Lagos lawyer, Festus Keyamo, has said the Delta state governor, Emmanuel
Uduaghan, is a disgrace to governance for playing “Ping-Pong” with the
affairs of the state with ex-militant, Government Ekpemupolo, alias
Tompolo.
Mr. Keyamo, in an open letter to the governor, alleged that
Mr. Uduaghan interfered in the duties of the state electoral
commission during the last local government chairmanship election by
replacing the Warri South-West candidate with Mr. Tomopolo’s younger
brother on the eve of the election.
The lawyer said the governor summoned one Weyinmi Omadeli to
his private residence in Warri on Thursday, October 23, 2014- barely
48 hours to the election- and informed him that he had given orders
to the Delta State Independent Electoral Commission, DSIEC, to
replace his name with that of George Ekpemupolo, the younger brother
of Government Ekpemupolo, alias Tompolo.
“For you to summon Mr. Omadeli on the eve of an election and
inform him that his name had been replaced smacks of high-level
interference with the job of DSIEC. It clearly shows that DSIEC is only
an appendage of the Delta State Government”.
The lawyer listed five reasons why the action by the governor
was wrong and said that the governor’s decision “is capable of igniting
a crisis that will affect all of us”.
“The decision was taken whimsically and it is unjust, unfair,
illegal and ungodly. Consequently, it is
unacceptable and will be
challenged legally and politically,” Mr. Keyamo said in the letter.
“It also depicts the sorry and comatose state of DSIEC in the hands
of the State Government (it is the same all over the country, anyway).
But, why did DSIEC not have the courtesy to write or summon him
to break the news (assuming, but without conceding, that they have
the powers to do so?) Sir, you are not the Chairman of DSIEC and you
have no business replacing one candidate with another in an election,”
the lawyer wrote.
He said it was wrong that Mr. Omadeli’s name was substituted without cogent reasons.