[Naijanet] AKPATA : EXIT OF THE UMPIRE
olorunfemi ojo
Monday, 10 January 2000
Akpata: Exit of the umpire
HE was an old man whom very few people gave a chance. A septuagenarian as
head of the Independent National Electoral Commission? With his quaking
voice and measured gaits, he looked like a man cut out for any other
gentlemanly job but the one he was appointed to.
Ephraim Omorose Ibukunola Akpata, however, surpassed all expectations,
confounded bookmakers and must have surprised himself too by successfully
conducting the elections that ushered in Nigeria's on-going experience in
democracy. The elections were not fool-proof, of course, yet, all Nigerians
still agree that Akpata had run a fairly good race as an umpire. He neither
fell nor stumbled. His death, therefore, marks the end of a race which is
sure to occupy a good place in history.
Akpata's life race began on April 15, 1927 when he was born to the late
Chief Johnson Ogunleye Akpata the Obamwonyi of Benin and great grandson of
Ogbebar Nsen, Ephraim attended Government School, Benin City, which his late
father who later became the post master at the General Post Office, Benin
City, also attended.
Young Ephraim also attended the Baptist School in Benin (1932 - 1942)
proceeded to Kings College, Lagos, which his late brother, Senator Olu
Akpata, also attended (1942 ñ 1947).
According to his immediate senior brother, Gilbert, it was their desire of
the eldest brother, Olu, that young Ephraim should read law. However,
Ephraim had a passion for medicine and was partly influenced by his close
friend and senior at Kings College, Professor Tira Bello Osagie.
Admission to do medicine was rigorous but Ephraim easily secured admission
to read Medicine at the University of Manitoba in Canada because of his
brilliance. A perfectionist by nature, and one with an eye for fine details,
Ephraim enjoyed his days as a medical student but was forced to abandon his
medical career due to ill-health brought about by the extremely cold and
harsh climatic conditions in Canada.
He holds the degree of Utter Barrister Council of Legal Education, London
and was called to the bar (Middle Temple London) on November 24, 1959 and
was admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of Nigeria on December 14,
1959.
At 40, Justice Akpata joined the Bench as acting Chief Magistrate on
November 19, 1967, became Chief Magistrate on February 2, 1968 and on
September 1, 1973, was elevated to become a judge of the Mid-Western state
of Nigeria.
Ten years later, Akpata was made a justice of the court of Appeal (January
1983) and servedd there until April 9, 1990 before the king of the cake of
his judicial career at the Supreme Court where he served for only two years.
Since retiring in 1992, Justice Akpata has been a legal consultant and
practising arbitrator in commercial arbitration before his appointment to
head INEC. His book, The Nigerian Arbitration Law in Focus on this aspect of
law is regarded by many lawers as the reference book on arbitration.
The INEC job is not Justices Akpata's first appointment into a commission at
the federal level. He was chairman of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry
on the Communal Disturbances in Akwa Ibom State in 1993, a position many
said he held without blemish. His report was welcomed by all parties to the
dispute.
Although never been involved in partisan politics, Justice Akpata served as
defence lawyer in a number of NCNC cases while practising as a barrister. As
a result, he is used to the antics of politicians and the politics of
Nigerians.
According to him, being an NCNC lawyer involved my defending any NCNC member
in Ishan Division charged to court for any criminal offence on political
grounds, he wrote in Justice for All and by All. The job gave him simple
opportunity to meet many eminent Nigerian lawyers and jurists who were later
to play different roles in his career as a magistrate, judge and justice of
the Supreme Court.
As a judge, Justice Akpata was never afraid to dispense justice, no matter
whose ox is gored.
Two persons who, among many others, would feel the impact of Justice
Akpata's death are the former President of the Customary Court of Appeal,
Edo State, Justice Isaac Aluyi and the deceaseds elder brother, Mr. Gilbert
Akpata, a retired mediaman.
Both spoke exclusively with {The Guardian} in 1998 immediately after the
appointment of Justice Akpata as INEC. That encounter though paraphrased, is
reproduced below:
Nobody would blame retired Justice Isaac O. Aluyi, former president of the
Customary Court of Appeal, Bendel and Edo States, for having his adrenaline
jumping on learning of the appointment of equally retired Justice Ephraim
Omorose Ibukunola Akpata, as chairman of the Independent National Electoral
Commission (INEC). The mortality rate of previous headships of Nigeria's
electoral bodies and the damage to their image for occupying such a
precarious and sensitive position was enough to draw the sinews of
right-thinking members of the society, especially those that have some
intimate relationship with the helmsman at INEC in Abuja. Aluyi and Akpata
hail from the same street on Mission Road, Benin City. They have been
colleagues in the learned profession for over 40 years and known each other
intimately since early 1961.
Some of Akpatas predecessors in office had their fingers burnt in the
process of discharging their duties either by the authorities that appointed
them or their subordinates who sabotaged their well-laid strategies for free
and fair elections.
Justice Aluyi pointed to two of such past electoral heads as Professor
Humphery Nwosu and Mr. Justice Victor Ovie-Whiskey. He told {The Guardian}
in Benin City that all these eminent persons were not allowed to succeed ñ
some were messed up by the authoriteis that appointed them, interfering in
their work and dictating to them how and who should be elected. He added
that, Professor Nwosu almost succeeded as he was adjudged by both the local
and international observers that the election (June 12, 1993 presidential
polls) he conducted was the freest and fairest election ever conducted in
this country. But when the results became unpalatable to the military
authorities, they eased out Professor Nwosu who had remained mute even till
now as to why he could not conclude his work as chairman of the defunct
National Electoral Commission (NEC).
Describing Justice Ovie-Whiskey as a very good and upright Christian, Aluyi
regretted, however, that his zeal and enthusiasm to conduct a free and fair
election (in 1983) was thwarted by his subordinates who allowed the ballot
papers to be tampered with, thus giving way to massive rigging. Thereafter,
the man became the butt of attacks, which attributed the rigging to
gratification of N1 million to the electoral boss, who in his defence
exclaimed that he had never seen one million in his life and that he would
collapse on the sight of such a sizeable sum.
But Justice Aluyi said those comments were most unfair remarks on a man whom
he claimed he knew very well as honesty personified. This certainly explains
Aluyis initial fright at the news of Justice Akpatas appointment as INECs
chairman, as those before him had been frustrated by extraneous influences.
However, he has since reappraised the entire situation and found that the
facts of appointment of Justice Akpata are not on all fours with those of
his predecessors.
In fact, Aluyis new confidence is built partially around the seeming
transparent honesty the General Abdulsalami Abubakar administration has
exhibited so far on the political plane. He observed that Abubakar, from his
antecedents and programmes initiated, is not the Maradona IBB who, uptil
now, is yet to tell the world why he annulled the election of (late) Chief
M.K.O. Abiola as President.
Justice Aluyi, who was called to the English Bar in December 1960 almost a
year after Akpata was called in November 1959 to the same English Bar,
stressed that whoever advised General Abubakar to appoint Justice Akpata to
head INEC has done a great service to this country. Justice Akpata as I know
him, has studied the causes of the failings of his predecessors in office
and realising that the focus of the whole world is on him to return the
country to democracy, he certainly will leave no stone unturned to achieve
the success that is expected of him.
The Akpata family members too also have the high hopes and confidence in the
ability of their son to succeed where other great men had failed to deliver
the electoral goods. The head Okai-Egbe of the family, Mr. Gilbert Omotayo
Akpata, told {The Guardian} that his (Justice Akpatas) appointment as
chairman of INEC, whoever did that, will have no cause to regret.
Agreeing that the post of INEC chairman is a peculiar one, Omotayo Akpata,
the immediate older brother of Ephraim, emphasised that with his younger
siblings disposition to work, he would not fail the nation, just as he did
not fail while he was a judge. He said the government would have no regrets
appointing Justice Akpata, noting that this time around, Nigeria is going to
have a truly democratic government.
He is a very nice, very unassuming young man. He hardly gets offended; but
when offended, he doesnt take kindly to it. He is a principled man, a
quality he cultivated and maintained till date. He is straight-forward, and
would not bend the rules, no matter who is involved; not even members of the
family, as you must have read about him. He is that principled.
Going down memory lane, Gilbert Akpata remembered their elementary school
days at Benin Government School, Benin City, at the same time the present
Oba Erediauwa of Benin, Omo NOba Uku Akpolokpolo was in the school. He said
Ephraim was very brilliant, and after school hours, they both hawked bread
as their mothers (and later only Ephraims mother, Ifamuseye) were bread
bakers. He also recounted the familys near itinerant life as their father,
Chief Johnson Ogunleye Akpata, was frequently transferred from one P & T
station to another: Benin, Lagos, Warri, Sapele, Kwale and Agenebode.
Gilbert Akpata, who was born in 1926, a year before Ephraim, and is a
retired media executive, claimed no knowledge of any negative quality of
Justice Akpata, neither would he be drawn to what led his brother to abandon
his dream of becoming a medical doctor for law despite his exceptional
brilliance. But {The Guardian} found out that the extreme cold weather of
Canada, at the Manitoba University, induced asthma in the young ambitious
Ephraim Akpata, thus making him flee the Americas for the United Kingdom
where he read law and obtained the degree of Utter Barrister Council of
Legal Education (UBCLE), London and was called to the Bar (Middle Temple) on
November 24, 1959 and admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of Nigeria
on December 14, 1959.
But Gilbert would readily recall that after young Emphraim Akpata worked as
clerk with the Marine Department, Apapa in the 1940s, he left Nigeria in
1950 in company of late Felix Osayande Akenzua on board a boat called {SS
Hoga}, a French carrier, via Marseilles enroute to the Manitoba University,
Canada.
Akpata may not have had any inkling that death would come so soon at the
beginning of the new millennium. But even if he knew, he would still have
carried on with the duty he had sworn to discharge to the best of his
ability.
He was, indeed, in the office till last Thursday, two days before his death.
And he worked very hard, perhaps too hard for his age. His last assignment
being the clean bill of health he gave to the embattled chairman of the
Alliance for Democracy (AD), Mallam Yusuf Mamman, as the recognised head of
the party by INEC. Although the endorsement drew flaks from the opposing
Alhaji Usman Song faction of the AD, Akpata stuck to his stand till the end.
He would not bend the rules on sentiments.
But now, even in death, all Nigerians will agree on one thing: Akpata served
Nigeria. And served her very well to usher in the Fourth Republic!
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