By Erasmus Ikhide
The Isaiah Usifo’s reductive article, titled “NLC and Julius Abure: A Study In The Fusion Of Politics and Crime”, is at best a self-rehabilitating gruff meant to levitate his squandered political career; at worst, a jaundiced outing that casts a gloomy shadow on the dark part of his political resurrection in the nearest future.
From the tone of his jaded article against his benefactor, Isaiah Usifo exhibited the cruelty of paradox, now that the beggars can no longer be choosers.
First, it is important we beam a searchlight on the unenviable past of Isaiah Usifo’s political life, which has instigated his current trajectory for self-abnegation and self-repositioning as Edo State Governorship election approaches next year. We can only make sense of his present state and station, as a political outcast to come to a firm cognition of his immediate political future. I will get back to this shortly.
To be true, Isaiah Usifo’s sponsored tirade against the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) under the leadership of Comrade Joe Ajaero and Comrade Barrister Julius Abure, the National Chairman of the Labour Party (LP) is a vicious attention – not only to misinform political observers – but also to stand the truth and the doctrine of fair hearing on its head.
Isaiah Usifo’s myopic twitches about ‘Crime Nexus’ in the case of black market ex-parte court injuction issued by Justice H. Mu’Azu of Abuja High Court, against the Labour Party(LP) leadership and Comrade Julius Abure further re-emphasized the oblique inter-power jockeying being orchestrated by the All Progressives Congress (APC), and its paid bootlicking agents like him, towards the destabilization of the party over non-existent forgery of candidates signatures, as alleged.
For Isaiah Usifo’s education – an ex-parte order of interim injunction is a constitutional leverage specifically given to Judges to make an order in exceptional circumstance, to grant the request of an applicant in a suit in the interim without hearing from the other party – as it were. This definition in itself stands justice on its head, where parties to criminal cases or otherwise are not given fair hearing before injunctive orders are issued.
For the record, Justice H. Mu’Azu of the High Court in the case of the Labour Party National Chairman, Comrade Barrister Julius Abure for which he granted reckless ex-parte injuction is a brazen act of legal impunity and outright desecration of the hallow hall of the judiciary, as the last hope of the common man. Aside that, an ex-parte court order is solely meant to protect the res; i.e, the Judges and the judgements emanating from the courts must at all times be in favour of the institutions, rather than hateful depredation and plundering of political parties and its leadership.
It has been argued repeatedly that ex-parte motions should only be deployed at an extreme emergency. One of the most troubling aspect of Justice H. Mu’Azu’s ex-parte court order in the matter under review is that, it violated rule 43 and rule 3 of the FCT High Court Civil Procedure Rules which says an ex-parte order must not exceed seven (7) days.
This same Justice Mu’Azu had issued similar injuction in 2022, as reported by the Nigeria Weekly Law Report, in the case of the APC candidates. That is in spite of the fact that total condemnation has been trailing his judicial rascality; unwarranted ex-parte orders in matters that are purely domestic affairs of a political party.
On whether courts have jurisdiction to interfere with internal affairs of political parties, 2022 Electoral Acts states thus: “the courts do not have the requisite statutory vires to interfere in or with political decisions by political parties, in the process of running their domestic affairs for the purposes of winning elections. In the instant case, the decision by the 2nd respondent to jettison the principle of zoning or rotation for the purpose of selecting/nominating a candidate to be sponsored by it to contest for the office of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in the 2023 election.
Apart from enjoying the voyage of judicial hysteria and legal impunity, an FCT High Court Judge and his Court should not have interfered over a matter of Comrade Abure’s purported suspension carried out in Esan-North-East in far away Edo State, when there is a High Court of Justice in Edo state.
Besides, the law stipulations that once there are criminal elements in an affidavit, the other parties must be put on notice before an injuction is summarily deployed. Even the police report dated March 9th, 2023 and signed by Junaid Bukar, Assistant Commissioner of Police, Special Enquiry Bureau (FCIID) Abuja, upon which this order was made by Justice H. Mu’Azu reads thus: “Note that this report is issued purely for information purposes. The Nigeria Police shall not be held liable for any action whatsoever which may emanate from the use of this document”. The police report in question indicted police authority by saying that the Labour Party leadership and Barrister Julius Abure were not giving fair hearing as they could not make themselves available for interrogation.
This is the reason Isaiah Usifo’s apocalyptic political meltdown must be revisited. As a former member of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP); who later migrated to the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), prostituted further to join the Labour Party (LP), where Comrade Julius Abure gifted him the Labour Party Governorship ticket free of charge in 2020, Usifo remains a dismal mess in the study of political instability that has turned the political landscape into a chaotic bedlam.
Only last week, Isaiah Usifo approached the same Julius Abure in Abuja, begging to return to the Labour Party for self-rehabilitation. Today, he is gangly and openly vilifying his all time political benefactor for want of political direction. Julius Abure is conscious of Usifo’s political trade-game for obtaining political party ticket and running with it for the highest bidder. As Chief of Staff to the defacto Governor Oserheimen Osubor, Isaiah Usifo championed the rebellious militia political gang that debrided and demonized Chief Tony Anenih as political outlaw. That singular act of indiscretion led to Governor Osunbor’s humiliation and outright expulsion from Osadebe Avenue via judicial intervention.
For Isaiah Usifo, what many dubbed diabolical motivations in politics or duel unto death when his pecuniary interests are not met is the tragedy of the politics of the Fourth Republic; having exhibited similar traits while he was on Barrister Kenneth Imansuangbon’s Governorship campaign trail in 2016.
It’s not too late for Isaiah Usifo to shape out of politics of ethical tornado and psychological destabilization that celebrates politics of cannibalism, and shape into politics of realism. It’s time for him to avoid political discourses that are filled with mixed motives, selfish intentions and abhorrent objectives that seethes with cauldron of contradictions.
Erasmus Ikhide can be reached via: ikhideluckyerasmus@gmail.com
Discussion about this post