By Aloy Ejimakor<\/p>\n
On January 29, 2016, the Supreme Court made a landmark, and now a highly
\ncontroversial ruling recognizing the Oguebego faction of the Anambra PDP
\nExco as the authentic party leadership in that State. Since that ruling,
\nthere has been a rash of divergent interpretations, the most notable being
\nthe postulation that all the legislators (Federal and State) issuing from
\nthe felled Emeakayi faction have, without more, been nullified; and the
\ncandidates rejected from the Oguebego faction shall now be sworn-in. Of
\nall the interpretations of the true reach of the judgment, this particular
\none is the most over-broad and therefore wrong – for the following
\nreasons:<\/p>\n
First, at page 37 of the judgment, the Court stated that the case “was not
\nabout the conduct of a primary election nor a dispute over which organ of
\nthe political party i.e. the PDP that has the authority and competence to
\nconduct a primary election”. For avoidance of doubt, this very statement
\nwas gleaned, and adopted by the Court from the pleadings filed by the
\nCounsel to Oguebego – the lead appellant and beneficiary-in-chief of the
\njudgment. Under the doctrine of stare decisis, this very part of the
\nruling constitutes the ratio of the judgment and should therefore form the
\nkernel upon which the true reach or limits of the judgment can be
\ndetermined.<\/p>\n
Second, the ‘candidates’ now seeking to cash-in on the judgment, most
\nnotably Annie Okonkwo, Chris Ubah, and Prince Emeka were not parties to
\nthe suit. It’s only Oguebego and his Exco that were parties to the suit.
\nThus, the judgment bears benefits only to Oguebego and his Exco – going
\nforward, and thus cannot relate back to, willy-nilly, award the
\nlegislative seats won by PDP to the extant candidates produced by the
\nOguebego faction.<\/p>\n
Third, Chris Ubah, etc,\u00a0 (non-parties in the suit), and even Oguebego (the
\nparty-in-chief) never requested the Supreme Court to declare them the duly
\nelected legislators. So, given that a Court never gives a relief not
\nprayed for, the judgment stayed true to its limits by tellingly stopping
\nshort of declaring the Oguebego candidates the new occupiers of the
\nlegislative seats at issue. The sole departure – in recent times – from
\nthis universal rule was the case of Amaechi, but which later was repealed
\nby Section 141 of the Electoral Act, and thus is no longer the lex loci
\n(the law of the land).<\/p>\n
Fourth, and to be clear, Section 141 prevents the Courts from declaring a
\ncandidate a winner if he didn’t participate in ALL the stages of the
\nelection. None of the candidates springing from the Oguebego faction
\nparticipated in the general election, either factually or legally, even
\nthough they have argued that they continued with their ‘campaigns’ as
\nnon-candidates. This argument is a fallacy because the ‘participation’
\ncontemplated under Section 141 is one in which the candidate is the
\n‘statutory’ and contemporaneous candidate on the ballot, not a
\nnon-candidate who engaged in a self-serving ‘token’ campaign in the
\nexpectation of, later in time, thwarting the fell consequences of Section
\n141.<\/p>\n
Fifth, it’s not the State Exco, standing alone, that finally, exclusively
\nor ultimately determines who gets the PDP federal legislative nominations.
\nIt is, instead, the PDP National Exco; or at least in conjunction with the
\nState Exco, but with the National Exco having the upper hand. That much
\nhas been upheld by the Courts in all cases in pari materia, including,
\nmost recently, the Court of Appeals in its judgment nullifying the
\nelection of Uche Ekwunife.<\/p>\n
On the basis of the foregoing, it is my considered opinion that INEC
\nshould immediately seek the legal opinion of the Attorney-General of the
\nFederation on whether it can overreach the judgment and proceed with a
\nwhole-scale administrative (not judicial) nullification of all the
\nlegislative seats affected. If the AGF’s gavel falls in favor of such
\nnullification, INEC shall then proceed with a re-run poll in Anambra South
\nand North only, but not in Anambra Central which is still subject to
\nanother primary as ordered by the Court of Appeal. Conversely, it is quite
\nplausible that the AGF might instead wax conservative (and legally more
\nsound) and thereby bear on the side of new primaries, instead of a
\nstraight re-run sans primary.<\/p>\n
Failing AGF’s timely intervention, parties may be emboldened to
\nre-approach the Courts with a flurry of new suits seeking interpretations
\nthat are advantageous to their divergent positions. If this happens, the
\neasiest injunctions that will ensue will be the ones seeking to stop a
\nfree-run swearing-in of all the candidates from the Oguebego line-up; and
\na return of Annie Okonkwo as the candidate, without a new primary, for
\nAnambra Central. To be sure, this later one is still a subject of a
\nsubsisting and potentially meritorious suit by Dr Obiora Okonkwo, one of
\nthe combatants for the Anambra Central PDP senatorial nomination. Plus,
\nVictor Umeh of APGA will most likely proceed to Court and will, in all
\nlikelihood, quickly succeed in stopping PDP from submitting Annie
\nOkonkwo’s name if it turns out that he is not a product of a new primary
\nparticipated in by all or any of the still-interested aspirants from the
\nill-fated PDP primaries of late 2014.<\/p>\n
Aloy Ejimakor, a lawyer writes from alloylaw@yahoo.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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