LATEST UPDATE: How we were roped into N500m bribery – Sen. Anosike
Senator Emma Anosike, a member of the panel which conducted the November 1 ward congresses in Cross River State reveals in this interview with Saturday Sun what transpired during and after the poll and also, dismisses allegations of a N500 million bribe allegation by the state PDP Secretary, Mr. Godwin Etta. He spoke further on this and more with TOSIN AKINOLA. Excerpts:
You were part of the electoral panel that conducted the ward congresses in Cross River State on November 1. Reports now indicate that your panel was actually compromised. What really happened?
I refused initially to talk on this issue but after the outing of the Cross River State Secretary on Kaakaki on AIT, I decided I had to speak to clear my name because he did mention my name. Before that day, I had got a lot of calls to speak on the matter but I refused. First of all, the convention of our party, the PDP, is that immediately you get to a state, you pay a courtesy call on the governor. When we got to Cross River, we duly paid a courtesy call on the governor, interacted with him, and so on. Personally, as a politician, I asked the governor, ‘Sir, I hope there’s no problem here, I hope there’s no interest anywhere?’ He replied me that there’s no problem whatsoever but that he wanted the law and the rule of PDP to prevail! I then asked further; ‘in what area?’ He, then, told me that, ‘yes, based on the PDP arrangement, some forms were returned late…’
I then said no, the instruction of our coming to Cross River State was that anybody who bought the nomination form, irrespective of the place you got the form from, whether it was bought in Cross River or you got the form in Abuja, you are entitled to contest. The party told us not to entertain any reason whatsoever; that any aspirant should be allowed to contest; that we should collect forms, even at the venue of the congress. He said, ‘no problem’ and that we should go ahead. On leaving that place, the state chairman of the party was excited and told me, ‘Senator, you and your team have saved the day…if you and your team didn’t say what you said, we are not sure we will survive in Cross River because the environment was charged!’
When we got to the party office, everybody insisted that we must meet with the stakeholders and having a chairman of the electoral panel, who is a seasoned politician, he sent a text to the state chairman that we must meet with the stakeholders so that we can tell them what we’ve been told. In that caucus meeting, because when we got to the office, we had had a little caucus meeting, they told us they’ve shortlisted some people that would contest and we told them that there’s no shortlisting as the mandate we got from the party was that everybody must be allowed to contest and that as far as we were concerned, we wanted to do transparent congresses and go home.
At that juncture, we left to tell the stakeholders that ‘if you bought your form in Abuja, you have the right to contest. If you bought your form in Calabar, you also have the right to contest. Immediately they heard that, the environment changed. Everybody was happy. We then asked the party about the arrangement put in place for the election and they replied that they’ve provided electoral officers for us and we were okay with that. We told them that since you are the party here, we will follow you and we followed them, distributed the electoral officers who went to work according to the posting of the state chapter of the party. We told them to go and work according to their own posting; not even us. At about 12 midnight, we had problems. When Calabar South (Cross River South senatorial district) results came in, they felt disturbed that, even though they sent their own people to conduct the elections, they lost.
And the person who even brought the result was their returning officer. They now called me and said: ‘Senator, where are you? The result of Calabar South is there.’ We took it and then, the state chairman came back to me and said: ‘please, look, what they had from the field was not the correct thing.’ I then asked him: ‘what do you mean by what you had not being the correct thing? This is the result and we will not tamper with it.’ At that juncture, they became jittery that some of their men they sent to the field, maybe, did not play according to instructions. We said okay. Meanwhile, they now arranged for an office, that we should go to that office and that everything that comes, we will work with them. I told them pointblank that we are not working with you people.
‘Let your people return the result.’ We were with the executive members of the state chapter of the PDP till 5am on Sunday, November 2. As at 4:30am, they insisted that they wanted to photocopy the results. We went beyond our duty and agreed. We said ‘okay, go ahead and photocopy the result.’ At that juncture, even the state chairman was jittery with the result because he felt they didn’t do well. As at 2:00pm, the National Assembly members, including the Senate Leader and members of the House of Representatives came to meet with us; to register their protests. They told us that they were uncomfortable with what they were hearing that was emanating from the office; that some of the results were being changed and so on. We told them it was not so and that we needed to bring in the chairman to also listen to their complaints. Immediately the state chairman came in and saw the National Assembly members, he said he was not ready to listen to this nonsense. We reminded him that these were also stakeholders in the congresses.
He refused and insisted he was not ready to listen to any nonsense. He left. Let me also point out that while all these was going on, the deputy governor was present. He came to greet the electoral panel chairman. Maybe when he left us, he scolded the chairman, I don’t know. But some hours after, the state chairman came to my hotel room and knelt down and said he was sorry for what transpired earlier. I told him to forget the matter; that it’s just politics but that the only person he should apologise to was the the chairman of the electoral panel because he’s 80+. This was in the wee hours of the morning. At about 5:15 to 5:30am, since we’d made arrangements to get a plane to bring us back to Abuja, the secretary of the state chapter was also ready. He didn’t even tell us that he would go back to Abuja with us.
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Senator Emma Anosike, a member of the panel which conducted the November 1 ward congresses in Cross River State reveals in this interview with Saturday Sun what transpired during and after the poll and also, dismisses allegations of a N500 million bribe allegation by the state PDP Secretary, Mr. Godwin Etta. He spoke further on this and more with TOSIN AKINOLA. Excerpts:
You were part of the electoral panel that conducted the ward congresses in Cross River State on November 1. Reports now indicate that your panel was actually compromised. What really happened?
I refused initially to talk on this issue but after the outing of the Cross River State Secretary on Kaakaki on AIT, I decided I had to speak to clear my name because he did mention my name. Before that day, I had got a lot of calls to speak on the matter but I refused. First of all, the convention of our party, the PDP, is that immediately you get to a state, you pay a courtesy call on the governor. When we got to Cross River, we duly paid a courtesy call on the governor, interacted with him, and so on. Personally, as a politician, I asked the governor, ‘Sir, I hope there’s no problem here, I hope there’s no interest anywhere?’ He replied me that there’s no problem whatsoever but that he wanted the law and the rule of PDP to prevail! I then asked further; ‘in what area?’ He, then, told me that, ‘yes, based on the PDP arrangement, some forms were returned late…’
I then said no, the instruction of our coming to Cross River State was that anybody who bought the nomination form, irrespective of the place you got the form from, whether it was bought in Cross River or you got the form in Abuja, you are entitled to contest. The party told us not to entertain any reason whatsoever; that any aspirant should be allowed to contest; that we should collect forms, even at the venue of the congress. He said, ‘no problem’ and that we should go ahead. On leaving that place, the state chairman of the party was excited and told me, ‘Senator, you and your team have saved the day…if you and your team didn’t say what you said, we are not sure we will survive in Cross River because the environment was charged!’
When we got to the party office, everybody insisted that we must meet with the stakeholders and having a chairman of the electoral panel, who is a seasoned politician, he sent a text to the state chairman that we must meet with the stakeholders so that we can tell them what we’ve been told. In that caucus meeting, because when we got to the office, we had had a little caucus meeting, they told us they’ve shortlisted some people that would contest and we told them that there’s no shortlisting as the mandate we got from the party was that everybody must be allowed to contest and that as far as we were concerned, we wanted to do transparent congresses and go home.
At that juncture, we left to tell the stakeholders that ‘if you bought your form in Abuja, you have the right to contest. If you bought your form in Calabar, you also have the right to contest. Immediately they heard that, the environment changed. Everybody was happy. We then asked the party about the arrangement put in place for the election and they replied that they’ve provided electoral officers for us and we were okay with that. We told them that since you are the party here, we will follow you and we followed them, distributed the electoral officers who went to work according to the posting of the state chapter of the party. We told them to go and work according to their own posting; not even us. At about 12 midnight, we had problems. When Calabar South (Cross River South senatorial district) results came in, they felt disturbed that, even though they sent their own people to conduct the elections, they lost.
And the person who even brought the result was their returning officer. They now called me and said: ‘Senator, where are you? The result of Calabar South is there.’ We took it and then, the state chairman came back to me and said: ‘please, look, what they had from the field was not the correct thing.’ I then asked him: ‘what do you mean by what you had not being the correct thing? This is the result and we will not tamper with it.’ At that juncture, they became jittery that some of their men they sent to the field, maybe, did not play according to instructions. We said okay. Meanwhile, they now arranged for an office, that we should go to that office and that everything that comes, we will work with them. I told them pointblank that we are not working with you people.
‘Let your people return the result.’ We were with the executive members of the state chapter of the PDP till 5am on Sunday, November 2. As at 4:30am, they insisted that they wanted to photocopy the results. We went beyond our duty and agreed. We said ‘okay, go ahead and photocopy the result.’ At that juncture, even the state chairman was jittery with the result because he felt they didn’t do well. As at 2:00pm, the National Assembly members, including the Senate Leader and members of the House of Representatives came to meet with us; to register their protests. They told us that they were uncomfortable with what they were hearing that was emanating from the office; that some of the results were being changed and so on. We told them it was not so and that we needed to bring in the chairman to also listen to their complaints. Immediately the state chairman came in and saw the National Assembly members, he said he was not ready to listen to this nonsense. We reminded him that these were also stakeholders in the congresses.
He refused and insisted he was not ready to listen to any nonsense. He left. Let me also point out that while all these was going on, the deputy governor was present. He came to greet the electoral panel chairman. Maybe when he left us, he scolded the chairman, I don’t know. But some hours after, the state chairman came to my hotel room and knelt down and said he was sorry for what transpired earlier. I told him to forget the matter; that it’s just politics but that the only person he should apologise to was the the chairman of the electoral panel because he’s 80+. This was in the wee hours of the morning. At about 5:15 to 5:30am, since we’d made arrangements to get a plane to bring us back to Abuja, the secretary of the state chapter was also ready. He didn’t even tell us that he would go back to Abuja with us.
Thanks for Reading The LATEST UPDATE: How we were roped into N500m bribery – Sen. Anosike
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