Chief Justice Legbon Kutigi

Chief Justice Legbon Kutigi-Led Judiciary, Stolen Mandates And Umaru Yar’adua’s Electoral Reform Agenda

Chudi Ikwueze, Ph.D.

Nigerians are aware that it took the combined efforts of patriotic men and women of the Legislative arm of government, under Ken. Nnamani, to finally scuttle the third-term agenda. We know as well that immediately following that rejection, the former President Obasanjo mobilized all resources available to punish, humiliate and politically destroy anti-third term politicians.

To that end, he made sure that most anti-third term legislators who nursed ambition to return to the National Assembly never made it. He did not spare supporters of anti third-term movement outside the Legislative arm either. Some former state governors and influential men and women in society were targeted, hunted, marked for punishment or political destruction by various means.

He unleashed his attack dogs on former Vice President Atiku Abubakar as well. What did Atiku do to him? He sympathized with patriotic Nigerians who rightly believed, it was not in our national interest to have Obasanjo stay in power for a third term. But he would not have any of that. In his usual lawless and reckless ways, he mobilized all agencies of government, whether EFCC, ICPC or security agencies at his disposal to hunt and humiliate the poor man, his supporters and other Nigerian who dare have diverged viewpoints.

The bad news however for former President Obasanjo and cohorts was that at the end of the day, by the elections in April, his nefarious actions against his opponents eventually caught up with him. It became obvious that not only that he succeeded in alienating himself, but that he did so at the expense of popularizing his opponents. The fact of the matter was that Nigerians simply detested Obasanjo’s leadership skills, he became a public nuisance literally. Everyone waited patiently for the April general elections to vote Obasanjo-led politicians out, at the polls; and also to make sure he did not spend a night more at Aso Rock, as President, beyond May 29, 2007.

Unbeknown to many, however, Obasanjo already perfected arrangements to abuse the power of incumbency by corroborating with some INEC and security agencies personnel to favor hand-picked politicians at the polls. It was that wholesale abuse of the electoral process, as a result, that brought us to the current political stalemate related to the stolen mandates. Clearly, former President Obasanjo saw the April elections mainly as an opportunity to achieve two closely related objectives. It was used as an ultimate tool with which to finally destroy opponents especially the anti-third term agenda politicians at the polls. He figured that by rigging the elections, he would have scuttled any chance of being investigated for treasury lootings and other unaccountable atrocities committed while in office. And so, unless the stolen mandates are overturned at the tribunals, Obasanjo would surely have got away with both objectives achieved, in tact.

It is mind-boggling to realize that a handful of people could hijack the electoral process and sack the electoral laws of a supposedly sovereign country-Nigeria, just like that. If that was not scary and a wake up call to you, just know that it is capable of changing one’s perception of Nigeria’s reality forever. There is no gainsaying that they could not have been able to pull that off without support of law enforcement. Yet, the realization that any group could pull off that April charade raises a fundamental question: is Nigeria still a sovereign nation? If so, what is sovereignty? Whose definition is that? How many Nigerians agree with that definition? By the way, if I should be asking these questions at this day and age, then “things have fallen part” in Nigeria.

As far as common sense goes, one has to realize at this point, that unless the judiciary overturns every stolen mandate especially the presidential, and Nigerians allowed to elect their leaders through a free and fair manner, the country must be seen to have been laid siege by people, who have wrestled our sovereignty from us.

There are no assurances that if left to stay that these people would not sell Nigeria for a penny to powerful nations willing to keep us under-developed forever more. Nigerians must not be complacent about the issue of sovereignty being explored here. Let me just state the obvious, as follows: is it not true that if a politician was not returned through a free and fair elections, that he would most likely pay allegiance to whoever brought him to power. And so, to have a President and members of National Assembly who were beneficiaries of last April charade in power only mean that they would pay allegiance to self and Obasanjo and external forces he serves. This reason and many more others are why this matter must not be allowed to be swept under the carpet. Now that most of these people are facing Nigerians at the tribunals, it is incumbent on country’s judiciary to wrestle Nigeria’s sovereignty from these people. Period. End of story.

Just like Ken. Nnamani-led Legislative arm of government saved Nigeria by scuttling the unpatriotic third term agenda, the Legbon Kutigi-led Judicial arm should rise up to the occasion to wrestle Nigeria from the rampaging ‘do or die’ politicians, illegitimately occupying government positions across the country. The judiciary must be prepared to play mouse and cat games with these people if it boils down to that, use every available skill at its disposal to stop each one of them from getting away with the stolen mandate. Let us not fool ourselves, these people are so desperate and would definitely attempt to manipulate the judiciary to their advantage at the tribunals. The strategy for these people’s defense team at the tribunals would expectedly be to juggle for opportunities to defeat the aggrieved politicians on legal technicality basis.

That is why, it is critically important that the tribunals not allow the cases to be struck out on legal technicality basis. In the past, the judiciary had allowed cases which could have been won on merit, to be struck out on legal technicalities grounds. Such outcomes to past electoral cases only, unfortunately emboldened the political class so much so that it now hijack our electoral process and breaks our electoral laws with impunity.

Already, the issue of legal technicality is rearing its ugly head at the Presidential Election Tribunal where a couple of political parties are challenging the mandate of Umaru Yar’Adua. Going by information made available to the media a couple of days ago, it was reported that Umaru Yar’Adua is demanding the Presidential Election Tribunal struck out the lawsuit filed against him on legal technicality basis, because ANPP wrongfully joined INEC and Nigerian Police in the lawsuit. That goes to show that the PDP legal team would not hesitate to take advantage of any loopholes to strike out the entire case if they could. The judiciary must not allow such line of defense to define the outcomes of the cases at the tribunal, not the presidential mandate at least.

The judiciary ought to be mindful of ‘legal technicality pitfall’, whereby defense teams of politicians with weak cases would attempt to have the cases struck out on flimsy reasons. Because we know that politicians who benefited from the April charade are so desperate, and that they would do anything to get away with the stolen mandate; it would be in everyone’s interest to watch out for their tricks.

Just a few days ago, we read that Umaru Yar’Adua has began to flip-flop with respect to whether or not his mandate was obtained by rigging. He was quoted as saying that he was not rigged into office. If he actually did say that, that would be a departure from his earlier held viewpoints that the elections that brought him to power were marred by widespread frauds and irregularities. That goes to show how desperate and unapologetic these people could be.

Given the magnitude of what transpired in April and its ramifications especially with respect to sovereignty issue raised above, for justice to be served, the cases at the tribunals ought to be decided strictly on merit basis (whatever that means legally speaking), rather than on legal technicality. That is the only assured way justice would be seen to have been served, at the tribunals.

Nobody is suggesting in anyway that the judiciary should overturn any stolen mandates without credible evidence of rigging and/or irregularities. However, it remains incontestable, as corroborated by domestic and foreign observers as well as aggrieved politicians, that there were massive electoral frauds committed mainly by the ruling party in April. That should suffice to overturn the April charade- every stolen mandate.

It is only by overturning the stolen mandates that the pervasiveness of electoral frauds and irregularities that characterizes our electoral process would abate. Doing so is the only smart way to wrestle our sovereignty from Obasanjo-Umaru Yar’Adua-led gang. The judiciary cannot let these people take advantage of all of us just like that. No one or group should be allowed to get away with such enormity of fraud, and disregard for our laws as did the ruling party.

The political class has to be held accountable for electoral frauds and irregularities. How do we accomplish that? Can we accomplish that through electoral reform? Conceptually, what is required is to find a way to make it very expensive or unattractive for any of these people to engage in rigging and/or other electoral frauds. With that in mind, it becomes obvious why another round of electoral reform would not be an effective solution to the problem.

Instead, what we need is to encourage the judiciary to perform its duties without fear or favor. The judiciary has various means by which it can effect a change that would henceforth disincentivize politicians from rigging and electoral frauds. Come to think of it, what would be more resounding way to discourage electoral fraud and rigging than for the judiciary to seize the opportunity presented by the April elections to overturn every stolen mandates at the tribunals. Such action would send a chilling unequivocal message to the political class, which is that the era of election rigging and abuse of electoral process has come to end. Therefore if the judiciary is willing to continue in its bid to rid the system of mandate-stolen politicians, whose only way to win elections is by hijacking our electoral process and breaking electoral laws, we must support and encourage it.

That is why the ongoing campaign by Umaru Yar’Adua for electoral reform would be an exercise in futility, unless it is meant to hold politicians accountable for breaking our electoral laws. Such campaign is disingenuous to say the least, because it would not focus on politicians who are the main culprits. It is one of those ploys used to waste time and money, just to keep everyone under-developed. By now, Nigerians ought to know better, regardless of how many electoral reforms await us, provided the judiciary, law enforcement agencies as well as citizenry are unwilling to hold politicians accountable, we would surely relive worse elections than April 2007 in future.