By Godwin Adindu

 Since the week, there have been serial defeats and serial victories from the rulings of the Election Petition Tribunal.  But, I declare that, in a sense, there is no victor, no vanquish. There is no loser, no winner. We have only one victor and one winner and that is our state, Abia, constituted by the people and the masses of our constituencies; the people whose will and aspirations have been upheld by the impartial judiciary, the last bastion of hope for the masses.

  This is our spirit and our attitude as government over the rulings by the Election Petition Tribunal. The victories are not the victories of individual ambition or the victories of a party but the victories of the standards of democracy. To Governor Okezie Ikpeazu, it is the victory of our state over any fettering chain that will draw us backward. It is the triumph of the new spirit with which he intends to expand the frontiers of our human existence as one people united by our common ancestry as Abians. 
We have not won a war and therefore there are  no captives and no prisoners of war. We have merely won the wishes of the people.  We have only ensured that their hope and aspirations are not thwarted; that  their  divine mandate is not hijacked. The law and the tribunal have only defended the will and soul of the people of Abia and we  are only witnesses to the smooth berth of the wheel of justice. 

 After the elections, the Governor moved away from politics to governance. Abia and all her citizens both home and abroad are the subjects of the Governor. From the thick rainforest of Ukwa East to the rolling hills of Arochukwu and Umuneochie, the Governor has stamped his feet with development projects. The victor is Abia and the vanquish  are all the cankerworms  that have held us backward like ghost worker syndrome, paddling of vouchers, inflation of contract rates, crime and banditry, visionless leadership, etc. thuggery

 Thus, there was no need for the kind of timid reactions by the members and supporters  of the major opposition group who,  having lost out in the Appeal Court ruling and   the other  rulings of the State   Tribunal,  took to the streets and resorted to violent demonstration as a reaction to the rulings. The scene created by these misguided elements along the Umuahia/Ikot Ekpene Road on Tuesday after the ruling on the National Assembly petitions that caused a breach of peace was glaringly uncalled for. The planned importation of thugs into the state and instigation of members of Movement for the Actualization of the Soverign State of Biafra (MASSOP) against  the state was quite unnecessary. 

 Their aim was to create an atmosphere of pandemonium and thereby portray the state as being in crisis over the rulings that mostly favoured the ruling party, PDP . It was a desperate strategy  directed entirely   to blackmail the tribunal into perverting the course of justice by giving the impression that there is a total breakdown of law and order as a result of the tribunal rulings. Regrettably, it fell flat and has been badly counterproductive.  

 I wonder why APGA will take to this tattered route. They have always boasted of having an unflinching faith in the tribunal, of a strong faith that the tribunal will dispense  justice accordingly. An APGA apologists had ran a serial media campaign with the title, Waiting on the Wheel of Justice.  But, yesterday, they held a press conference in which they made uncharitable statements to malign the integrity of the jurists.  They are now  blackmailing the judges of the tribunal, accusing them of having been bribed with monetary gratification and having been compromised with houses worth N6 billion each  in Atlanta, USA.  Their problem now is not about the wheel of justice but about the recipient of justice. Hypocrisy!

 I call the leaders of APGA to the responsibility of statesmanship. The test of statesmanship is to win gallantly and lose gallantly. A statesman must exercise the maturity to win with honour and lose with honour. In any situation, what are at stake  are the state and the community and not the individual ambition. Former President Goodluck Jonathan raised that bar for Nigerians and for this 
   If APGA  members have  had a bad case in the tribunal, there is still a window in the appeal court. The right recourse is not to take to the streets or resort to creating mayhem.
We are therefore appealing to all citizens to  remain law abiding and  not to dare the might of power. The first mandate of government is the maintenance of law and order and protection of lives and property and therefore the government cannot fold its arms and watch a group foment trouble or cause chaos in order to disturb the peace in the state.
There is  no victor; there is no vanquish. Our state and democracy are the winners.

 Adindu,  is the Chief Press Secretary to the Abia Governor