Given how serious both contenders and voters have so far taken this general election, particularly the presidential poll conducted yesterday, by now, there should be enough snippets of information on genuine results from the 176,606 polling units across the country, cleared for the poll to suggest a winner. But that is the unofficial declaration that INEC warned about, though the threatened ire of the electoral body won’t stop camps from claiming victory. Apart from the psychological boost such unofficial declarations give to their base, candidates who eventually lose the election can turn the claim to a major talking point when pursuing judicial redress, which is almost certain in this scenario.
Osun State is a case in point. After the shock of the first few days of his re-election loss, immediate Osun governor, GboyegaOyetola rallied back with cries of stolen mandate against the incumbent and two-time conqueror, Jackson Adeleke. The sustained tempo, no doubt, gave philip to whatever happened at the election petition tribunal that re-awarded the governorship seat to him. Yes, the matter has two layers of appeal before it’s finally settled, but in the eye of the law, the current constitutional and lawful governor of Osun State, is Oyetola, since we claim to practice constitutional democracy. That is how powerful judiciary is in our democracy and surprisingly, Nigerians don’t seem to appreciate this enormous power being mostly reactive in their engagements with the institution, especially when jaw-dropping judicial calls are made in election matters.
One of such perceivably outrageous calls is the enthronement of the incumbent governor of Imo, Hope Uzodinma. Even the international community found it distasteful, with US going for visa ban over the judicial wonder of January 15, 2020. It was former governor Donald Duke who first mentioned the sanction but the noisome pestilence of politics possibly drowned out its national implications.
Then, a news medium published the evidence of the visa ban on Justice KudiratMotonmoriOlatokunbo KekereEkun, the second most senior justice in the land and an awaiting Chief Justice of Nigeria! America gave “sanctioned activities” for rejecting her visa request to travel for medicals, though she is “Britico” (British) by her birth in London on May 7, 1958. Since she chaired the infamous panel, it is almost certain that five of the other six members that brought Uzodinma from fourth position to first suffered similar humiliation. There are currently 12 justices in the court. Now, half of them are considered unscrupulous because sanctions are natural response to wrong doings. Is it likely US has Intel that supports the conclusion that the judgment was a betrayal of justice; hence the punishment?
Incidentally, the only dissenting jurist of three years back, Justice CentusNweze, who famously predicted that the Uzodinma judgment would haunt the apex court for a long time was the chair of the five-man panel that cleared Senate President Ahmad Lawan for yesterday’s senatorial poll without participating in the primaries.
The widespread biting criticism that trailed the judgment stung the apex court so much that his media team had to fire back with a blast that backfired.
Maybe, the US government can now conveniently add Nweze to the visa Black Book, since the majority judgment he gave alongside Justices Moh’dLawalGarba and Helen Ogunwunmiju is widely considered more ludicrous than Hopegate. At least the governor won his primaries and was validly nominated by his party.
Imagine if America also considers sanctions over the Lawan judgment. Now that the Russian war in Ukraine has united US and Europe like never before, what if there is a bandwagon effect and major EU countries also slap visa ban. Imagine about nine of the twelve justices of the apex court being under West’s sanctions for disturbing judicial activities on the Bench. How would that portray us as a country? And to think Kekere-Ekun has just 17 months to mount the saddle as the second female CJN in Nigeria’s history, succeeding the incumbent. The man in-between, Justice Musa Dattijo Mohammed, currently the most senior Justice in the land and vice-chairman of National Judicial Council, is retiring on 27 October, this year.
The new president, expected to emerge from yesterday’s election, isn’t likely to leverage on the US sanction to stop Kekere-Ekun from making history next year, even if he wants to do Buhari’s kind of judicial reform. But how does she function effectively under such a cloud of alleged impropriety? Is it not also a shame that it always takes foreign countries to have infractions punished in Nigeria? Iborigate is still fresh in mind though it was 11 years now that he was jailed by a London court for stealing his own people blind back home. The Nigerian judiciary found him not guilty but he confessed to the same crime in UK! Same law, different operators.
Nigerian judiciary needs to be put on its toes, but it is getting away with a lot because Nigerians are patently reactive. They only get roused into frenzy when the ridiculous, which an earlier engagement could have prevented, happen on them, and most times, it is all about political matters for the Nigerian populace, while shrugging off fundamental issues being mishandled by the judiciary, especially at the lower courts.
Even in the matters of politics, the bedlam usually comes when the institution goes completely bizarre like the loquacious chair of Osun Tribunal, MrTertseKume, throwing jibes, in black and white, at the governor for loving his “Buga” dance.
Incidentally, the chair of Ekiti Tribunal, Wilfred Kpochi, also threw jabs at Segun Oni and his SDP after awarding victory to Governor AbiodunOyebanji for engaging with the media during the pendency of the matter. But it didn’t get reported, maybe because the governor wasn’t removed and Kpochi wasn’t as reckless as Kume to ink his disparaging comments against Oni and his team, in his judgement.
Many may not know that Kume and Kpochi are from the same Benue Judicial Division and both handpicked by the President of the Court of Appeal, Monica Bolna’anDongban-Mensem, herself, from neighboring Plateau State, to head the Tribunals, whose judgments controversially, went for the ruling APC.
This is not insinuating anything, but there are too many coincidences, not to pay greater attention to the activities of the most powerful office in our democracy. The President of the Court of Appeal was solely responsible for the appointment of about 300 judicial officers now on election duties nationwide to resolve disputes arising from the legislative poll of yesterday and the governorship and the state assemblies coming in two weeks.
As if that isn’t awesome enough, the occupant of the office gets to pick the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal members, among her colleagues and she can choose to head the panel, since her court is the Tribunal for presidential election disputes. Though arising appeals may go to the Supreme Court, there is no record of the apex court ever setting aside the decision of the Court of Appeal in past presidential election disputes.
In yesterday’s contest, two of the presidential gladiators possibly ran their last race due to age factor and changing political landscape. If none or one won, Monica will definitely have her hands full in days ahead. And since her “choices” of recent, have been unpredictable, she might end up with a historical shocker for the contestants and their supporters. Whoever is declared by INEC as the winner of yesterday’s poll may want to delay his “Buga.” My cent.
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