and, by so doing, restore confidence and credibility in the country's electoral environment.

On hearing that Professor Chukwuma Ozumba was the Returning Officer for the April 11, 2015 governorship election in Abia State, many indigenes and residents of the state were hilarious because they felt that a round peg had simply been put in a round hole.

With the caliber of Professor Ozumba coming to play the role of a big umpire, it was the thought of every Abian that the medical guru would not, in any way, exhibit the least iota of variegation in conduct or character. No one could ever have entertained the fear that such a personality that has been noted for scruples would ever conduct himself in a manner that could get more than two hundred and eighty thousand Abians bewildered to the extent of almost concluding that the Professor of pedagogy might have had his age-long integrity compromised by attractions that can not be deeper than being ephemerally pecuniary.

An internationally acclaimed academic of the height of Professor ChukwumaBenjamin Ozumba was not, in the least, expected, for whatever reason, to have allowed himself to be unhygenically and surreptitiously dragged into the murky depth of incredulous bigotry hinged on the sacrilegious impulse of material acquisition.

At the level of Professor Ozumba, the Anambra-born bibliophile is not expected to dabble into actions that would portray him as working at cross purposes with veracity and reality. A distinguished scholar like Prof. Ozumba, to whose credit there are more than three hundred publications, should not be vulnerable to any form of subterfuge that could lead him into actions that, when subjected to proper scaling and balancing, would end in projecting him as being avoidably inconsistent.

Generally-speaking, the governorship and legislative elections in Abia State went well in Obingwa, Osisioma and Isialangwa-North local government areas of Abia State.

There was no basis for any altruistic person to have contemplated tampering with the results as rightly declared by the respective collation officers in the three local government areas. The elections in the said areas were free, fair and credible, with the results reflecting wholly and entirely the wishes of the people where the elections took place.

Ironically-Surprisingly, the Returning Officer; Prof. Ben Ozumba, under whose directive the University of Nigeria, Nsukka had conferred an HonouraryDoctorate Degree on Mr. Alexander Otti in Business Administration on January 26, 2013, in sharp contrast with the tenets of veracity, transparency and dignity, announced that the results of elections from the three local governments that every body in the state knows to be among the strong holds of Dr. OkezieIkeazu had been cancelled. People were shocked to hear that Professor Benjamin Ozumba, who had been assumed to be of very high repute could quickly yield to cheap and damaging conduct that would end up calling his demeanour to question. The most disturbing aspect of the Professor's conduct being that he condescended to the very porous mental level of saying that he took his inglorious action only based on observations made by International Election Observers. Ofcourse, at his level of intellectual development, he should have known that an election result already declared at a local government area by the appropriate Collation Officer should not be tampered with.

One may, however, sympathize with Professor Benjamin Chukwuma Ozumbafor his moral crash in his regrettable outgoing in Abia State. This is because even if the Professor had wished to do a transparent job in Abia State, the leperous presence of the Resident Electoral Commissioner in the state; Professor Selina Omagha Oko, whose immorality and lack of transparency and integrity compelled the Professor Jega-led Independent National Electoral Commission to send her on a punitive compulsory leave in 2011 owing to her despicable behaviour during the governorship election in Imo State, was strong enough to corrupt him.

It is an open secret that Professor Selina Oko had held clandestine meetings with cronies of Mr. Alexander Otti severally at a branch of Diamond Bank at Aba. Being morally bankrupt, Mrs Oko was all out to take maximum pecuniary advantage of the guber election in Abia State and since the desperation of Mr. Otti blind-folded him against the realities of Abia political situation, her avarice became fuelled to such a dangerous extremity that Professor Ozumba had to become a victim of her greed.

Nigerians would continue to wonder why a person like Mrs. Oko, whose kleptomania is evidently cancerous, should be allowed to remain in acommission that should symbolize discipline, integrity, transparency, hope and national pride.

It is, however, re-assuring that despite the finance-induced conspiracy that was hatched by both Professor Ozumba and Oko, truth later prevailed when reason dawned on Professor Ozumba who shamefully and remorsefully reversed his obnoxiously unwarranted cancelation of results from Obingwa, Osisioma and Isialangwa-North local government areas.

Abia State is Gods own sate and God is known for equity, justice and fairness. Despite the enormity of conspiracy mounted against the good people of old AbaDivision, God has already shown that He is indeed, equity-keeping God.

Despite being inconclusive, the election result already released by the electoral body conveniently and comfortably place Dr. Okezie Victor Chibuikem Ikpeazuon an indisputably clear lead with a total superior vote difference of eighty-three thousand and fifty-three votes over and above Mr. Otti.

Advocates and supports of equity should, however, not rest on their oars for it is not over until it is over.

Chief (Sir) Don Ubani; KSC, JP

(Okwubunka of Asa)