- Five govs sacked, nine NASS members removed
- Courts robbing Nigerians of actual voting rights – Critics
- Verdicts have been thorough, litigation part of democracy – Lawyers
- Stakeholders advocate electronic voting
BY TIMOTHY AGBOR, BENEDICT NWACHUKWU AND BRIGHT JACOB
Since Nigeria returned to democratic rule in 1999, citizens within voting age have gradually been losing their franchise to the gavel of justices of election petition tribunals, Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court.
Each year elections are conducted, there are litany of petitions challenging the outcomes of the polls conducted by the Independent National Electoral Commission.
To this end, courts are left with no choice than to decide winners of controversial contests.
Nine months after the conduct of the February and March general elections, courts are still busy deciding winners of the polls.
Constitutionally, the power to determine who is elected into political office ought to be decided by voters. The law also provides a judicial platform for those seeking redress either before or after elections might have been concluded at polling units.
Owing to electoral malpractices which have become part of Nigeria’s electoral culture, aggrieved contestants and political parties besiege election petition tribunals to seek redress, leaving judges to decide who occupy political offices.
Looking at the rate at which courts, rather than the electorate, end up determining actual winners of the polls, stakeholders have questioned the credibility of the Nigerian elections, saying democracy is being endangered.
INEC Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, had said the commission withdrew no fewer than 64 Certificates of Return and re-issued them to persons declared winners by courts of law, following the 2019 general elections.
Yakubu had also announced that the electoral body recorded over 800 pre-election cases in various courts before the 2019 polls.
Before the 2023 elections, the INEC boss disclosed that it was involved in 334 pre-election court cases that arose from the conduct of congresses and primaries by political parties for the general elections.
After the 2023 general elections, however, 1,209 petitions arose from candidates and political parties who alleged rigging.
The President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Monica Dongban-Mensem, while speaking at a special court session marking the commencement of the 2023/2024 Legal Year in Abuja recently, said the petitions necessitated the setting of 98 panels of judges to adjudicate on them.
Bemoaning the volume of lawsuits emanating from elections in a country suffering shortage of members of the bench, Dongban-Mensem said it was preventing judges from dealing with other cases, including those bordering on the economy of the country.
“We must do everything possible to make sure that from the polling unit, the election is counted and it stands, not in the courtroom.”
Giving a breakdown of the petitions, she said five were filed at the Presidential Election Petition Court; 147 at the senatorial election tribunals; 417 at the House of Representatives elections tribunal; 557 at the Houses of Assembly election tribunals and 83 focusing on the governorship elections.
So far, five governors elected in March this year have had their victories upturned by various courts of the land.
On Sunday, the Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja nullified the election of Governor Caleb Muftwang of Plateau State.
A three-member panel, in a unanimous decision held that Muftwang was not validly sponsored by the People’s Democratic Party as provided by Section 285(2) of the Nigerian Constitution.
The panel held that the appeal brought by Nentawe Goshwe of the All Progressives Congress succeeds as the issue of qualification was both a pre and post-election matter under Section 177(c) of the Nigerian Constitution, 1999 and Section 80 and 82 of the Electoral Act, 2022.
The panel agreed with the appellant (Goshwe) that the failure of the PDP to comply with the order of the Plateau State High Court in Jos in suit no: PLD/J304/2020 between Bitrus B. Kaze & 11 ors vs the People’s Democratic Party & 24 ors directing it to conduct valid ward, local governments and state congresses before nominating its candidates for the various elective posts and the Court of Appeal order in CA/J1/93/2021 was a breach of the law.
Thus, the panel set aside the judgement of the Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal for being “highly inconsistent and breach of fair hearing by relying on expunged witnesses’ statements to refuse Goshwe’s appeal.”
The panel ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission to withdraw the certificate of return issued to Muftwang and issue a fresh one to Goshwe.
The Zamfara State Governor, Dauda Lawal, also faced a setback when the Court of Appeal in Abuja declared his election inconclusive on November 16.
INEC had initially declared Dauda as the winner, but the APC candidate, Bello Matawalle, challenged the outcome.
The Court of Appeal ordered a fresh election in three local governments, deeming the initial election inconclusive.
Similarly, the tribunal in Kano shattered the victory of Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf on September 20.
The tribunal led by Justice Oluyemi Osadebay, declared Nasir Yusuf Gawuna of the APC as the authentic winner, citing 165,663 invalid votes for Governor Yusuf.
The court said the votes were deemed invalid as they lacked signatures and stamps from INEC.
Governor Yusuf appealed the ruling, but on November 17, the Court of Appeal in Abuja upheld the tribunal’s verdict, officially sacking Yusuf as Kano State Governor.
The only governor elected on the Labour Party platform, Alex Otti, in Abia State, faced removal by the Federal High Court sitting in Kano.
The court nullified Otti’s candidature and other LP candidates’ victories due to the party’s failure to submit its members’ list to INEC 30 days before the election.
However, in October, the Court of Appeal in Kano dismissed the lower court’s judgment, upholding Governor Otti’s candidature and that of other Labour Party candidates.
Lastly so far on the list of governors whose fate hangs in the hands of judges is the Nasarawa State Governor, Abdullahi Sule.
The governor had his victory nullified in October by the governorship election petition tribunal in Lafia. The tribunal declared David Ombugadu of the PDP as the duly elected Governor, stating that the petitioner successfully proved his case.
Governor Sule described the judgment as a temporary setback and affirmed he remains the state governor until the Supreme Court decides otherwise.
At least, nine National Assembly members have lost their positions so far after they were sacked and replaced by the Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja.
The erstwhile National Assembly members from various political parties included Simon Mwadkwon, Musa Kwankwaso, Darlington Nwokocha, Gabriel Suswam, Elisha Abbo, Jingi Rufai, Abubakar Ohere, Mohammed Salihu and Napoleon Bali.
Stakeholders including politicians, lawyers, and election observers, in their exclusive interviews with The Point, decried the situation where courts, and not voters, are determining election winners essentially. They said the development has been eroding the nation’s democracy severely and lampooned INEC for orchestrating faulty and controversial elections.
They demanded for an electronic voting system with verifiable data base and also warned against nomination and appointment of INEC Chairman and Commissioners by the government.
Highlighting the demerits of continuous rise in election litigation, the Team Lead, Kimpact Development Initiative, a non-governmental organization that seeks good governance and also observes elections across the country, Bukola Idowu, pointed out that apathy has been worsening because people now feel their votes no longer count.
“Situation whereby courts decide winners of elections is not good for our democracy basically because elections are meant to be determined by the people. You can imagine when people go under the sun and in the rain, queue, do registration online and collect PVCs, and in the case of Imo State Governorship election for instance, where about 750,000 people came out to vote, but their vote will not matter as five justices will sit at Supreme Court and declare winner. So, why do you need the people to come and vote if you eventually declare the winner because in other countries, courts don’t declare winner. The best they can tell you is to go and re-conduct the election.
“But in Nigeria, what we have today is “judiciocracy”; it is more or less the judiciary practicing democracy and not the people voting. For instance, the recent Court of Appeal judgment sacking the present governor of Kano State; do people’s votes still count? What we are practicing now in Nigeria is whatever the ballots cannot give you; the courts will give you, which is so wrong in my opinion.
“We must do everything possible to make sure that from the polling unit, the election is counted and it stands, not in the courtroom. They don’t conduct elections in the courtroom but it is sad that you now find courts deciding elections. It is not done,” Idowu maintained.
The National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Debo Ologunagba, told The Point that “contestants go to court because elections conducted by INEC are not credible and fair,” adding that, “If people feel cheated at elections, they will drag INEC to court and if you lose credibly, you feel good and that is democracy. People bring the court in because they believe the court will be able to do that and unfortunately, the court has been drawn into this unnecessary controversy.
“People go to court because they are dissatisfied with the process. We should be ashamed of ourselves as Nigerians; if Liberia can organise an election and the whole world is saying this is credible; the President himself who lost in the election has congratulated the winner because they believe in the process,” he stated.
In his submission, a chieftain of APC, Kehinde Ayantunji, said, “The only way out is electronic voting; we need electronic voting system that would be dependable, verifiable and transparent, until we have that, there is no way we will not be having electoral litigation because Nigeria politics is full of deceits and manipulation to the extent that despite the improvement in our electoral system, people are still compromising the integrity of the INEC and INEC technology.”
“When people feel cheated, the best thing is to go to the court and that is why it is not ordinary. It is intentional to include judicial redress in any electoral process. But, it has become a burden on our judiciary whereby at every election, you have an average of 500, 600, 300, 200 electoral litigation. You can hardly see any state constituency in Nigeria today that is not in court to challenge the results of elections. It is imposing an unnecessary burden on judges. In the last three months now, 80 percent of our judges are on electoral duties, a situation that is affecting the judicial process in the country,” he said.
A lawyer, J. P. Jones, was of the view that electronic voting would save the country the huge financial and human resources it contends with at every election.
“It is unfortunate we have found ourselves in this mess. Even when these politicians go to court, they know the button to press to get what they want. Until elections are conducted transparently whereby Nigerians can vote even from their homes, and Nigerians abroad can vote without impediments, and the collation will be transmitted almost immediately, courts may keep deciding who rules us. The masses ought to determine who should govern them and not the courts. The best way to go about this is through electronic voting. Most people cannot stand the task of staying in the sun and queuing to vote and once this electronic voting is done, most people who don’t use to vote will have a change of mind.
“This (electronic voting) will also reduce the huge money being spent in conducting elections and INEC and security agencies will not have to deploy so many personnel for election duties,” he stated.
The National Legal Adviser of the New Nigeria People’s Party, Robert Hon, also decried the spate of courts deciding who rule Nigerians after they have made their choice at the ballots describing it as a devastating trend.
Hon stated this while reacting to the recent judgment of the Court of Appeal which upheld the judgment of the Governorship Elections Petitions Tribunal that nullified governor Abba Yusuf’s election as Kano State governor.
Hon explained, “The reason for the decision of the Court of Appeal was that Abba Kabir Yusuf was never a member of the NNPP. Therefore, he was disqualified under section 177, paragraph C, and 177, subsection 2 of the 1999 Constitution as amended. That was the reason for the decision. The issue of the deduction, the issue of IREV, and all other issues that were submitted for determination by this court were not considered.
“Remember that, I must tell you that the appellant submitted nine issues for determination by this court. The court in its own wisdom picked and chose three issues, major one of which is the issue of disqualification; that he wasn’t a member of the NNPP at the time he contested, and as at the time he participated in the election that was held on the 18th of March, 2023. That was the anchor of the judgement of the Court of Appeal. But the three memberships register of the party submitted have his names. So, you wonder what our country has become when the courts decide who our rulers should be regardless of the votes cast by the electorates.”
Barrister Sylva Emeka recalled that the verdict of the Osun governorship tribunal sacking Ademola Adeleke of the PDP as the duly elected governor of the state drew public scrutiny, particularly on social media, but not for the substance of the ruling, rather, a phrase used by the tribunal judge who delivered the judgement.
He said, “The head of the tribunal, Justice Tertsea Aorga Kume, while reading the lead judgment that declared Adegboyega Oyetola of the All Progressives Congress as the winner of the election, held that Governor Ademola Adeleke “can’t go lo lo lo” to “Buga won”; apparently referring to Governor Adeleke’s love for music and dancing.
“This shows that Nigeria is in a great mess politically. Imagine when a judge has a grouse against a candidate because he dances and brings it into the matter that has nothing to do with it. It then means he nullified Adeleke’s election because of his love for music and dancing. So, if the judges or justices don’t like your name, face, religion or tribe, regardless of your overwhelming victory at the polls, you will be removed from office. The simple truth is that this is leading the country to utter destruction.”
“When people feel cheated, the best thing is to go to the court and that is why it is not ordinary. It is intentional to include judicial redress in any electoral process.”
An elder statesman, Ambrose Ezewunwa, said the country cannot have elections that would go without rancour with her caliber of politicians.
He argued that in the First and Second Republics, politicians were men and women of high integrity, nationalists and upright whose singular interest was how to develop the country.
“Blame politicians for this problem of courts producing our president, governor and the lawmakers. The name of politics in Nigeria now is if I don’t win, I scatter it. There are no politicians the country can boast of. In the days of Awo, Zik, Tafawa Balewa, Shagari, Okpara, Jakande, name them, we produced leaders, I mean winners came from the ballots not courts. It was not a do or die affair because they were not seeking political positions to enrich themselves and their families. These days, politics is the fastest and easiest way to become very rich”
Ezewunwa also blamed the current breed of Judges saying they have turned the courts to extended political parties.
“The present crop of Judges in Nigerian courts is even more political than politicians. They have thrown away respect for the courts in pursuit for wealth. If they were doing the right thing by not perverting justice, politicians will be afraid of doing whatever they like during voting knowing that the winner by people’s majority votes will certainly emerge even in court. Look at the kind of judgments they are giving. Nigeria is a big shame.
“Do you know that councilors in those days were retired headmasters and teachers or village heads who were basically elected by their people for service? Local Government chairmen were also people’s servants but can you say that in this era? No. Politics is where people make quick money that is why they kill and do all sorts of evil to get whatever position they are looking for.”
A political analyst based in Lagos State, Kizito Opara, said that even though it was a “shocking revelation” that almost 90 percent of election outcomes were challenged in court, the figure, according to him, would go up to about 95 percent in the near future.
According to him, Nigerians place a premium on public office and it is why politicians who fail to win elections in the country are labeled failures.
In Opara’s assessment, such circumstances as well as others compels politicians to do “unthinkable” things just to secure public offices.
He also said the courts were just warming up handling election cases and this would mean that the courts would continue to determine more of those who will rule Nigeria.
Opara said, “You have rightly said that almost 90 percent of election outcomes are challenged in court and this is a shocking revelation but I can assure you that in a few years’ time, that number will go up. Don’t be surprised that in the near future, it may even reach 95 percent.
“This situation is unfortunate. And our people have made it so. Nigerians place a premium on public office and a politician would be called a failure for life if he or she failed to win an election, and it should not be so.
“Politicians have been killed because of elections. They are ready to do unthinkable things to win. They have maimed fellow men and women and rendered so many others hopeless because they don’t want to be called failures and it seems it is only those who have not killed their opponents that are appearing in court with them.
“The court’s work hasn’t started yet. They are just warming up. Unfortunately, this will mean that they (courts) will continue to decide more of those who will rule Nigeria.”
