Igini And Bad Odour Of Integrity
By UbongAbasi Ise
If Akwa Ibom Resident
Electoral Commissioner, Mike Igini, was a soccer referee, I bet he would have
been briefing the media every now and then to preach to the world of sports the
gospel of his integrity in match officiating. Perhaps he wouldn’t have stopped
at that. To flaunt his integrity posturing, he would have been analyzing every
odd moment in every game he officiated and then explain how brutish some
players are, and how horrible their coaches are too, by making his job extremely
difficult. He would have cried to
whoever cares to listen on how he is able to stand his ground despite all
manner of threats to his life by aggrieved team managers that are not comfortable
with his integrity. Even if umpires are not allowed to speak to media in the
game of soccer, I doubt if our Igini would have shut up as a referee. He would
have been more than Mark Clattenburg. After 2019 general elections as keenly
observed, Mike Igini seems to be transmuting himself from the electoral umpire
to a de facto one-man squad tribunal, putting the aggrieved candidates to trial
and passing harsh judgment on them before the media.
Most may not
doubt the commissioner’s integrity, but it is Igini himself who is convincing
the world through his brash attitude and many defensive media addresses that he
is very insincere about the whole elections’ thing. In his interview which
surfaced in the media recently, precisely on Sunday 19th May, 2019,
Mike Igini said, “When l arrived Akwa Ibom, a very controversial politician
made a false claim against me, that I was deployed by the APC to come and
dethrone the PDP in Akwa Ibom, but after August 2018, following this up and
down gale of defections, the same individual, now in the APC, lied to them
again that l am against the party. Suddenly, these members were all over the
place shouting that I was against them and in support of the PDP. They insisted
I must go to pave the way for their own kind of REC. If the Commission had
acted the way they changed heads of key security agencies at will based on the
political interests and dictation of politicians, INEC would have had up to
seven RECs before the 2019 elections.”
With the
above statement, Igini may never have known that he has shown indication of
preconception against certain set of contestants in the just concluded
electoral exercise. He has proven his biased and we can say that no matter any
consideration, no clean water could come out from a dirty bottle. He has unwittingly
given a clear reason that makes him dislikes this very ‘controversial
politician’ who he alleged made false claims against his sacred integrity. It might
therefore be interpreted that Igini is pursuing a vendetta by punishing and failing
this ‘controversial politician’ who defected in August 2018 from PDP to APC just for the hell of being controversial. His
statement also implied that certain politicians were all over the place remonstrating
that he was against them and was in support of PDP. Couldn’t we say that this
provocation might be a sufficient reason that make the Resident Electoral
Commissioner become too bitter about these annoying APC
people and then cross his legs to see how they are going to win the elections
he presided over? As an umpire, the act of openly expressing disapproval over
candidates that participates in a contest you superintended over shows prejudice
and likelihood that you would thwart their chances of winning no matter how
hard they try.
It is
baffling that somebody who is wearing the toga of integrity could be too
garrulous and be condemning one party at every turn while cavorting with other.
On Friday May 3rd 2019, Igini brought unprecedented ridicule upon
Akwa Ibom APC by saying that their
candidates were only going to the tribunal to be constantly talked about in the
press in order to be considered for federal appointments since they know that
they have no sincere reasons to contest the results of the last general
elections. With this hogwash, Igini sounded as someone who is not comfortable
with the tribunal proceedings and the expected outcomes. And it appears as if
he is seeking to usurp the mandate of the election tribunal just to kill and
bury the last hopes of the APC
candidates finally. What if the election
tribunal, at the end of its investigations, discovers certain flaws and irregularities
that bedeviled Akwa Ibom elections? Wouldn’t Igini’s integrity be turned infamy
and utter embarrassment to INEC and Nigerians? Well, time will tell.
Mike Igini might
have made up his mind and sworn over his dead body that none of the APC
candidates in Akwa Ibom State would be issued certificate of return as far as
the elections he presided over are concerned. Even when Sir Nse Ntuen of APC
was announced elected by Dr. Nsikan Senam in Essien Udim State Constituency
election at the INEC State Headquarters in Uyo, after polling 6,938 votes from
the two collated wards to defeat the PDP candidate who scored 2,161 votes, all
Mike Igini had to do was to automatically become a tribunal and ruled that the returning
officers were announcing the result under duress, hence the withholding of Nse
Ntuen’s certificate of return. Is there any provision within the 1999
Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (amended 2011) and the
Electoral Act or even the Electoral Guidelines authorizing INEC to withhold the
certificate of a candidate that has been declared winner in an election? Is
Igini not stretching his integrity to the extremes to the point of making it a
vice? As an umpire, you overdo your job with fiendishness against one party,
and show friendliness to the other, is that still integrity? If that is what
you call integrity, is it not stinking?
A good umpire
ought to be dispassionate, fair, and be exuding forbearance in the face of
provocation; he ought to be accommodating to all competing parties. But with
Igini, this is different. As alleged, Igini would be briefing PDP campaign
media team and threatens to expose candidates of the APC .
How fair is this? What message is he sending to the public about his
much-talked about integrity? If Mike Igini is hiding under the veneer of rotten
integrity to undermine Akwa Ibom political energy, I wish for a time the wind
would blow and expose the cloaca of a fowl.
Yes! I am UbongAbasi Ise. For comment,
please send SMS to 08189914609 | email: ubongabasiise@gmail.com
©The Sensor Newspaper
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