2007 ELECTIONS AND THE TRIBUNALS
It is a sad commentary to run that one year after, the present democratic
dispensation is still battling with electoral credibility. Each passing
day, reports of nullified election results by tribunal courts on account
of electoral irregularities, abuse and gross violations of the electoral
processes in what seem like a desperate bid to foist leadership on the
poor masses make the news, and the polity is being relegated to the
background.
However, until something crucial is done to arrest the unfortunate trend,
it will remain a bane to the growth and success of democratic governance
in Nigeria.
Sadly, President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, the number one citizen of the
Federal Republic of Nigeria who is being looked upon to effect some
measure of positive changes in the system by the application of his
7-point agenda still has the burden of proof to his electoral credibility
hung on his neck; the Supreme Court, the epitome of the nation’s
judiciary is yet to take a stance on the conduct of the presidential
election and other unfolding critical political issues.
The Senate President too, the number three citizen managed to slide
through a clean bill of mandate in a verdict that is still being contested
by political analysts and legal luminaries as political judgment and a
miscarriage of justice. It would be recalled that David Mark’s election
was nullified by the lower court in Plateau state in what appeared to be a
landmark judgment until the Appeal Court declared otherwise.
It is strongly anticipated in most quarters that like Senate President
David Mark made it, so also will President Yar’adua scale through. Many
observers of the political environment are of the opinion that the
nation’s judiciary has gone political.
Yet, the decadence in the 2007 elections is unending. At the last count,
Governor Olusegun Agagu of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has been
ordered out of the Government House, Akure on the grounds of fraudulent
electoral processes, while his counterpart of the Labour Party (LP), Dr.
Olusegun Mimiko is declared by the electoral tribunal as the one duly
elected by the people to be the Governor of Ondo state. Expectedly, the
judgment will be appealed against.
The Appeal court which is the final arbiter in gubernatorial election
petition matters is perceived to easily dangle in favour of the incumbents
as it manifested in Osun state, hence encouraging incessant appeals.
In the notorious Osun case, it was an open secret bribe scandal among the
tribunal electoral judges as Governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola of the PDP was
upheld against Mr. Rauf Adesoji Aregbesola of the Action Congress. The
overzealousness with which delivery of the judgment was given tantamount
to a ridicule of the judiciary even in the face of protested motion by the
opposition party to arrest the judgment on the grounds of perceived
foul-play and corrupt tendencies levied against the electoral tribunal
judges of a grand design to subvert justice and rule in favour of the
ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). And so it went.
Worst still, the electoral judges did not consider the frightening and
damaging allegations against them important enough to clear the air before
rushing to give judgment, perhaps, borne out of their desperate
determination and desire to do their job to a final completion.
In Enugu, Imo and Kebbi, the Appeal courts outrightly overturned the
verdicts of the lower courts which had earlier nullified the governorship
elections of the states, thus allowing the governors unhindered access and
to expressly cling to their seats.
For Adamawa, Bayelsa and Kogi which also had their respective INEC
mandates nullified by the various election tribunals of the states on
issues that bothered on gross electoral irregularities and violations, the
re-run that was ordered saw all the incumbent back to their respective
offices courtesy of almighty INEC.
The Independent National Electoral Commission, the supposed umpire of the
game have become subtle and readily instrument in the hands of disgruntled
and unscrupulous politicians to usurp true democratic governance in
Nigeria and foist leadership on the poor masses. Thus, in INEC’s renewed
efforts, the means is so perfected in a more scientific and hitch-free
re-run elections strategy - the more you look, the less you see.
In Port Harcourt the Rivers state capital, the situation can be likened to
the biblical saying that the wicked can never go unpunished. Therefore, it
was a twist of fate for Rotimi Amechi as the court found out that Dr.
Celestine Omehia whose name was wrongfully excluded from the ballot has to
be substituted as the duly elected Governor of Rivers state being the
rightful and authentic aspirant who in the first instance emerged from the
primaries selection processes of the PDP before he was unconstitutionally
excluded in a game of political power play by the bigwigs of the PDP.
As for Cross Rivers, it is a case of double tragedy for Governor Liyel
Imoke who has been stripped of his electoral mandate and ordered out of
the Governor’s office in Calabar by the Court of Appeal, while there are
also strong indications that the ex-minister may soon answer to charges at
the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) as it is being
speculated of his indictment by the much talked about House of
Representatives Power probe. However, INEC is yet to fix a date for a
re-run election.
Senator Liyel Imoke was a one time Minister of the Ministry of Power and
Energy during the Obasanjo’s regime in which over N16bn of the power
sector is said to have been siphoned into private pockets. Many political
observers have been calling for his arrest in that connection.
In the spectacular case of Mr. Peter Obi, popularly known as “Peter the
Rock”, the Supreme Court queried INECs discretionary powers, and
wondered whose interest it was serving in conducting the governorship
election in 2007 in Anambra state whereas the tenure of the incumbent is
yet to expire, and runs until 2010.
The Supreme Court was so furious with Prof. Maurice Iwu’s INEC and
lamblasted its very desperate ploy to unseat Governor Peter Obi just to
make way for Chief Andy Oba of the PDP, even against a pending judgment of
a competent court of jurisdiction for it to maintain the status quo.
By these excesses, unarguably, the Independent National Electoral
Commission has lost its credibility as a fair and just umpire in the
conduct of elections in Nigeria as it has soiled its hands in too many
political oil waters. However, the nation is still hopeful that there will
be radical changes in the ongoing electoral reforms to safeguard the
nation from palpable collapse.
Former president of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Comrade Adams Oshiomole,
and now gubernatorial candidate of the Edo state Action Congress (AC) in a
landmark judgment was ordered by the electoral tribunal which sat in Benin
City to take over from PDP Governor Osherimen Osunbor of the PDP since Dr.
Osumbor’s ill gotten INEC mandate could not pass the test of the law.
The case files of the Edo state governorship petition, like its Delta
state counterpart are still gathering dust in what seemed like a near
stalemate at the Court of Appeal in Benin, and the electorates are still
hoping to get justice and who eventually wears the crown of their
mandates.
For the Abia state Governor, Dr. Theodore Kalu of the Peoples Progressive
Alliance (PPA) whose case is still pending at the Court of Appeal, Port
Harcourt, the situation has degenerated to a case of threat to life by
dare-devil robbers or a near militant situation where sporadic shooting
and mayhem was recently unleashed on the governor’s convoy in
circumstances perceived to be politically motivated. As usual, the
Nigerian Police is still investigating the matter.
It was again a sham of the judiciary as the Court of Appeal concluded in
the Sokoto governorship election petition that a man who was unqualified
to be on the ballot as a candidate of the ruling party, having at the
close of nominations been certified as the candidate of an opposition
party could somehow mysteriously qualify for a judicially ordered re-run
election, notwithstanding the fact that no change had occurred in the
underlying circumstances. And before you can pronounce the acronym -“INEC” the “anointed faithful” had been return back to the
Government House by the INEC Professor.
However, it was not business as usual as some of the apostles of the
ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo’s crooked regime are gradually falling
apart to give way to some level of genuineness in the polity and to allow
for a rather more transparent political dynamism in the country.
Alhaji Ibrahim Mantu, former Deputy Senate President and one of the
foremost crusaders of the Obasanjo’s failed tenure elongation campaign
again failed woefully in his bid to smuggle his way back to the National
Assembly. Mantu lost the Plateau Central Senatorial re-run election seat
to Senator Sati Gogwin of the Action Congress.
Former president Olusegun Obasanjo, the mastermind of the evils of the
2007 elections and Prof. Maurice Iwu, Chairman of the Independent National
Electoral Commission (INEC) and the executor of the hatchet jobs are
strongly believed to have supervised the distribution of these
controversial mandates of the 2007 elections to their favoured selected
candidates. These seemingly partners in crime only seem helplessly
watching the messy situation from a distance with virtually no meaningful
contribution to reverse the ugly trend, rather than bury their heads in
total shame.
The analogy that best describe the messy situation of the Nigerian
political nightmare can be likened to a man, perhaps with good skin and
body structure, but dressed in a stolen cloth given to him as a gift by
another. You may not need an extra alarm to be at alert that these men
dressed on stolen cloths stand the risk of being mobbed in any descent
society, more so, as the cloth is being stigmatized in the public as
stolen.
In the face of these misnomer therefore, it would not be totally strange
whenever you see the gathering of about 100 political associates who
professes to be leaders, and who proclaims the peoples mandates, that
about 99.9 of them are always surrounded and secured by mobile policemen
for the fear of the unknown. These so-called political leaders are afraid
of the very people they claim to be representing. What an irony of
leadership.
So far, the much heated debate and controversy being generated about the
biasness of the INEC in favour of the PDP in the conduct of the 2007
elections is becoming clearer by the day.
A critical examination of the electoral cases across the federation
reveals that the PDP is the only party among the 50 registered political
parties which has cases of sharp and fraudulent electoral practices dotted
all around the tribunals of the 36 states including the FCT; ranging from
the presidency to the councillorship wards in almost every local
government area. Yet, the Independent National Electoral Commission still
appears desperate.
Political analysts are of the view that the results so far from the
election petitions across the country are evidences of a system in grave
crisis and speak volume for itself. No thanks to ex-president Olusegun
Obasanjo, Prof. Maurice Iwu and the Independent National Electoral
Commission for dragging us back this far.
The judiciary, therefore, being the last hope of the common man, should as
a matter of fact and urgency too, wake up from its slumber and genuinely
restore normalcy to the failing system to ensure enhanced and efficient
democratic governance in the country, rather than seen to be enmeshed in a
scandalous and an unholy romance with those who intend to derail our
collective destiny and toy with our future in their selfish and desperate
bid to perpetually enslave us to enable them clinch to power to amass
wealth for personal aggrandizement.
Edoreh F. Edoreh
0 8 0 5 4 1 6 1 7 6 9