31st March, 2015
Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, agent and former Niger Delta Minister, Godsday Orubebe, acted like a tout at the venue of the collation centre of the Presidential election result in Abuja on Tuesday and almost disrupted further announcement of the results by the Chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Prof. Attahiru Jega.
He ranted for several minutes in a feat of rage and sat on the podium in front of where Jega and returning officers announced results.
Orubebe, who threw caution to the wind, claimed the PDP had protested the election results in Kano, Katsina, and Jigawa but Jega did not do anything about them the way he had quickly responded to the APC petition about Rivrs State.
“You are partial. You have been compromised. We cannot take it from you again. We have no confidence in what you are doing. This cannot continue,” Orubebe said.
Security agents and journalists as well as other party agents watched as Orubebe continued to rant for several minutes.
After he finished, INEC boss, Prof. Jega, who remained calm throughout the moment of madness, denied receiving any protest from a PDP agent because the commission cannot receive petitions on the platform where election results were being announced.
He told the gathering how Colonel Bello-Fadile (retd) had tried to pass on some documents to him through his personal assistant. But he told his P.A. to return the documents to Bello-Fadile imediately.
It was a brazen attempt by Bello-Fadile to compromise Jega.
Bello-Fadile, it will be recalled, was the officer who implicated both Generals Olusegun Obasanjo and Shehu Musa Yar’Adua in the 1995 phantom coup.
His ambition cut short the career of many brilliant officers like him. (He holds a PhD in law).
He later wrote a letter of apology to Obasanjo. Bello-Fadile works with the National Security Adviser, Colonel Sambo Dasuki and several other pro-Jonathan groups.
Jega told Orubebe: “You are a former minister and a statesman in your own right, a public figure. You should be careful about what you say or do”.
When normalcy eventually prevailed, the announcement of results continued.