Success, indeed, has many parents, especially when recorded several times; the parents multiply geometrically. So also is failure. When failure is recorded serially, especially in a bid to wrestle power from an incumbent through unmerited legal processes, its orphans multiply in a dimension that even the world’s largest orphanage cannot contain them.

This captures the mammoth crowd that greeted the Supreme Court victory of Abia State governor against Dr Alex Otti – the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) – at Umuobiakwa, Ikpeazu’s village, on Wednesday.

Earlier in the day, Justice Paul Galinje, a member of the seven-member panel, read the court’s unanimous judgment. He said the appellant’s reliance solely on the smart card readers in proving the alleged over-voting was fatal to their case. The judgment also held that the law is clear that the petitioner must tender the voter’s register, and should relate the document to the specific area where the documents were affected.

According to the judge, the card-reader print-out tendered by the appellants at the tribunal cannot be inserted into the Constitution or Electoral Act, which stipulates the yardstick for proving over-voting. Furthermore, the judge said that the appellants failed to provide credible evidence to prove their case and, finally, held that the two lower courts are right to dismiss the appeal and it will suffer the same fate in the Supreme Court. Consequently, the appeal lacked merit and was “equally dismissed”.

For a record seventh time since 2015, Ikpeazu defeated Otti, and this erupted jubilations across the state.

As the governor pointed out in his speech, Abians should not be beclouded by the euphoria of this victory and go home to sleep because these Samballaths and Tobiases are not resting on their oars. Nehemiah's approach in checking the opposition of Samballath and Tobias should be adopted: Abians should be on guard always to forestall the disruption of the good works of the governor by these opposition elements.

Their stock-in-trade has been to attack or attempt to puncture and discredit the good programmes and policies of the government.

The most recent is their frantic efforts deployed at discrediting the proposed laudable recruitment of able-bodied men and women of Abia extraction for security purposes. When opposition degenerates to an abysmal level of playing politics with security, people should have a rethink. It is always said that opposition is the beauty of democracy, but not when reduced to a debased level.

As it was wrongly pointed out in a press release by the opposition entitled “Okezie Ikpeazu’s New Security Arrangement in Abia: A Time-bomb that must be halted”, the said public service announcement signed by the Hon Commissioner clearly states that the Ministry of Homeland Security requires able-bodied men and women to enlist for screening, training and recruitment. Homeland Security is neither the new security outfit nor operational nomenclature, but the supervising ministry cum authority for the exercise.

The proposed recruitment of the 350 personnel, who will be trained under different modules of security curriculum and injected into the already existing Abia Vigilante Outfit to expand their coverage of various cities, communities and villages for effective coverage of under-policed spaces.

The exercise is captured in the 2020 budget as passed and signed into law and, therefore, the remuneration will be derived from statutory funding. The ministry’s think-tank is also designing a process to think outside the box in eventuality of any shortfalls.

The need to re-jig the existing Abia Vigilante Services became necessary after a staff enumeration and SWOT analysis of the outfit was carried out. It was revealed that out of 400 men and women enlisted with the outfit, that some who have been around since inception in early 2000s are getting too old and unfit to render active security operations to the people of Abia State. It is also on record that many are under varying degrees of reprimand for various operational excesses and infringements.

Ambition is good when it is pursued within the limits of decency. Thus, Cromwell said: “I charge thee, fling away ambition. By that sin fell the angels; how can man then, the image of his Maker, hope to win by it?”

•Okechukwu Keshi Ukegbu, a public policy analyst, writes from Aba, viakeshiafrica@gmail.com

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