The Burden Of The Court Of Appeal  Political Judgement

By

Jide Ayobolu

jideayobolu@yahoo.co.uk

The recent judgement by the presidential election tribunal has continued to generate controversies which have refused to die down. The judgement has now become a very sore point in the history of the country that, one commentator after the other, have roundly condemned the political cum technical judgement. It is in this regard that, the Transition Monitoring Group commenting on the ruling of the presidential election petitions tribunal said that, “nothing happened at the tribunal that justified the kind of judgement they have given to Nigerians. Local observers monitored the election and found it was neither free nor fair. Foreign observers gave the same verdict that the election was perfidious. The tribunal all over Nigeria had been turning in the same thing that the INEC conducted a bad election, the worst of it in Africa”. Hence, one wonders why the justices of the Court of Appeal would give a judgement without a justice.

Some people have argued that, if the Tribunal nullify the election that brought Yar’Adua into office it would plunge the country into un-necessary crisis. But this a lie told by the devil, it is not correct to contend that righting the wrong of the past will cause problems, it is in fact, glossing over the wrongs of the past and putting up with them as if they are the norm. and, all those shouting allover the place that both General Muhammadu Buhari and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar should not gone to the Supreme Court, are just doing so because of what they can get from the government. They are bread and butter politicians who have no principles whatsoever, and none of the can claim to be closer to the Yar’Adua family than Buhari and Atiku. So, why are they claiming to be more catholic than the pope and trying to obstruct the course of justice? Some have even argued that, if the Supreme Court nullifies the election that Yar’Adua will win all over again since he has performed creditably well since he assumed the mantle of leadership.

 But the greater issue they have failed to address is the fact that, will Yar’Adua be ready and willing to take a second shot at presidential election? Will he have the stamina and good health to go on campaign throughout the nooks and crannies of the country? Will he not collapse like he did during the presidential campaign in 2007? And, what has he done since he got to power? Is it the fact that he only works for three hours a day on the orders of his medical doctors? Or the plethora of policy reversals that have the hallmark of his wobbling administration? What is the state of energy sector in the country today, in spite of the so-called emergency he said he would declare in the sector? Is ASUU not about to start another round of strike, what has he done? Are medical doctor not about to commence another strike? What has happened to the fight against corruption, if not merely using the rule of law slogan to encourage graft? What has he done in Niger Delta? What has he done about the infrastructural decay in the country? Is it not because of his many inactions that he has been referred to as baba go-slow or baba U-turn? Hence, there is nothing and nobody that should stop the petitioners from going to the Supreme Court and seek redress to the 2007 electoral fraud. If no justice is done, democracy in Nigeria will be a mirage and there will be no peace. If no legal reprimands are meted out against the staggering electoral fraud that was perpetrated, nothing will change in subsequent elections.

It is very disturbing and worrisome that, the justices of the Court of Appeal will, knock off all the pleas brought before it, and see no merit whatsoever in any of them. It is very curious why the judgement will commend the position of INEC and PDP to high heaven, while it lampooned the petitioner’s claims. Not only this, the judgement quoted copiously from the submissions of the INEC and PDP lawyers. And as Adamu Adamu rightly noted, “going by the delivery of the consensus judgement, there was little trace of impartiality; it was given in an enthusiastic, triumphalist tone. The court sounded more like it was into the manufacture of evidence for the defence. For a number of reasons, that judgement couldn’t have been unaided, independent conclusion of a court that was apprehensive only of the effect of its decision on the country…..the implication of this judgement for the nation is that there may never be any election in future in which the people will participate; because this court has held that henceforth whatever is done does not matter. Once an election has taken place and the result announced, there is nothing on the face of the earth that can be done to change what has been declared. What is right is what has taken place; and every misdemeanor validates itself by the fact of happening successfully. People know that they have no choice in the matter, so why should they bother to waste their time again? What is without remedy should without regard”.

Furthermore, the Professor Itse Sagay reasoned that, “the tribunal did not make any effort or even take steps to go through the evidence one after another and weigh them and see how the totality of what was establish before the tribunals, that there was no free and fair election. The judges did not do that, rather what happened was that the judges appeared to be too anxious and over zealous to try to exculpate INEC to be able to declare that Yar’Adua can still hold on to the office of the president. The judges were extremely eager to come to a decision that was favourable to Yar’Adua. And in the process, they glossed over so many deficiencies and defects that characterized the presidential election. In my opinion, the judges did not do a thorough job. They were over anxious”. Also, Alhaji Lai Mohammed posited that, “our position is that the evidence was overwhelming, that the elections were not conducted in compliance with the electoral act…..ballot papers were not serialized. If that was established, is that not fundamental enough? How many were printed, how many were used; how many were not used? If INEC admitted that it awarded a contract for ballot papers but it had no serial numbers, what other evidence do you need? Look, when you pass judgement on technical grounds, you are legitimizing corruption, fraud and gangsterism! If the result of the April polls is not reversed, then 2011 election is doomed. It means INEC can use toilet papers as ballot papers. Their interpretation of the electoral act amuses me. The gubernatorial elections in about seven states have been cancelled; is it not the same electoral act? How can the Court of Appeal now turn round and say it wasn’t proved”? And according to Dr. Buba Galadima, “they used the elevation of Ogebe as part of the conspiracy to deny Nigerians justice. We have it on good authority that the recommendation for promotion was one part of the deals. The appointment to the Supreme Court was to fill the vacancy created by the retirement of former Chief Justice of Nigeria Justice Belgore from Kwara State. Interestingly, there is a senior justice of the Court of Appeal to Ogebe, and he is Justice Ayo Salami, also is from Kwara State and presently serving as the Chairman of the Election Petition Appeal Tribunal in Jos, Plateau State. He ought to have been recommended in line with the practice in the judiciary, but the oppressors decided to reward Justice Ogebe from Benue State, who is number three in seniority, with the appointment. You can see why the judgement was like that, and you also see why he didn’t show up at the ruling, little wonder they were so generous with the judgement that they were practically praising Iwu”.

So, there is no doubt that really the ruling of the presidential tribunal was compromised; it was not the right and proper judgement. The judgement is not in tandem with the realities of the Nigerian situation. This is why the petitioners should be commended for not calling out their supporters to protect the kangaroo judgement, but choose instead to follow the due process by going to the Supreme Court for further adjudication.

At this juncture, it is germane to make some concluding remarks, one, that those who ride on the back of the tiger will eventually end up in it’s stomach, two, that when judges discharge and acquit criminals, they stand condemned for falling short of expectation, three, ambiguity is not a virtue in politics, actions of political gladiators must be predicated on principles and lastly, if the justices of the Court of Appeal were sincere why didn’t they allow television stations to cover the proceedings of the tribunal right from day one?