He chose to heed the call by the Federal Government to return and make contributions to the political development of the country, but for mother luck, his return and participation would have led to his death. In this interview, Dr. Godson Offaro, APGA candidate in the recently concluded House of Representatives election for the Okigwe North Federal Constituency which he lost to his PDP counterpart, tells the story of the gun attack and his impressions about the country’s polity. Excerpts:
You just lost an election to the House of Representatives?
The so-called election was held on the 23rd of October this year, and I contested for a seat to the Federal House of Representatives, the seat vacated by the late Maurice Ibekwe who died in prison.
What really happened to you before the election?
On the 14th of October, while we were driving from Owerri to Okigwe, just two miles to my home, Obiohuru, in Isiala Mbano Local Government Area of the State, my brother-in-law was on the wheels. Suddenly, what I heard from him was: "Brother, bend down, brother, bend down". I had to lie on the floor of the vehicle. Immediately, I lay on the floor, there was the sudden crack of gun fire simultaneously. So, he, the driver, careered the car to a ditch. By the time we came out, we had to go home through a footpath and we abandoned the car there. This was around 8.40p.m.
Immediately, somebody went to report to the police in Isiala-Mbano. There, the police said they suspected they were being lured to be robbed, and never attended to those who came to report. Then, they further went to another police station in another local government which actually came out to inspect the scene, took photographs and made arrangements to remove the car. They tried to move the car that night but they could not, so the following day, they succeeded in removing the car.
You didn’t suspect an armed robbery attack?
In the petition we sent to the Inspector General of Police, Mr. Tafa Balogun, we mentioned that we believed that the attack was obviously politically motivated because it was a single shot and they sped off. If it was a robbery, maybe, they would have tried to stop us, search us, get whatever we had and do anything they could have done with us, either they could let us go or do whatever they wanted to do with our lives. But this was a single shot that cracked out and directly hit at where I sat.
You said this was not the first time that such a politically motivated attack has happened in your area?
It is not the first time. The case of Dr. Fidelis Padowa who was shot when he tried to compete in the elections, when he tried to run for governor in the 2003 elections, because we have a political landlord or overlord there, that selects and imposes candidates of his choice. And if you come from outside and you are not within the clique, then they either kill you or rig you out or harass you into submission. Before the attack, we have had several threats, jests, mockery or people just taunting us that we were wasting our time campaigning, that we would lose or that what happened to Padowa would happen to us and I never believed. Honestly, before then I thought Dr. Padowa was exaggerating on what happened to him until it happened to me.
You seem to be very bitter about the attack?
I’m more bitter about the attack than the way the election went because President Olusegun Obasanjo keeps asking Nigerians that live abroad to come and help in the political process and those of us that brave it to come are harassed away. That is not fair.
There is the thinking that APGA is a very popular party in these areas, yet the PDP continues to win in the elections, does this say anything about our current politics?
That is an understatement. You will appreciate that my constituency is where Ralph Uwazuruike (MASSOB leader) comes from. If I had been elected, I would have been representing Ralph Uwazuruike in the Federal House of Representatives. You can think of an environment that produces Ralph Uwazuruike, how could that environment be PDP? The people will come out to vote for APGA, but the result will become PDP. How this happens, I did not know until now. In my constituency, for example, there are 155,000 and they recorded about 80 per cent turnout. It has never been so recorded in election history, particularly in the Third World. The highest documented turnout in elections is in the United States.
Then, here we campaigned from day one to the last day. You will hear us as we were campaigning but the opposition was not. The people were hailing us, but they also were scared and they were asking us that if they came out to vote, wouldn’t it go the way the other elections had been going. Then, I had assured them based on the reception we received on our performance and the assurance from the election organisers. But contrary to our expectations, what the masses feared did occur.
But what we had on the election day was like a charade, it was the looting of the people’s mandate that after the election, I felt deceived, that if I had known that ballot papers would be diverted, I would have prepared myself to loot while others were looting. While we prepared for election they prepared to loot ballot papers from one boot to the other until at the end of the day, a result was announced, I was shocked.
There is the thinking that even if you head to the election tribunal, you may never get justice. or do you think otherwise?
There have been instances where candidates who lost elections the way I did could not rely on the election tribunal to get justice and I know mine would not be an exception. It has come to the extent that even outsiders have no more confidence in the outcome of the judicial process, particularly as it concerns the election petition. Therefore I am really not interested in going to the tribunal.
What is your next line of action now?
Nothing, other than to document my experience as part of the present history of Nigeria. The present history of Nigeria that a band of marauders or thieves have hijacked Nigerian politics and except something very very drastic happens, the Nigerian ship may sink.
And how is your constituency taking this?
Enraged. Members of my constituency are enraged. Just consider that I was talking to you about the result of the election, but a day or two before the election, if you asked any okada man, because you measure public opinion poll through okada operators, if you flew from the moon and asked any okada man, who he thought would win tomorrow’s election, they would say APGA. Then on the election day, APGA lost. So, you see that instead of jubilation and celebration in the air, it was like melancholy, pain enveloped the entire constituency. People went about in heavy eyes.
That is not how elections should be. People’s mandate stolen once again. I was giving you the analysis of 155,000 recorded registered voters in my constituency out of which over 120,000 turned out to vote, and they voted for PDP. What actually happened was that two days before the elections, there were announcements over the radio, television that every PDP member in Imo State should face Okigwe tomorrow. The minister came from Abuja, Ozichukwu, the PDP chairman for South-East came into my constituency from Abuja.
The governor mobilised into my constituency. Two senators of Imo State extraction came into my constituency, the 27 Local Government chairmen mobilised into my constituency. The ward chairmen in Imo State mobilised into my constituency, all the commissioners mobilised into my constituency. They became party agents, they came with guns, with wads of Naira notes. These were people that never ever campaigned.
Who was this your opponent for the House of Representatives’ seat?
In fact I never really had an opponent, I never even mentioned his name, which is Barrister Mike Ohia. Even as I am talking with you I do not even believe that I competed with him, because I competed with a band of marauding ballot paper thieves in my constituency, and that was consummated on election day, the so-called election day. By 10 o’clock we had seen the handwriting on the wall and started asking our people to withdraw, our agents were prevented from escorting the ballot papers from INEC office.
If you put 2 million heads and you are suspected to be agent of APGA you are knocked out unconscious off the road so that by the time you regain your consciousness, the ballot box have disappeared, the vehicle you are supposed to follow to the next destination would have disappeared. But even in my polling boot, we didn’t have ballot papers, my people didn’t have ballot papers, I didn’t even vote in an election that concerned me. The two boots allocated into my area were nowhere to be found. I mean, that couldn’t have been an election.
So, if I am screaming that is how my tone is, but in my heart I am very much at ease and very very happy with what I have done, at least I was able to put my money where my mouth is, I received no assistance from anybody, every dime I spent on the election was my money and I am very very proud of what I have done, at least I have been able to jolt the political system, people who uptill now have thought they were untouchable, I was able to touch them and shake them to their foundation. If the whole state could be mobilised to come and deceive themselves for an election, I take credit,
Are you prepared to give it another try?
Oh sure! And if I am to try again, I would be better prepared, I will be prepared for looting, I will be more prepared for their kind of election, so that whatever happens I might be able to take it. If I meet them again, at the Battle of Philippi, I will defeat them.
