Aftermath of Rivers Rerun Polls: Who Comes to Equity?
A popular legal maxim tells us that “he who comes into equity must come with clean hands.”
This maxim does not favour giving relief to anyone that is guilty of improper conduct in any issue at stake. It ensures that those with “unclean hands,” were denied support no matter how unfairly their adversaries may have treated them.
As the lawyers will tell you, equity will always decline relief in cases in which both parties have schemed to circumvent the law.
Against this background, it is difficult to understand what is acceptable in the Rivers State situation where two clearly interested parties have set up panels to investigate the circumstances surrounding the killings that took place during and after the December re-run elections in the state.
As far as the Rivers State governor, Chief Nyesom Wike, is concerned, the police cannot absolve itself from blame in the violence that attended the elections in the state. The security agencies on the other hand blame the governor for inciting his supporters to take the laws into their own hands.
It is, therefore, curious that even with these claims and counter claims, both the police and the governor have gone ahead to set up panels to look into the matter. The police took the lead in what many analysts see as trying to be a judge in their own case.
The Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, appointed Deputy Commissioner of Police, Damien Okoro to head a 15-man panel, tasked with the responsibility of investigating the alleged phone recordings of Governor Nyesome Wike and the violence recorded during the December 10, 2016 election in Rivers State.
Other members of the panel include intelligence, investigative and forensic experts from the police and the Department of State Services.
The IG tasked the members to consult all relevant stakeholders, including the Rivers state government, citizens, the Civil Society Organizations and the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, in carrying out its duties.
He said: “The panel members are to among others, conduct a thorough investigation into the role of security agents before, during and after the election; examine the role of any police officer or security agents whose actions or activities individually or collectively affected the conduct of the election.”
Other terms of reference of the panel include, conducting a forensic analysis on the audio report by Sahara Reporters against Wike as it concerns the election; examine any other matter that is relevant to the conduct of the elections and make recommendations and implementation strategies to guide future elections.
The Rivers State governor followed up immediately by also setting up a judicial commission of inquiry to investigate the killings and other violent acts that occurred during the rerun elections in the state.
Wike charged the commission to, among other responsibilities, investigate the immediate and remote causes of violence during the rerun polls in the state.
The judicial commission of inquiry had Justice Chinwendu Nwogu as chairman while its members were Mrs. Grace Akpughunum-Okwulehie, Prof. O.V.C. Okene and Sir Anthony Ozurumba. Others are Rev. Canon Hossanna Nnaewi, Alphonso Sibi and C. B. Ekeh.
The governor justified his action by stating that he was exercising the powers conferred upon him by Section 2 (1) of the Commissions of Inquiry Law of Rivers State (CAP 30) of Rivers State of Nigeria 1999 and all other powers enabling him in that behalf.
“The judicial commission of inquiry has the following terms of reference; investigate the remote and immediate causes of the violence during the December 10, 2016 rerun/supplementary elections in Rivers State.
“Identify the perpetrators of the various acts of violence and killings in the aforesaid elections; identify the victims of the violence, including those killed, identify if property were damaged and the value of such property.
“Determine if the violence was localised to specific areas within the state or was statewide. Make appropriate recommendations concerning their findings or any other recommendations as the commission may consider appropriate in the circumstance and submit its report to the Governor of Rivers State within one (1) month from the date of its sitting.”
The governor stated that it was not within the purview of the Commission to investigate how the elections were conducted, stating: “This Judicial Commission of Inquiry is not to investigate how they conducted their elections. You are to investigate the murders that attended the elections.
“Those involved in the killings will face the full weight of the law. This government has the capacity to follow through”.
He called on members of the commission to stand by the truth and be courageous in the discharge of their assignment.
Responding, Chairman of the Judicial Commission of Inquiry, Justice Chinwendu Nwogu said that the commission would discharge its assignment within the confines of the law.
The constitution of the commission came one week after the Police Headquarters in Abuja set up its own panel which Wike vowed not to recognise. He told everyone who cared to listen, that Rivers State would not respond to the probe panel instituted by the Inspector-General of Police to investigate the audio tape allegedly indicting him of threat to lives of electoral officers and electoral malpractice.
He argued that the probe on the rerun elections by the police has a predetermined goal aimed at indicting PDP members in order to commence “their politically motivated
Governor Wike also rejected the police probe because, according to him, it ran against the law of natural justice for the police to investigate a matter in which the Rivers State government has accused them of perpetrating acts of murder and injustice on Rivers people.
Apparently surprised by the action of the Rivers State Government, the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress in the 2015 general election, Dr Dakuku Peterside, dismissed the constitution of a judicial commission of inquiry by the governor.
He described the action of the governor as hypocritical and likened it to the story of the proverbial witch that cried at night, while the child died the following morning.
Accusing Wike of ridiculing the office of the governor, Peterside said the action of the governor was laughable.
He said, “Are there no people telling the governor the truth? Here is a governor who told Rivers people not to attend an investigative panel set up by the police to probe the issues surrounding the elections and an audio tape that went viral where the governor threatened INEC officials with death.
“Is it not laughable that the same governor has now set up a judicial commission of inquiry to probe the issues surrounding the elections and he expects Rivers people to obey him? What manner of a governor is Nyesom Wike?
“How can a responsible governor be urging Rivers people to be lawless, how can such a governor call Rivers people not to obey police investigation and yet expect the same people to obey his own kangaroo judicial commission?
“The same Wike accused the police of seeking to achieve a predetermined goal in their investigation to nail PDP members and I ask, what goal is the governor seeking to achieve with his own panel of inquiry, to exonerate PDP members and pronounce APC members guilty?”
Peterside, who is also the Director General of Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, said Wike remained an accused in the matter and could, therefore, not set up an investigative panel.
He said the panel set up by the governor ‘is dead on arrival’.
The APC chieftains found nothing wrong with the police investigation despite being accused of being neck-deep into the mess.
Sensing that there were feeble opposition to its actions, the police went ahead to invite some foreign specialists to assist with the forensic analysis of the leaked audio of Governor Wike’s alleged phone calls during the legislative rerun election in Rivers State.
The experts were invited by the police as part of investigation into the alleged rigging of the election and the alleged threat to the lives of some electoral officers during the poll.
The Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, explained that the foreign analysts would assist with the on-going investigation into the violence that rocked the poll during which two police officers, DSP Mohammed Alkali and his driver, Sgt. Peter Uchi, were beheaded and their heads thrown into a river.
He noted that the two police officers were killed because they answered the call of duty and vowed that the police force would leave no stone unturned to ensure that those indicted for the murder were punished.
The IG affirmed that the election violence in Rivers State would be the last that would be witnessed in the country.
Obviously rankled by the actions of the police, the Rivers State chapter of the People’s Democratic Party dismissed the panel set up by the Inspector-General of Police as a sham.
The party described the exercise as a mere make-believe, adding that the inconsistencies, double standard and bias of the police during the rerun election made it difficult for any serious-minded person or group to take the panel set up by the police seriously.
The State PDP Chairman, Chief Felix Obuah, said that the police must prove to the people of the state that they (police) were not sympathetic to the All Progressives Congress.
According to him, “for such panel to make sense to the Rivers people, the police high command especially the Inspector-General of Police should first do the needful.
“The police high command should do so by proving to the Rivers people and indeed, all Nigerians that he is not a member of the All Progressives Congress, APC, or at best, sympathetic to APC’s cause.
“First and foremost, the police high command ordered and did withdraw all orderlies attached to all politicians, only to turn back to attach all the orderlies withdrawn from the PDP politicians to those of the APC.
“There was no APC candidate or chieftain on that day of election that did not have up to 50 policemen attached to them while those of the PDP were left to their own fate.”
He likened the police investigation panel by the IGP to a judge presiding over his own case, maintaining that the outcome of such panel can easily be predicted.
Ultimately, the two different panels have question marks. But the bigger question is do they have what it takes to approach equity?
