November 26, (THEWILL) – Members of the governing New Nigeria Peoples Party, NNPP and the opposition All Progressives Congress, APC, in Kano State openly heeded a warning by the Police not to embark upon a post- Appeal Court Judgement protest without its permission, just as the Friday and Saturday D-days came and went with little skirmishes. But investigation shows that supporters of both parties have merely sheathed their swords while secretly mobilising members in readiness for a showdown after the final judgement of the Supreme Court, which is expected in the gloomy days ahead.
Indeed, the tension and uncertainty resulting from the confusion over an Appeal Court judgement in the state governorship election petition casts a gloomy shadow over the state. Police Public Relations Officer in Kano State, SP Abdullahi Kiyawa, on Friday told THEWILL that the Command was aware of a planned protest, but he faulted it on the grounds that apart from agreeing in a meeting with the Commissioner of Police to maintain law and order after the court pronouncement, leaders of both parties should not allow their supporters to engage in the “burning of tyres, cars and attack innocent people.”
“Nobody is stopping them from holding a protest,” he said, “but credible information that some groups of people claiming to be political party supporters of both NNPP and APC are using various media platforms and mobilising people and planning to enter the streets on Saturday, November 25, 2023 to stage a protest against the Kano State Governorship Appeal Court’s verdict, revealed that the intention of the protesters is to shut down the state and attack prominent political party opponents. The action may likely result in violence.”
Kiyawa added, “The position of the law is very clear. Whoever attempts to disrupt the peace in the state will be arrested and made to face the wrath of the law.”
How far this Appeal Court judgement-induced tense situation lasts is debatable. But the Appeal Court ruling that the political party’s supporters are spoiling for a fight appears like a metaphor for the current low public perception of the judiciary and its role in the electoral process.
“Justice must be rooted in public confidence,” said lawyer and senior journalist, Richard Akinola.
Akinola, who spoke to THEWILL in a brief interview on Friday, has reported to the judiciary for 41 years. He said, “Lord Denning on December 3, 1964 in his address to High Court journalists, said, “Justice is not secrecy. When a Judge seats on a case he himself is on trial. When the Appeal Court made that pronouncement which they later tried to correct because it contained “clerical errors,’ they were on trial whether in the public opinion or before the Supreme Court, which would later adjudicate on the case.”
For Anthony Kila, a professor of strategy and development, the judiciary is becoming so exposed and involved in determining the outcome of our elections that we may end up with rulership by judges. Taking a long view, this is not good for our democratic system, he contends in an interview with THEWILL on Saturday.
“Many of their judgments are even too technical for the common man to understand. Such judgements do not aim at justice and so are bad.
THE CONTROVERSIAL JUDGEMENT
In its judgement on Friday, November 17, 2023, the appellate court virtually declared APC governorship candidate, Dr Nasiru Gawuna, duly elected in the March 18 governorship poll held in the state, “because the appeal lacks merit.”
But in a stamped and signed Certified True Copy, CTC, the majority judgement delivered by Justice Moore Abraham Adumein and released to the litigants’ counsel on Tuesday November 20, the court gave judgement to incumbent Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf, as “the judgement of the tribunal in the petition No: EPT/KN/GOV 01/2023 between: ALL PROGRESSIVES CONGRESS (APC) v INDEPENDENT NATIONAL ELECTORAL COMMISSION &2 ORS, delivered on the 20th of September is hereby set aside,” and the court awarded the sum of N1,000,000.00 as cost against Gawuna.
Then in the face of public criticism over this obvious contradiction in the judgements, the Justices citing ‘clerical errors,’ in the CTC, withdrew the copy and re-issued another one on Thursday, November 23 to reflect its earlier virtual judgement in favour of Gawuna, saying that, “A person must first be a member of a political party before he can be legally or validly sponsored by that party as a candidate for a general election… sponsorship without membership is like putting something on nothing and it cannot stand.”
To further underscore the impropriety of the Appeal Court Justices, Governor Yusuf’s Counsel, Chief Wole Olanipekun, declared the correction of the ‘clerical error’, an impossibility because the 60 days allowed by the law for the appellate court to hear and determine expired on November 18, 2023 and as such the court no longer exercised the power to correct any perceived error in the judgement.
ROLE OF JUDICIARY IN THE ELECTORAL PROCESS
Section 285 of the 1999 Constitution as Amended, empowers the Judiciary to make time for the determination of pre-election matters; establishment of Election Tribunals and time for determination of Election Petitions. But there appears to be a wide gap between theory and practice, particularly with regards to recent court judgements on the outcome of the 2023 general election.
Former President of the Nigerian Bar Association, Olumide Akpata, reacted to this development in faraway Paris, France last week, while attending the International Bar Association conference, IBA, conference.
In a message shared on social media, he said, “While I was president of the NBA, what I found out was that there is a deliberate attempt on the part of the political class in Nigeria to capture the judiciary and that has very insidious consequences for the rule of law in Nigeria. It is deliberate and it is intentional.”
For him, many judges were unsuitable for the role they occupied because of their lack of requisite qualification, even as the Nigeria ruling elite has impoverished judges and the judiciary. On Friday, he issued a statement in which he described the Appeal Court pronouncement in the Kano governorship poll as a “scandalous and an extremely embarrassing report,” that can lead to the erosion of public confidence in the judiciary.
He called on the President of the Appeal Court, Monica Dongbam Mensem, to offer explanation on the judgement of the appellate court.
“Honestly I feel concerned when I read some judgements,” said Akinola, who noted that mockery had crept into the writing of court judgements, recalling the governorship tribunal pronouncement in Osun which asked Governor Adeleke to go and dance “lololo,” and the Kano Tribunal which described the supporters of a particular party as red cap bandits.
He said the political nature of post- election tribunals had exposed many judges, with notable exceptions, to the corrupt influence of desperate politicians as confirmed in 2020 by the ICPC “which said the judiciary led the Nigeria Corruption Index between 2018 and 2020, accounting for N9.5billion offered and paid as bribe to judges by lawyers handling high electoral and other political cases.”
He contended that this form of inducement has made it impossible to know when judgements are read according to the law or to the lucre.
In Plateau State, for example, all elected members of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, from the legislators to state governors, have been sacked by the courts, owing to failure to comply with an earlier High Court ruling to conduct a legal party primary election. The candidates had no structure, the courts said. Yet the court ruled against the APC, which sought its relief that Peter Obi was not a registered member of the Labour Party during the presidential election, maintaining that, “it is a party affair.”
In fact, the most ludicrous concerns the former President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan and his successor, Godswill Akpabio. Both of them participated in the presidential elections of their party, APC, at a time when a party primary election was going on in their constituencies. In clear violation of Section 84 (5) of the Electoral Act, which prevents aspirants from participating in separate party primaries for the same election, Lawan who had participated in the presidential primary of the APC later went to pick the Senatorial ticket for Yobe South, which was already won by Bashir Machina.
The latter won the case at the High and Appeal Courts but lost on technical grounds, according to the majority decision at the Supreme Court. In Akpabio’s case, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, said it never conducted the primary he claimed he won and declared retired Deputy Inspector General of Police, Udom Epkoudom, as the duly elected candidate of the party for Akwa Ibom North-West District.
“INEC is part of the problem, not just the courts alone,” said Akinola, “The Appeal court said Governor Yusuf was not a member of the party as at the time he participated in the governorship election on March 18, 2023. But when that matter came up in Obi vs APC, at the Supreme Court, the court said it was a party affair.”
INEC
Like the courts, INEC is also empowered by the Constitution and the Electoral Act 2020 to conduct elections. Section 160 (1) of the Constitution as amended empowers INEC to, by its rules, regulate its affairs, which is to conduct elections in Nigeria.
Given former President Muhammadu Buhari’s promise to leave a legacy of a freely and fairly conducted election, a brand new Electoral Act 2020 and the promise to ensure that every votes counted through the use of electronic transmission of result, many Nigerians looked up to INEC to own up to its vow to “transmit elections in real time,” according to retired Festus Okoye, one-time National Commissioner and Chairman of Information and Voter Education Committee.
The many glitches suffered by the Commission during the last general election raised the stakes in litigation as many felt their hopes for the conduct of free and fair polls were dashed.
As the courts are revealing, some of the pre-election matters are still pending the courts a few days to the time lag for adjudication, November 18, 2023.
Efforts to get the response of the Commission, particularly with its legal department, failed as messages and calls were unanswered.
Still, there are unanswered questions for the electoral umpire. Why, for example, would it go ahead to witness party primaries that do not pass legal tests like the case with the Plateau State PDP, clear and publish the names of candidates for election? What work does its legal department do during electioneering? How operational is Section 77 of the Electoral Act 2022 that mandates each party to maintain a membership register in hard and soft copies and to make such a register available to the Commission not later than 30 days before the date fixed for primaries, congresses and conventions?
A professor at the Department of Law, Lagos State University, Mike Ikhariale puts it all down to society.
The state has been captured by self-interested politicians who determine who gets appointed, for what and to what end.
Speaking with THEWILL in a brief interview on Saturday, he said Nigerians must determine whether they need democracy and then run a country based on the rule of law with the three arms of government-the executive, judiciary and legislature- mutually interdependently working for the good of their society or not.
“But when there is a cultural assumption that you can bend the rules and anybody can be bribed, you cannot have a better judiciary or INEC than you have currently,” he said.
For him, the way judges are recruited is defective. The same is true of INEC. They are put there to serve a determined end, often the greed of the politicians. “That is why the one who wins a case at the tribunal will always sing the praises of the judiciary as the last hope of the common man while the loser will give a different narrative,”Ikhariale noted.
According to Professor Kila, INEC is a failed institution because it is dealing with millions of Nigerians who have lost trust in the Commission.
“A body that runs elections and over 90 per cent is being contested in the courts is not one that can be rated for business or strategic services. But the real deal is that most of the people trying to govern Nigeria are crooks and criminals who will break the law, bribe and intimidate voters and engage in violence,”Kila said.
WAY FORWARD
Professor Ikhariale said the future is bleak. He likened the situation to a moving train that is going to crash soon and the passengers will begin to ask questions about what happened and what can be done to start afresh with defined principles and ideals beneficial to everyone.
“Even restructuring that has gained some consensus cannot be driven by politicians except the civil society. Once he gets into power, the politician will want to hold on to his enclave because of greed,” he said.
There is a growing consensus among Nigerians that litigation on election matters should follow up immediately after the conduct of polls and before the winners are sworn into office. There is also the viewpoint that INEC must be unbundled to make it better equipped to handle specific tasks.
On this, a senior journalist who is currently in Sierra Leone after covering the recent Liberian presidential election, Abubakar Hashim, thinks that both countries have one or two things to teach us about the conduct of free and fair elections.
“INEC needs to be unbundled. We can borrow a leaf from Sierra Leone, which has a pre-election clearing house, the Political Party Regulatory Commission, PPRC, system for taking care of all pre-election matters dealing with the likes of certificate, tax clearance, forgery, so that before election proper candidates are rejected. The same thing happened in Liberia. That is why you hardly find litigations after election taking place there”
For the Judges, Akinola supports Akpata’s position on training, adopting a more proactive stand on disciplining of erring judges by the National Judicial Council, proper funding and digitisation of offices so that manual recording and writing of reports, which creates room for errors, are discarded.
Abubakar, who said he was from Kano, appealed to the apex court to look critically at the Appeal Court ruling so as to sustain the peace that has reigned in that ancient city more than its neighbours where kidnapping and banditry flourishes.
“I know my people. They know when their intelligence is toyed with and they will react violently. I pray the apex courts do justice in this case. I am an APC member and did not vote for the NNPP in the election, but I think we lost the governorship election,” he said.
In his view, Professor Kila said everything considered, Nigerians should also rise to the demands of citizenship and be ready to suspend their partisan and primordial views and engage the system and leaders on the basis of competence and character.
About the Author
Amos Esele is the Deputy Editor of THEWILL Newspaper. He has over two decades of experience on the job.
