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Opinion: Anambra 2021: The Insurmountable Legal Challenges of Andy Uba’s Governorship Quest
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By Leonard Vin Chukwuma
The governorship quest of Mr. Andy Uba appears to be an impossible dream. It may as well be an impossible dream going by the rules and guidelines of the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC), and the current direct legal challenges to Mr. Uba’s candidacy. Mr. Andy Uba, the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate is facing insurmountable legal battles that border on legitimacy and fitness.
The Federal High Court in Abuja is set to deliver judgment on December 20, 2021 in a suit challenging the declaration of Andy Uba as the governorship candidate of the APC party for the forthcoming November 6, 2021 governorship election in Anambra State. Mr. Andy Uba was declared the APC governorship candidate on June 26, 2021 after a purported primary election. However, Mr. George Moghalu, a governorship aspirant running under the APC banner is challenging the outcome of said primary, and Mr. Uba’s candidacy. He claims that APC did not hold a valid primary in Anambra State. This has been confirmed by officials of the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) who said that a primary election did not hold till 5.30pm when the INEC officials left the venue.
Under INEC’s regulation for the conduct of political party primaries, the regulation is that all primaries be direct or indirect primaries, and that all primaries of political parties must be held in the presence of officials of INEC who will make a determination that the primaries have been conducted in compliance of the Nigerian constitution, the Electoral Act 2010, and INEC regulation for the conduct of party primaries.
Clearly, the APC party primaries that supposedly produced Andy Uba as the party’s flag bearer was not held in the presence of INEC officials, and therefore was not in compliance with the Nigerian constitution, Electoral Act 2010, and INEC’s regulation. If the party primaries that produced a candidate was not held in the presence of INEC officials, that party’s primaries did not hold, and that makes the candidacy of Andy Uba illegitimate, and null and void.
The party is therefore taking a big risk by going full steam ahead while placing hopes on Mr. Andy Uba’s candidacy in the November 6 poll, when the Court is set to rule on the matter on December 20. All evidence suggests that APC party primaries did not take place, and when the court rules against him, and officially declares the candidacy null and void, it will throw the APC party and their chance to hold the governor’s office into total disarray.
Anambra state cannot afford to throw itself into the chaos experienced by Rivers State in 2007 when the Supreme Court ruled that Governor Celestine Omehia was illegitimate and that Mr. Rotimi Amaechi who never participated in the election, was the rightful winner of the elections. Coincidentally, Mr. George Moghalu is Mr. Amaechi’s candidate in the race, and Mr. Moghalu has legal standing to challenge Mr. Uba’s candidacy so there is a distinct possibility that the Federal High Court will rule in favour of Mr. George Moghalu, therefore invalidating Mr. Andy Uba’s candidacy. It is also a distinct possibility that Mr. Rotimi Amaechi is advising and guiding Mr. Moghalu, and there is a plan to implement the 2007 strategy Mr. Amaechi used to come into the governor’s office without contesting or even having his name on the ballot.
Apart from the challenge of the legitimacy of Mr. Andy Uba on the APC governorship ticket, he is also facing a legal challenge based on the claim that he submitted forged certificates to INEC. In 2017, a report was published that a document was obtained from West African Examinations Council (WAEC) which declared that Andy Uba forged his secondary school certificate, as well as his “confirmation result” which he had presented to British authorities. He also falsified the grades he earned in secondary school on his fake WAEC result.
In a letter dated February 12, 2014 and addressed to the attention of George Smith of Public Agencies, located at 57 Peel Road, Wembley Middlesex, HA9 7LY in the United Kingdom, WAEC stated, “Letter reference no. L/CR/CONF/05465089 dated 21st November, 2013 is fake.” WAEC further said regarding Mr. Uba’s purported certificate, “Mr. A.A. Okelezo, as you rightly observed, reported as the Controller of our branch office in Calabar on 7th October, 2013 having been deployed from the Ikeja Zonal Office. He was never the Head of National Office, as indicated at the foot of the letter under reference. The signature on the document is in no way similar to his signature.”
Mr. Uba’s real results, as certified by WAEC in its letter to Mr. Smith, showed that Mr. Uba performed woefully, scoring “credit” in only one subject, Chemistry. He failed Bible Knowledge, English Literature, and Economics. He earned grades of mere “pass,” which are one step to an outright “fail,” in the following subjects: English Language, Statistics, Mathematics, Physics, and Biology. By contrast, Mr. Uba’s falsified results claimed that he earned the following grades: English Literature 4, English Language 7, Christian Religious Knowledge 7, Economics 4, Statistics 6, Mathematics 6, Physics 4, and Chemistry 6. Reports say that Mr. Uba submitted his falsified WAEC result to INEC.
These legal challenges are insurmountable and make the candidacy of Mr. Uba a shaky affair that can throw Anambra into untold massive chaos with a constitutional crisis to boot if he is elected governor of the state.
Another legal/legality hurdle Mr. Andy Uba faces is that the national party chairman of APC who is currently a sitting governor is serving illegally in the role in the sense that a sitting governor of a state cannot hold another role such as the national party chair of a political party. This automatically invalidates him and disqualifies anyone he nominates to INEC, such as Mr. Andy Uba as governorship candidate of APC in Anambra State. A Supreme Court ruling in July, 2021 in the Ondo State Government race affirmed that according to section 183 of the Nigerian constitution, “the governor shall not, during the period when he holds office, hold any other executive office or paid employment in any capacity whatsoever”. It therefore implies that the current APC national chairman who is the current governor of Yobe state, Mr. Mai Mala Buni is holding the position of APC national chairman illegally, and so this illegality invalidates his role as chairman, and consequently invalidates his nomination of Mr. Andy Uba as the party’s flagbearer for the governorship race.
With a basket full of valid legal challenges to Mr. Uba’s candidacy at play, he is dreaming an impossible dream. To ensure that his impossible dream does not turn into a nightmare for the people of Anambra and its future, every Anambra voter needs to avoid voting for the APC ticket in the gubernatorial election of November 6, 2021.
Leonard Vin Chukwuka is a political analyst who writes from Abuja.
The Edo State Special Criminal Court has sentenced four men to death for their involvement in the kidnapping of a woman at the Vegetable Market along Airport Road in Benin City.
Justice Aigbona Momodu handed down the sentences after finding the defendants guilty on multiple counts connected to the kidnapping case.
The convicts are Marvellous Isaac, Wisdom Michael, Rufus Emete Michael and Gift Raphael.
Isaac and Michael were sentenced to death on counts two through nine. They also received separate prison terms on other counts, including seven years on count one, while Isaac was sentenced to 10 years on count 10 and life imprisonment on count 11.
Rufus Emete Michael was sentenced to death on counts two, three, four, six and seven, in addition to a seven-year prison term on count one.
The fourth defendant, Gift Raphael, was sentenced to death on counts two, four, six and eight and received seven years imprisonment on count one.
Delivering the sentences, Justice Momodu ordered that the death sentences be carried out by hanging or lethal injection, in accordance with the court’s judgment.
The court also ordered the forfeiture of a JoJef pump-action firearm and ammunition tendered as exhibits during the trial.
The firearm, identified as Exhibit M, along with two unused cartridges and two spent cartridges listed as Exhibits E and E1, was ordered to be handed over to the Edo State Police Armourer at the State Criminal Investigation Department for destruction.
Justice Momodu directed that the exhibits be transferred to the police through the Deputy Director of the Criminal Division and destroyed within 30 days.
The convictions bring to an end the trial arising from the abduction of the woman at the Vegetable Market along Airport Road, an incident that added to concerns over kidnapping and armed crime in Benin City.
Osun State Governor, Senator Ademola Adeleke, has hailed the state’s strong performance in the 2026 National Examinations Council (NECO) Senior School Certificate Examination, describing the result as a positive reflection of ongoing efforts to reposition education in the state.
Osun placed fifth nationally in the 2026 NECO ranking, with 74.31 per cent of candidates recording at least five credits, including English Language and Mathematics.
While congratulating the students, teachers, parents, school administrators and other stakeholders, the governor noted that the state performance has been improving within a single digit rating for three consecutive years namely 2024, 2025 and 2026.
“Osun has moved from 33rd position in the 2022 NECO ranking to 5th in 2026, while improving its pass rate to 74.31 per cent. This is encouraging, and it shows that our sustained interventions in the education sector are yielding positive results,” the Governor said.
Governor Adeleke said the improved performance reflects his administration’s deliberate investment in the education sector, including the recruitment of additional teachers to strengthen the teaching workforce, while prioritising workers’ welfare and creating a more conducive environment for effective teaching and learning across public schools.
The Governor said the performance reinforces his administration’s determination to continue investing in education, noting that the objective is to build a system that gives every Osun child the knowledge, skills and opportunities needed to succeed.
“This result is encouraging, but we see it as a reason to do more. We will continue to invest in our schools, improve the learning environment, support our teachers and provide our students with the necessary tools to excel.
“We are building an education system that prepares our young people not only for examinations but for life,” the Governor said.
He assured that ongoing interventions in the education sector would be sustained and expanded, while urging students to remain committed to their studies.
His Excellency also commended teachers across the state for their dedication and sacrifices, assuring them that the administration would continue to prioritise measures that strengthen the education system and improve workers’ welfare.
The Nigeria Association of Tour Operators (NATOP) marked the 2026 World Tourism Day with activities which capture capacity building, technology, destination promotion and domestic tourism, and celebration.
In the South West Zone, close to 200 tour operators gathered at Ziba Beach Resort, Lagos, for a special training focused on Artificial Intelligence and its application in tourism, equipping operators with digital tools to improve their businesses and destination marketing.
In Abuja, the FCT and Northern Zone, in collaboration with Naija Adventurers, staged a colourful Tourism Awareness Walk and Hike to the Centre of Nigeria.
The celebration also spread to the South-South Zone, where members marked the day with a destination tour, alongside activities to commemorate with the world tourism day celebrations.
In line with the theme for this year’s WTD celebration: ‘Digital agenda and artificial intelligence to redesign tourism’ the NATOP training on AI and application in tour operation at Ziba Beach Resort Lagos saw a large turnout of the members of the association.
The President of the association, Hajia Bolaji Mustapha explained that the idea for the location and training was to train members on how to do tour business, to know how to promote tourism digitally, using different AI tool and everything so that they will grow their businesses.
She said: “we follow the theme and, you know, blend with the old situation. Let’s do the training so that we attach it to the World Tourism Day with the theme that we have achieved something and also celebrate.”
She said the training will go a long way in helping the tour operators do greater content to digitally tell destination stories using AI, and also using the tool for expression.
Mustapha also explained why the association chose Ziba Beach Resort: “We always attach World Tourism Day to a tourism site. And definitely, if you look at this whole area and this community, that’s why we see that Ziba is a tourism site. We want to explore and of course. The resort newly launched its third phase. So, we will use this opportunity to look at their rooms, look at how we can sell this destination, to showcase it that the resort is actually in Nigeria, not Zanzibar. By using the place, we would kill two birds with one stones.
Facility tour of Ziba Beach Resort
“As tour operators who are willing to tell the good story of our Nigeria, we need to bring ourselves up to the speed, align with the digital revolution. Let everybody go digital. Because we also see the content creators are taking our business, we want to align it with what they do. We are the ones that understand the business and we’ll be able to tell the story better, so that anybody coming to Nigeria will be able to discover Nigeria with the experts.”
Also commenting on the celebration, the NATOP Vice President South West and chairman of the WTD Organizing Committee for the zone, Mrs. Wonuola Olatunde-Lamidi explained why NATOP South West’s usage of the 2026 WTD for training. She said many of the members still have a lot to learn about the tour business, and that some do not understand the foundation of the business, including how to create packages hence the need for the training.
Mrs. Olatunde-Lamidi spoke further: “Many don’t understand the foundation of what it is to create a tour package. And when you have people that are not well-trained in an industry, the industry will not grow. The kind of people that you also have will not have enough earning power to do many things. And because this is an industry that I have been in for 16 years, I run Diamonds and Pearls Travels with my husband. And I’ve seen Diamonds and Pearls Travels metamorphose into a company where people don’t just look at us as travel agents. We have become a Destination Management Company (DMC). We have become a trusted brand. We have become a company that when we talk about a destination, people want to go to that destination because of how we have portrayed the destination. And you may not realize that, as tour operators, you can actually decide where people go. You can make people go to a particular destination by marketing it, by letting them know the benefits of that destination.”
The tour operators had opportunity to tour the resort and unwind during the programme.
