… Anxiety grips Bayelsa APC, as false documentation trails its candidates
By Peter Obiechina
Still smarting from the inexplicable loss of the Bayelsa State governorship seat which it won in November, 2019, the All Progressives Congress(APC) in the oil-rich state appears headed for the same fate.
The party had trounced the rival Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) in the gubernatorial election, only to be prevented from taking over the reins of government by the Supreme Court following a rash of discrepancies discovered in the documents presented for the polls by the party.
Biobarakuma Degi-Eremienyo, a sitting senator at the time and APC’s deputy governorship candidate, had presented to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), documents adjudged by the apex court as false.
Barely one year after, thunder appears set to strike twice on the same spot, as the APC is once again grappling with disputable claims contained in the personal particulars of its candidate for the Bayelsa Central Senatorial district bye-election.
Already, the party’s chosen candidate for Bayelsa West senatorial bye-election, Peremobowei Ebebi, has been disqualified from the contest.
Ebebi, a former deputy governor of the state, was on Tuesday, November 3, told by a Federal High Court sitting in Yenagoa that he was not qualified to take part in the election for presenting false information to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
Justice Jane Inyang, who gave the order when delivering judgement in suit FHC/YNG/CS/60/2020, held that Ebebi stands disqualified for presenting two conflicting dates of birth certificates to INEC.
Earlier scheduled for last Saturday, October 31, 2020, before it was postponed by INEC as a consequence of the #EndSARS protest, the APC is in further quagmire, following revelations that its standard bearer for another zone, Bayelsa Central, Chief Abel Ebifemowei, is a deserter from the services of the Nigerian Air Force(NAF).
Ebebi’s disqualification appears to be the same fate awaiting Ebifemowei and the APC.
Documents in possession of 365Daily indicate that Ebifemowei had unilaterally left service, as he does not possess a discharge certificate, voluntary retirement or dismissal letter.
In fact, in INEC Form EC9 which he filled in his own handwriting and deposed to in a court of law, Ebifemowei had, in reply to the question whether he had ever been dismissed from the Public Service of the Federation, State or Local Government/Area Council, answered in the affirmative.
“I was in the Airforce and informed my superior officer of my health situation and travelled for medical treatment and was later informed that I deserted,” the APC candidate said.
Really?
Ebifemowei could as well have been talking to the birds of the air, as those familiar with military law told 365Daily that anyone who wilfully goes on AWOL(Absence Without Leave), is due for court martial whenever the issue is brought to light.
“As it were, the said officer is still a service personnel, as he is yet to formally disengage from service,” one military analyst who pleaded anonymity told 365Daily.
Indeed, Section 66(1)(f) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, as amended, states that “no person shall be qualified for an election to the Senate or House of Representatives if (f) he is a person employed in the public service of the Federation or of any State and has not resigned, withdrawn or retired from such service 30 days before the date of election.”
Besides the clear provisions of the Constitution cited above, Section 60 of the Armed Forces Decree of 1993 spells out penalties for desertion as follows:
“(1) A person subject to service law under this Decree who
(a) deserts; or
(b) persuades or procures any other person subject to service law under this Decree to desert, is guilty of desertion and liable on conviction by a court martial to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or any less punishment provided by this Decree.”
In addition to other sanctions, including having the whole or part of the alleged deserter’s service years forfeited, the Decree further stated in Section 169(1) inter alia:” Where prosecution is not commenced against such offenders within (a) statutory period of three years, the offences shall become statute barred. However, this time limit for the commencement of prosecution does not apply for the offences of mutiny, failure to suppress mutiny and desertion.”
Besides owning up to the tag of ‘deserter’, Ebifemowei also has conflicting dates of birth in his documentation.
For instance, while his father, Chief Abel Femowei deposed to a sworn affidavit that he was born on “the 6th day
of December, 1962 at Amassoma town of Southern Ijaw Local Government Area of Bayelsa State,” Ebifemowei’s West African Senior School Certificate issued in 2002 bore a date of May 15, 1962 as his birthday.
365Daily’s investigations showed that he did not attach any affidavit to cure the discrepancies in his date of birth.
Furthermore, it was observed that instead of the single name, Ebifemowei, the APC candidate consciously wrote his names as Abel Ebi Femowei; on at least four different instances.
A cousin of the former governor of Bayelsa State, the late Chief Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, Ebifemowei was made Transport Officer, despite his famed closeness to the governor – perhaps as a way of shielding him from his untidy exit from the Airforce.
A goggle search on him indicated that “before he had anything to do with politics, he(Ebifemowei) studied aviation electronics and missiles explosives at the Russian Military Academy.”
Said to have only returned home “on the invitation of his cousin, Chief DSP Alamieyeseigha” to join his government in 1999, many snigger over his academic claims, especially as the senior school certificate he parades was only gotten in 2002 – several years after he had “worked as a specialist on missiles assembly at the Ministry of Defence in the old Soviet Union.”