Vanguard columnist, Dr Ugoji Egbujo, in his column 23 November 2024 went down memory lane of how election rigging set the western region on fire soon after independence, bringing down the first republic. The crisis, he argued, wasn’t just frustration and impatience but also a rejection of the courts. According to him, “in the fourth republic, politics degenerated precipitously into a lucrative business, and people started stealing elections. But now, those who steal elections mock their bruised victims telling them to go to court”. He concluded his piece by saying “the fourth republic is on the precipice”.
Similarly, in his opinion piece two weeks ago titled: “Another Election, Another Headache”, the Publisher of TheCable, an online publication, Simon Kolawole said; “We have created a culture of elections by court injunctions. Nigeria has descended into a state where a judge can even grant an injunction to stop the police from providing security for an election simply because an opponent complained that the state budget was not properly passed! Judges now determine who should be party chairman and secretary, who should be the resident electoral commissioner (REC), who should be a party’s candidate and who should be declared the winner. If this trend continues, we may not need to vote again. We will just sit at home and wait for the courts to pick candidates, allocate votes and announce winners. We are inching towards that every day”.
Desperate politicians want to win at all cost. They rig elections and tell victims to go to court because they know one cannot get justice from the judiciary. If they knew our judiciary was clean they would not be rigging and telling people to go to court. Concerned Nigerians readily point to a number of court judgments especially on election matters in support of their belief that justice is now for the highest bidder.
The former Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, on 12 May 2022, withdrew from the Yobe North Senatorial District election to enable him contest the All Progressives Congress (APC), presidential ticket. Bashir Machina went ahead to win the primary election and became the party’s candidate for Yobe North.
When Lawan lost the party’s presidential ticket to President Bola Tinubu on 8 June 2022, he attempted to get Machina relinquish the senatorial ticket for him having lost at the national level but Machina refused and Lawan went to court. Both the Federal High Court, in Yobe and the Court of Appeal, Abuja in November 2022 affirmed Machina as the APC’s valid candidate. But while Lawan decided not to pursue the case further at the Supreme Court, his party, the APC, took it up to challenge Machina’s nomination. The apex court, on 6 February 2023, in a split judgment of 3 against 2 declared Lawan as the APC’s senatorial candidate for Yobe North for the 25 February 2023 general election. The majority judgment of the Supreme Court held that Mr Machina ought to have commenced his suit by a Writ of Summons going by the allegations of fraud levelled against APC in transmitting Lawan’s name to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC. This judgment shocked many people.
The Supreme Court took the same route in the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio’s case which was similar to that of Lawan. While Senator Akpabio was contesting the APC presidential ticket, retired Deputy Inspector General of Police, Mr Udom Ekpoudom had already secured the party’s senatorial ticket for Akwa Ibom North-West in the party’s primary conducted on 27 May 2022 which was monitored by INEC. But when Akpabio lost the presidential primary election on 8 June 2022, the APC the following day, 9 June 2022, held another primary election for the Akwa Ibom North-West senatorial district that purportedly produced Akpabio as candidate. Both the Federal High Court and the Court of Appeal refused to affirm Akpabio and ordered INEC to recognize Udom Ekpoudom as the authentic candidate of the party. Akpabio then proceeded to the Supreme Court and the apex court, in a unanimous judgment of its five-member panel led by Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun held that both the Federal High Court and the Court of Appeal were wrong to have assumed jurisdiction in the suit because the issue of candidate nomination lies squarely with the political parties.
The Supreme Court therefore, on 20 January 2023 declared Godswill Akpabio as the validly nominated APC candidate for Akwa Ibom North-West senatorial district.
There are a plethora of conflicting court judgments across the country particularly involving the State High Courts and the Federal High Court. An aggrieved party which lost at the state high court but has the backing of influential politicians at the federal level would proceed to the Federal High Court which has concurrent jurisdiction with the state high court to obtain a favourable order. This scenario was why we now have two Emirs of Kano. The judiciary is no longer seen as the last hope of the common man.
During the military era, the judiciary faced tough challenges but it respected the rule of law, and the judges displayed uncommon courage as they protected the rights of the citizens and dispensed justice than what is happening now that judgements are easily bought and justice denied.
Nigerians are worried about this situation. They examined the problems with the judiciary and proffered solutions on how to tackle it.
