check_nagios -C problem

We are in the process of setting up fail over monitoring for our existing Nagios server and are experiencing some problems with the 'check_nagios' plug-in.  Specifically, it does not appear to recognize our full path command string.  Instead, we are only able to make it work by stripping down the command path to its basename (i.e., '/opt/iexpress/nagios/bin/nagios' versus 'nagios').  Our OS, Nagios core, and plug-in versions follow, as well as the process status output of our Nagios command and the execution results from the 'check_nagios' plug-in.  Any advice would be appreciated.  Thanks.

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OS:
# uname -sr
HP-UX B.11.23

Nagios Core:
# /opt/iexpress/nagios/bin/nagios -v /opt/iexpress/nagios/etc/nagios.cfg | egrep "Nagios Core"
Nagios Core 3.2.3

Plugin:
# /usr/local/nagios/libexec/check_nagios --version
check_nagios v1.4.15 (nagios-plugins 1.4.15)

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# ps -ef | egrep "[/]opt/iexpress/nagios/bin/nagios"
nagios    9817     1  0  Jun 22  ?           05:34 /opt/iexpress/nagios/bin/nagios -d /opt/iexpress/nagios/etc/nagios.cfg

# /usr/local/nagios/libexec/check_nagios -e 60 -F /opt/iexpress/nagios/var/nagios.log -C /opt/iexpress/nagios/bin/nagios
NAGIOS CRITICAL: Could not locate a running Nagios process!

# /usr/local/nagios/libexec/check_nagios -e 60 -F /opt/iexpress/nagios/var/nagios.log -C nagios                         
NAGIOS OK: 2 processes, status log updated 1822 seconds ago

While the second iteration works, more or less, it will never return a CRITICAL status because it always matches against itself.  That is, the 'check_nagios' script shows up in the list of processes when it executes.

For example, if we stop the Nagios server, the 'check_nagios' script still returns an OK status

# /sbin/init.d/nagios stop
Stopping nagios: 
done.

# ps -ef | egrep "[/]opt/iexpress/nagios/bin/nagios"
<NO OUTPUT>

# ps -ef | egrep "[n]agios"
<NO OUTPUT>

# /usr/local/nagios/libexec/check_nagios -e 60 -F /opt/iexpress/nagios/var/nagios.log -C nagios
NAGIOS OK: 1 process, status log updated 15 seconds ago

Even if we reduce the expire window to 1, we never get more than a WARNING.

# /usr/local/nagios/libexec/check_nagios -e 60 -F /opt/iexpress/nagios/var/nagios.log -C nagios
NAGIOS OK: 1 process, status log updated 268 seconds ago

# /usr/local/nagios/libexec/check_nagios -e 1 -F /opt/iexpress/nagios/var/nagios.log -C nagios 
NAGIOS WARNING: 1 process, status log updated 272 seconds ago

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