Former president of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Chief Wole Olanipekun, SAN has described that section 65 of the 2022 Electoral Act which empowers returning officers to review declaration of results as dangerous for the 2023 general election.
The section 65(c) as signed into law by President Muhammadu Buhari last year states that, ” declaration of scores of candidates and the return of a candidate : Provided that the Commission shall have the power within seven days to review the declaration and return where the Commission determines that the said declaration and return was not made voluntarily or was made contrary to the provisions of the law, regulations and guidelines, and manual for the election.”
Olanipekun who spoke in Ado-Ekiti, the Ekiti state capital on Wednesday during a visit to the governor , Biodun Oyebanji stated that the National Assembly ought to have amended the section before it was signed, adding that it would be inappropriate for the returning officers to have power to review already declared results.
The chairman of Body of Benchers declared that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and its officers were not court of law who has the constitutional power to review election results, noting that this development might create crisis during the forthcoming elections.
According to him, “ To me, section 65 is a very dangerous section, so novel in the sense that, here you have a section that empowers a returning officer after returning to review his decision within a period of seven days.
” The returning officer is not a court of law, not a tribunal, not vested with jurisdiction to exercise quasi- decision or to assume jurisdiction over any matter that is judicial in nature.”
He pointed out that he was not aware of any similar section in previous electoral act or any similar section in any of the electoral Acts of any country in the world.
“When you now invest in a returning officer of INEC, the power to do and undo, the power to return and review his decision is dangerous to the polity.
“The Chief Returning Officer, is the Chairman of INEC, meaning you can return someone as President today, and tomorrow, when there are agitations here and there, he may withdraw his decision, saying I am revising myself and am now returning somebody else,” he added.
He urged the national assembly members to do something urgently about the section in the interest of democracy by removing the proviso, calling on stakeholders, “particularly the political parties to “shine their eyes” to monitor INEC, the returning officers, so that nothing untoward happens to any party or candidate returned to be unreturned again.”
