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Bayo Ojo and The Sokoto State Legislative Crisis By Dahiru Maishanu London
The story of the defection of 20 members of the Sokoto State House Assembly from the ANPP, the party under whose platform they were elected in 2003, to the DPP, a newly registered party is not news anymore. The crisis that this action brought to the political stability of the state is bringing itself to bear on the people of the state. The fallout has reached a crescendo that is resulting into claims, counter-claims and court actions. Whether the unfolding drama is good for our democratic experimentation or not is a dicey question to answer.
The latest crisis was triggered when the remaining 10 members of the House who still remained with the ANPP met and declared the seats of the decamped members of the Assembly vacant. The members said they were acting on the constitutional provision in section 109, subsection g which categorically states that members of any State Assembly who decide to decamp to another party while their tenure is yet to finish, have by so doing forfeited their seats.
Consequent to the sacking of these members, a new speaker was elected by the remaining members of the Assembly and sworn in by a high court judge in the State. The sacked members of the Assembly have gone to court to obtain a restraining order against the action of their colleagues and also prayed the court to declare their sacking as null and void. The matter is now before the courts and as such, we cannot go further than a mere reportage of the issues as done above.
While democracy seems to be in action in the above narration, a curious development appears to be giving it a different coloration. While the case is still in the courts, we suddenly read in the Leadership Newspaper of 16th, Jan 2007 that the Inspector General of Police had sought and obtained an expert legal advice from the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, Chief Bayo Ojo on the issue.
In the purported advice, Bayo Ojo was said to have advised the IGP to oblige the continued stay of the decamped and sacked members of the House as bonafide members of the House despite the on going litigation over the matter. In the advice, the Minister seemed to be very clear where he wrote that ‘the 20 members, from the available facts, appear justified in decamping to DPP as a result of the state of the ANPP’. Thus, a signal was sent that the federal authorities, through the Attorney General, have approved a disputed constitutional matter even when the matter is still in court.
In order not allow a wrong impression to be created to the good people of Sokoto State by this seeming one sided advise, I find it necessary to take on the Attorney General on this development. Let me start by reminding the Minister that by his position of Attorney General and Minister of Justice, he is the undisputed Chief Law Officer of the Federation with a major responsibility of protecting the sanctity of the rule of law as well as taking an unbiased position in ensuring the dispensation of justice, equity and fairness to all parties, plaintiffs and defendants alike.
It is also important to remind the Minister of what he had acknowledged in the advice that the case was sub-judice and a restraining order has already been sought and obtained on the matter. The reported advice to the IGP certainly makes both the IG and the Minister’s action as contemptuous of the court order in place that smacks of pre-determining the outcome of a matter that is presently before the court for determination.
The danger here is this advice given to the IG by the Minister can only unnecessarily aggravate the situation. The general impression the people will get is that the case has been ‘decided’ in favor of the decamped legislators by no other person than the Chief Law Officer of the federation himself. This again, smacks of arrogating powers to the office of the Attorney General that are not within the ambits of both the law and the constitution of the federation. The advice is also capable of portraying the office of the Minister as one that is leaning support to some politicians either for political connivance or simply, outright executive exuberance. Either way, this is unacceptable and ultimately will be embarrassing to the Minister’s principal, the President himself.
A similar problem happened in Plateau State not long ago where the former Governor and a greater number of the Members of the State House of Assembly defected from the PDP for another party, the AC. The Governor was subsequently impeached, along side all the members of the House that decamped to the AC with him. The INEC not only obliged the 6 remaining Members of the House, but also went ahead to organize a bye-election to fill in the positions left by the decamped members. New members have already been sworn in to fill in the vacuum.
One wonders where the Minister was when all these were happening in Plateau. One also wonders why the IG did not seek for any legal advice (if he did, at least the public was not informed) from the Minister over the Plateau crisis. Was it because the PDP was the principal beneficiary of the fallout the Plateau crisis? The question of whether the defection of the 20 members of the Assembly was as a result of a division within the ANPP is the constitutional responsibility of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC and the political parties themselves. It is only when a party to the dispute feels otherwise about the stand of either of them, that party may now go to the court and seeks further clarification. There is therefore, no need for any pedestrian advice from anybody including the Honourable Minister to anybody, including the Inspector General of Police over the matter, more so, when the case is hanging in the court. It is certainly difficult to understand which authority the Minister is invoking for this advice given to the IGP.
Although I’m not a lawyer, I still know that it is not rocket science to know that the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria gives only the courts judicial power on such matters, not the Attorney General or any other person for that matter. It is therefore only the court and in this case, the Sokoto Federal High Court that can make any judicial pronouncement that is binding on this matter :( HAFG/IGP/2007/VOL.1 (08/01/2007)).
The people of Sokoto are eagerly awaiting the outcome of the resolution of the crisis by the competent authorities, the courts. They are not going to tow along any circumvention of the judicial process, no matter how highly placed a quarter that comes from. They are simply more sophisticated than that.
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