Following the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria (CBCN) condemnation of the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) verdict, legal practitioners have taken a swipe at the CBNC for its stance, saying the Catholic Church is only protecting its own.
The CBNC had commented on that PEPC ruling that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), is not mandated to transmit election results electronically after billions of Naira were spent on the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BIVAS) and Result Viewing Portal (ReV) at the weekend and its call on the Supreme Court not to seek to satisfy the whims and caprices of any political party nor bend the law.
According to the lawyers, the Catholic Church should have been more circumspect in their statement since they have members who belong to other parties, especially APC, in their fold, rather than unwittingly entering the arena of politics headlong based on an obvious misconception of the fact that there is no provision for the electronic transmission of election results in the Electoral Act 2022
Speaking with Nigerian Tribune, Chief Yomi Alliyu (SAN), said “It is quite unfortunate that the Labour Party candidate, Peter Obi, and his party have introduced new dimensions of ethnicity and religion to electioneering in Nigeria which are incendiaries and highly inflammable. It is no more a hidden fact that the Labour Party candidate was going round campaigning in churches and soliciting support of founders and leaders of churches to support his ambition.
“This no doubt has made churches, including the Catholic Church, partisan. They have unwittingly entered the arena of politics headlong! The Presidential Election Petition Court has delivered its much-awaited judgment. Let parties who are dissatisfied proceed to the Supreme Court. Apart from BVAS, there is nowhere in the law that makes Irev compulsory. Labour Party and PDP including their supporters were merely referring to a press conference held by the INEC chairman and head of the voters education unit, Mr Okoye, that results will be transmitted to the result viewing portal simultaneously from polling booths’ BVAS.
“Statements made by INEC officials can never modify, alter and/or replace the law or be given the cloak of law enacted by the National Assembly and/or the Constitution. INEC gave reasons for not keeping to its promise stating that the said IREV suffered millions of attacks from all over the world in the presidential election! Thus, if IREV had been used hackers criminal intention to cause confusion between votes in Form EC8A and IREV would have been perfected and set this could set the country ablaze! It should be stated that Forms EC8A are the forms prescribed by law to be used in recording votes scored by every candidate at the polling booth. This is what is captured and sent to IREV.
“It should be stated that all candidates have their agents at polling booths that are expected to append their signatures to the said Forms EC8A. The agents are then given copies of the Forms to give their parties. Thus, FORMS EC8A is primary evidence of votes cast, among others, at the polling booths not IREV! This means anybody complaining about IREV is mischievous since it is mere copy of the original that is already with the candidates and/or his party. The Catholic Church in protecting their own should have been more circumspect in their statement since they have members who belong to other parties, especially APC, in their fold,” he said.
On his part, a former chairman of the Nigeria Bar Association, Ikeja branch, Dave Ajetomobi said, “I consider it as unfortunate. The church in Nigeria has brought shame to the name of the Lord instead of glorifying it. As you can see, the president of the conference is Obi’s kinsman; the trend has been that Easterners will always support their kinsmen whether he is right or wrong. What is the locus of the bishop to question the judgment of the court except that he expected his tribesman to win? In reality, the bishop’s kinsman stood no chance of winning in a free and fair election.
“It sad that the church that is supposed to be praying for Nigeria is busy playing politics in murky waters and nobody should complain if the church garment is stained by the murky waters. I have observed that the most vociferous opposition to the government is from his Lordship’s home, I am therefore not surprised that he is chorusing their renditions. Clergymen from that zone have laid siege on the court, one even displayed their pictures in their churches to command them to give judgment in favour of Obi. But I can assure you that the Supreme Court will uphold the verdict because his lawyers failed woefully in the homework,” Ajetomobi added.
Also, a legal practitioner with Afe Babalola and Co., Toyose Owoade, said, “I humbly think the standpoint of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria is misconceived, the misconception stems from the fact that there is no provision for the electronic transmission of election results in the Electoral Act 2022. The electronic transmission of result in Clause 38 of the INEC Regulation is in exercise of the discretion given under Section 60(5) of the Electoral Act, which enumerates that the presiding officer at the polling unit, after counting votes and declaring the number, is to transmit the result in accordance with the directives of the Commission. The conference may have lost sight of the fact that in the course of the proceedings, INEC stated that the results were not readily uploaded because of some technical glitches experienced on the day of the election.
“Like the court rightly observed, the petitioners were fixated on the fact that they won an election without any cogent evidence to support their claims. If the failure of transmission seriously affected the results/ figures claimed by the petitioners, they ought to have tendered the ward results declared and given to the ward agents to contradict what was declared by INEC, this was never the case. In addition, the IREV cannot take the place of the collation centers where the results were physically collated in the presence of all the agents and representatives of the political parties as was held by the Supreme Court in the case of Oyetola Vs INEC. Is the tribunal expected to depart from the judgment of a superior court? The answer is in the negative,” he added.
Another legal practitioner, Foluso Olapo, while agreeing that some aspects need more judicial interpretation, frowned at the act of some men of God. He stated that, “I don’t have any quarrel with the church reminding the government of their duty to their people because while the churches are meant to meet the spiritual needs of the people, the government is created to cater for people’s earthly needs. Both are creations of God for certain ends. Therefore, like the prophets of old, they may intervene when the government appears not to be doing the needful. Being concerned about our election process is not out of the way.
“What I frown at is the church taking sides with respect to who becomes what and when. Like the last election when several men of God tried to overdo themselves, prophesying on who would win the election. This is a mere gamble and not the mind of God. The Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) decision that INEC is not mandated to transmit election results electronically came to me as a surprise, especially if we take into consideration that INEC on its own through its regulations provides for it.
“It is trite that Section 153(1) (f) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) established the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) and its powers listed under Part 1, 3rd Schedule to the same Constitution. To further cement the independence of INEC, the Constitution empowers it to create its own regulations to direct its actions. The same way, and taking a cue from the Constitution, the legislature, under Section 148 of the Electoral Act, 2022 also defer to INEC the power to make its own regulations. The exercise of this power led to the creation by INEC, Regulations and Guidelines for the Conduct of the 2022 Election, of which Clause 38 of the said Regulation provides for electronic transmission of election results.
“Following the making of the said Regulations and Guidelines, INEC began extensive advocacy, even beyond the shores of the country stating its resolve to transmit all its the results of the 2022 election. In law, the INEC “Regulations and Guidelines” has the force of law being a subsidiary legislation, as it forms part of the Electoral Act, 2022, its principal legislation. This means that INEC having made its own law (Regulations) cannot successfully derogate from it without committing an infraction against the 2022 Electoral Act. I hope the Supreme Court will do the needful,” he added.
Speaking on the electronic transmission of results, Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa (SAN), stated that the court relied upon the previous decisions of the Federal High Court and the Court of Appeal which it held were binding on the petitioners. First, this was a fresh election and the petition arising from it was between different parties and under totally different circumstances. The Court should have x-rayed the conduct of INEC in relation to the 2023 presidential election simpliciter, being the subject matter of the petition before it. INEC was not conducting the election of the Rotary Club but the 2023 presidential election in which over eighty million people were registered to vote and over N300B was spent from the common purse. If INEC had through its own guidelines voluntarily made a contract with the people of Nigeria, the Court should hold it bound by that undertaking and/or at least extract cogent reasons why it could not be done. A lot went into the 2022 Electoral Act, the high point of which was the electronic transmission of results, which was meant to remove or reduce human intervention in the electoral process.
“The decision of the Court that INEC is not mandated to transmit election results electronically is with due respect to their Lordships, a huge setback to election administration and management in Nigeria, as we will now go back to the days of manipulation, falsification of results and general violence, thuggery and even rigging. It has been said that the most potent form of rigging an election is the stage of collation and transmission of results. By endorsing INEC’s lapses, the Court has unwittingly reversed all the gains of the new electoral law on e-voting,” he stated.
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