Last Tuesday, respected human rights and public good advocate, Femi Falana (SAN), raised the alarm that the Bar and the Bench (lawyers and judges) were gradually emerging as the main threat to peaceful 2027 general elections and possible transition. In picking his culprits, he hoisted the conflicting judgements from two federal courts of coordinate jurisdiction (same/parallel authority) on the power of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to fix dates and deadlines for the processes and political parties’ activities that would culminate in their participation of the elections.
While Justice Mohammed Umar of the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja invalidated INEC’s current timeline and deadlines for political parties to complete their nomination processes including an early submission of their membership registers, days after, his brother justice, just across the same Abuja street, Justice J.K Omotoso upheld the invalidated portions of the timetable, throwing the polity into a spin.
You wonder what is the big deal about INEC’s timetable being partially disrupted by a court of competent jurisdiction. The tweaked Electoral Act requires political parties to submit their membership registers before their primaries and dual membership is an electoral crime. With the ruling party packed to the hilt with aspirations and ambitions, the decision of its leadership to keep the nomination exercise till the expiration of the membership register submission, was widely read as a trap to “hold down” (that Wike/Makinde coinage) disgruntled aspirants and make platform-change impossible for them, for the ventilation of their ambitions after being edged out in the ruling party.
After the usual mumbling and grumbling about the ruling party’s perceived “legislative coup” in the alteration of the Electoral Act to allegedly confer undue advantage on itself, everyone appeared to be settling into the usual “cooling down” and resignation to helplessness when Justice Umar suddenly prised open the “prison” gate, for ambitions to start flying out of the “cocoon” they were trapped.
It was a judgement practically unexpected. When I broke the story to the camp of a frontline APC governorship aspirant in a North Central state, (he was eventually muscled out of where he is currently and where he was aspiring to), the first reaction was “please who engineered this (the judgement)” and I was like “why the concern when you can just take the advantage and seek a new platform if you are certain you can win a statewide election”. But his camp was intent on knowing who were “behind” the plaintiff, the Youth Party, and eventually a name came up; a staunch member of the ruling APC who once vied for the presidency.
There is a Yoruba adage about the family of concubine retaining as much scheming/sense as the husband’s (bi a se gbon nile oko la gbon nile ale). Nobody has monopoly of shenanigans. There is also another assuring truism about muni-muni (arrester) and the gbani-gbani (redeemer) being available in almost equal measure. Within hours of Justice Umar’s surprise “chain-breaker”, aspirants began porting, mostly wounded APC soldiers, resigning from the ruling party and joining opposition platforms, to confront their former allies in the general election. Of course, they are also not going to work for the presidential candidate of their new opponent. What a circular movement and a circus!
But it would appear those who wanted to hold others down won’t let the “bondage” end easily. Pharaoh, despite the 10 plagues, wouldn’t even let the children of Israel easily out of bondage of about 114 years (history says they weren’t enslaved for the whole of the 430 years spent in exile. They were first well received because of Joseph until a Pharaoh who didn’t know Joseph, now late, came into power. About 215 years of the 430 years were also spent in Canaan after leaving Egypt, going by historians’ accounts). He pursued and almost overtook before the Divine stepped in, loosened the ball joints of the pursuers’ chariots and drowned them all, including Pharaoh. That was in the Bible days, someone would say.
Instead of chasing to the physical Red Sea, it is the proverbial one in Nigeria’s courtroom the pursuers and freedom-seekers landed. Within days of the let-my-people-go judgement of Justice Umar, the Red Sea situation reemerged in Justice Omotoso’s court. Despite INEC’s appeal of the earlier judgement and application to stay enforcement, Omotoso seemed much in a hurry to stop the “crossing” of the sea in-between. He had to issue a new order just like Pharaoh who wanted to reimpose “captivity”.
Falana’s tone suggested indignation, knocking Omotoso and asking the National Judicial Council (NJC) to step in before the wigged ones (lawyers and judges) derail the barely-balanced civil rule in the country.
Remonstrating, he said: “The judgments of the both courts of coordinate jurisdiction has caused unnecessary confusion in the polity. While Justice Muhammed Umar of the Federal High Court has limited INEC’s powers by barring it from imposing deadlines that conflict with statutory provisions, Justice A. K. Omotosho of the same Court has affirmed INEC’s authority to issue timetable that includes timelines for party primaries. INEC has been empowered to choose and pick which of the judgments to complied with.
“The National Judicial Council had repeatedly cautioned Judges to desist from issuing conflicting orders whilst lawyers have equally been warned by the Nigerian Bar Association to stop filing cases that are programmed to cause Judges to issue conflicting orders.
“In the instant case, Justice Omotosho ought to have allowed the Court of Appeal to determine the validity of the judgment of Justice Muhammed Umar instead of issuing conflicting orders.
“The National Judicial Council and the Nigerian Bar Association should speedily investigate the circumstances surrounding the issuance of conflicting orders in the cases of Youth Party v INEC and Social Democratic Party v INEC.
“Unless the Judges and lawyers involved in the legal charade are called to order, the 2027 election may be sabotaged by Judges and lawyers as was the case in 1993 when the Ibrahim Babangida military junta anchored the annulment of the results of the June 12 presidential election on conflicting orders of Nigerian courts.”
When I reached the judiciary leadership last week with the Falana jurisprudential epistle, providence arranged it in a way the leading lights were huddling, but in faraway place from home. But they got the message. The Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun CJNship is too radical to let a situation like this, slip and sleep. While I can’t assure on the number of heads that may go with the judicial embarrassment and recklessness, it is certain the return of the leadership to Nigeria would almost mirror the famous ipada bo Abija story (the return of Abija, the dreaded one).
Proverbs 22:15 says: “Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.”
Only God knows what Bishop Ajayi Crowther was thinking in his translation of Bible to the Yoruba language from English Language when he rendered “foolishness” as “were” (madness in Yoruba), laying the scripture out as “aya omode ni were di si, pasan ibawi ni yio le jade”.
Of course it is madness to keep doing same thing and expect a different outcome. If judges continue to behave like the proverbial/Biblical child with professional “madness” bound to their hearts, Me Lord should continue using her rod of correction. The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) is undoubtedly embroiled in its own electoral/succession crisis (many are alleging that ex-Lagos governor Fashola is uncharacteristically trying to foist a surrogate on the Body against the wish of majority of South West lawyers) but the outgoing leadership (also being accused of imposition), would have to pause with the Bar politics and join hands with the CJN in taming the monster about consuming our democracy. If two seniors lawyers receive heavy punishment, others will think twice before embarking on “negotiated” forum shopping again, though their sponsors in the political arena, may be untouchable for now.
In the ensuing lawfare against the 2027 poll, there are other notable public good advocates who are picking another culprit for the ill-wind about consuming the democratic experience. Their pick is Joash Amupitan’s INEC. There are times God will just work you out of consideration for what is considered a chummy job to keep hassles away from you. Government institutions are becoming so patently partisan that defending them in certain instances, would ridicule even the best of image managers. Yes, INEC is the respondent in the Youth Party’s suit that opened a floodgate to aspiring defectors but the electoral body is expected to be neutral, which should normally see it complying with judicial orders and not fight them on appeal.
The question is: Will Amupitan be challenging the outcome of the judicial move if initiated by the ruling party or opposition elements sympathetic to the ruling party? Why would his INEC be quick to embrace the other judgement in the suit initiated by SDP which has been suspected of playing the ruling APC’s devil’s advocate and with alacrity, appealed the earlier order, on the same subject matter? There are times defending Amupitan’s alleged lack of partisan insularity, or not to hide words under the tongue as the Yoruba will describe tongue-in-cheek, his APC or more like Tinubu-centric disposition to his national job, is like defending Judas Iscariot and his 30 pieces of shekel bribe money, to “sell” Jesus.
Amupitan should remember history. Only Attahiru Jega, in recent memory, can be pointed as former INEC chair who barely escaped with his integrity. History is spitting on the rest.
Last Friday, firebrand Oby Ozekwesili, Olawale Okunniyi, Usman Bugaje and a host of other activists operating under the banner of Movement for Credible Election (MCE) unloaded on Amupitan’s INEC for choosing the appeal way against just obeying the declarative orders of Justice Umar.
Just a scenario will justify their vituperation. The same Amupitan’s INEC rushed to obey the odds-and-ends ruling assumably “sacking” the David Mark-led national leadership of the leading opposition; African Democratic Congress (ADC) despite same not being the final judicial pronouncement on the leadership crisis in the party, believed to have been engineered by the ruling party.
Will history not piss on Amupitan’s memory like this?
