By Goddy Ikeh
Unfortunately, the verdict of the Supreme Court that affirmed Tinubu as winner of the presidential election has no doubt dealt a serious blow on the confidence of millions of Nigerians in the judiciary. Perhaps, the valedictory speech of the retired Justice of the Supreme Court has further exposed the rots in the nation’s judiciary that have continued to affect justice delivery in the country.
When the seven Justices of the Supreme Court rejected the plea of the lead counsel to Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in the February 25 presidential poll, to admit the new evidence tendered to show that Bola Tinubu submitted forged documents to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, which was predicated on the grounds that presenting forged documents by any candidate, especially by one for the highest office in the land, was a grave constitutional issue that should not be encouraged, it became obvious that judgment would be sacrificed on the altar of technicality.
The apex court also ruled that the suits filed by Atiku Abubakar and the Labour Party’s (LP) Peter Obi, also lacked merit and dismissed them and went ahead to affirm that Bola Tinubu of the APC won the election. However, this judgment attracted mixed reactions from Nigerians since the Supreme Court is the court of last resort.
While the APC and President Tinubu hailed the judgment of the team of seven justices headed by Justice Inyang Okoro, the opposition and their supporters flawed the judgment, saying that the justices relied on technicalities to dismiss the appeal.
In his reaction to the judgment, President Tinubu said that the verdict would lay to rest the agitating discourse over who truly won the 2023 Presidential election and met the constitutional requirements as laid out by law. He praised the Justices, who presided over the matter for their diligence and undaunted professionalism.
According to him, their judgment has once again affirmed that the governing APC, had freely and fairly won the popular mandate of Nigerians, which has since given rise to his leadership. In a statement issued on Thursday, October 26, 2023, he described the Supreme Court ruling as further consolidation and embedding of the nation’s electoral jurisprudence and constitutional democracy.
“Our Renewed Hope agenda for a greater and prosperous Nigeria has further gained momentum and I will continue to work from morning to night, every single day, to build a country that meets our collective yearnings and aspirations,” he said.
Former President Muhammadu Buhari in his reaction to the judgment, said that the ruling was a welcome relief to him and to a majority of the citizens. “Now that we have arrived at the last bus stop, after a tortuous eight months of expensive legal journey, the nation deserves a break. The opposition has fought a good fight. Having now exhausted their rights as constitutionally allowed, they should take the hand of fellowship extended by the Tinubu/Shettima APC government,” he said in a statement issued by his media aide Graba Shehu.
The APC governors, including Dapo Abiodun of Ogun State, Abdulahi Sule of Nasarawa State, Abdulrahman Abdulrazak (Kwara), Babajide Sanwo-Olu (Lagos), Yahaya Bello (Kogi) and Rev. Fr. Hycinth Alia (Benue) and the national Chairman of the APC, Abdulahi Ganduje and the National Security Adviser, NSA, Nuhu Ribadu congratulated Tinubu for his victory. For them, the President’s victory at the Supreme Court would enable him to focus on the business at hand, which is governance.
But the opposition and their supporters dismissed the Supreme Court’s verdict. The PDP said that it was appalled by the judgment, while LP alleged that the executive has hijacked the judiciary and the legislature. In a statement by Debo Ologunagba, PDP’s national publicity secretary, said: “It is indeed a sad commentary for our democracy that the Supreme Court failed to uphold the provisions of the law. Instead, it trashed the expectation of majority of Nigerians who looked up to it as a Temple of Impartiality to deliver substantial justice in the matter having regards to the laws and facts of the case.
“Nigerians earnestly expected the Supreme Court to uphold and defend the clear provisions of the 1999 Constitution in terms of qualification and minimum requirement for a winner to be declared in a presidential election in Nigeria, especially with regards to the required statutory 25 per cent of votes in the FCT as well as issues of violation of electoral rules, brazen manipulations and alterations of election results by the APC.”
According to the PDP, Nigerians are still at a loss as to how the Supreme Court condoned the serious issues of forgery, falsehood, and perjury on the altar of technicalities. The party also noted that “this judgment by the Supreme Court has evidently shaken the confidence of Nigerians in the judiciary, especially the Supreme Court as the last hope of the common man.”
In his reaction, a Chieftain of the PDP, Bode Gorge, disagreed with the judgment of the Supreme Court, especially on the issue of obtaining 25 per cent of votes cast in Abuja by a presidential candidate and mode of transmission of results of the elections by INEC. Responding to questions by Arise Television programme on the verdict of the Supreme Court, George, who was a former military governor and retired naval officer, however, blamed the nation’s Constitution for most of the political and governance issues in the country and called for the review of the Constitution in order to reduce the power of the centre and allow the resources in the states to be used to develop the states. According to him, the current Constitution is too military for a democratic nation.
In the same vein, the Chairman of Labour Party, Julius Abure, said that the party was disappointed, but had decided to charge on and remain optimistic for what the future holds for the nation. According to him, what happened from the day of the 2023 presidential election and now showed that the nation was already sliding towards dictatorship.
Besides the verdict of the Supreme Court, some prominent Nigerians have suggested the pathway to salvage the nation with its battered institutions, including that of the judiciary, INEC and the nation’s politics.
For instance, an elder statesman and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, Robert Clarke, called for a change of the Constitution as well as a review of the Electoral Act to avoid controversies that characterize the country’s elections.
“If we have a law that allows you and I to participate in politics, we won’t allow those rascals in the political parties to be dominating everything,” Clarke said in an interview with ARISE News on Friday, October 27, 2023.
Speaking on the state of politics and the judiciary in Nigeria, Clarke, however, stated that the Constitution cannot be changed, as the people who are meant to change it are the ones who are benefitting from its current state.
“We have to change the constitution. I’m sorry to say this, without changing the constitution, amending the powers of INEC, and, you know, making sure Nigeria, make sure that the elections adhere strictly to the laws, we will always have this problem. Every four years, we will come back to be fighting each other on nothing, and in that process, we are making the politicians happy.
Clarke warned that controversy would never leave the political space in Nigeria. “Let us be honest with ourselves, you cannot remove controversies from politics and all these things. The problem is that the law must be so clear. If the law is clear and there are no manipulators around that law, everybody will be happy that whatever happens, nobody is going to manipulate the law.”
Nigeria, according to him, is so spoilt and if we have a law that allows you and I to participate in politics, “we won’t allow those rascals in the political parties to be dominating everything”.
For the former Chairman of the INEC, Prof. Attahiru Jega, there is need to interrogate the reasons for the failure of real-time upload of the 2023 presidential election results. Jega said that it was important that the appointments in INEC should be transparent and independent of the Presidency.
Reviewing the country’s electoral process in an interview with ARISE News on Tuesday, October 24, 2023, Jega said that it was important to sanitize the process of appointments.
“Resident electoral commissioners should ideally be appointed by the commission. A situation where the person who appointed the chairman and national commissioners is also the same person who nominated or appointed the RECs brings indiscipline into the system and lack of a clear line of authority.
“When we look at the 2023 general election, we know that some people in the corridors of power, succeeded in getting the resident commissioners appointed and regrettably, these RECs were not properly vetted and screened by the senate and they ended up going to states where they disregarded lawful instructions from INEC and where we have seen irregularities largely because, logically, they may be doing the biddings of those who are responsible for their appointments.
“I believe that moving forward as we continue to reform the electoral process, it is very important first of all, to have an independent transparent process, independent of the presidency for the appointment of chairman and commissioners,” he added.
The former INEC boss also said there was need to interrogate the reason for the failure to upload the results specifically with presidential elections. He further called on INEC to improve on their strategy for communication as that would go a long way to resolve a lot of avoidable issues.
Meanwhile, some notable members of the Bench and the Bar had been expressing their views on the various post-election judgments and the perceived integrity and otherwise of the country’s judiciary and the need for urgent reforms of the institution. For instance, a retired Justice of the Supreme Court, Musa Dattijo Muhammad, was said to have excused himself from the seven-man panel that dismissed all the appeals that sought to remove President Tinubu from office, and alleged that the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Olukayode Ariwoola, was abusing the powers of his office.
In his speech at the valedictory session that was organised in his honour by the Supreme Court, he exposed the rots in the nation’s judiciary that have continued to affect justice delivery in the country.
According to local media reports, Justice Muhammad, who spent 47 years in active judicial service, bowed out of the apex court bench on Friday, October 27, 2023, having clocked the mandatory retirement age of 70.
“Considering the number of years, I have spent in judicial service and the position I have attained by the grace of the Almighty, I feel obligated to continue the struggle for reforms for a better Judiciary and would be leaning on the earlier submissions of those before me,” he said.
He maintained that the judiciary, as presently structured, gave so much power to the CJN, who he said, usually take decisions without consulting other justices.
“As presently structured, the CJN is Chairman of the NJC which oversees both the appointment and discipline of judges, he is equally Chair of the Federal Judicial Service Commission, FJSC, the National Judicial Institute, NJI, the Legal Practitioners Privileges Committee, LPPC, that appoints Senior Advocate of Nigeria.
“In my considered opinion, the oversight functions of these bodies should not rest on an individual alone. A person with absolute powers, it is said, corrupts easily and absolutely.
“As Chair of NJC, FJSC, NJI and LPPC, appointments as council, board and commitment members are at his pleasure. He neither confers with fellow justices nor seek their counsel or input on any matter related to these bodies. He has both the final and the only say.
“The CJN has power to appoint 80 per cent of members of the council and 60 per cent of members of FJSC. The same applies to NJI and LPPC. Such enormous powers are effortlessly abused. This needs to change. Continued denial of the existence of this threatening anomaly weakens effective judicial oversight in the country,” he added.
On the current composition of the bench of the apex court, Justice Muhammad alleged that the refusal to fill the vacant slot of South East on the apex court bench, was deliberate, blaming it on “absolute powers vested in the office of the CJN.”
He further stressed that with his retirement, the North Central zone which he represented, would no longer have a Justice on the Supreme Court bench.
“My lord Hon. Justice Ejembi Eko JSC, who also represented the zone retired on 23rd of May 2022. It has been a year and five months now. There has not been any replacement.
“With the passing of my lord, Hon. Justice Chima Centus Nweze, JSC on 29th July 2023, the South East no longer has any presence at the Supreme Court. My lord, Hon. Justice Sylvester Nwali Ngwuta JSV died on 7th March 2021. There has not been any appointment in his stead for the South East.
“As it stands, only four geo-political regions- the South-West, South-South, North-West and North-East are represented in the Supreme Court. While the South-South and North-East have two serving justices, the North-West and South-West are fully represented with three each.
“Appropriate steps could have been taken since to fill outstanding vacancies in the apex court. Why have these steps not been timeously taken?
“It is evident that the decision not to fill the vacancies in the court is deliberate. It is all about the absolute powers vested in the office of the CJN and the responsible exercise of same,” the jurist added.
On the issue of membership of the panel that heard the presidential election appeals by candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Atiku Abubakar and the Labour Party, LP, Peter Obi, Justice Muhammad, said: “To ensure justice and transparency in presidential appeals from the lower court, all geo-political zones are required to participate in the hearing.
“It is therefore dangerous for democracy and equity for two entire regions to be left out in the decisions that will affect the generality of Nigerians.
“This is not what our laws envisage. Although it can be posited that no one expected the sudden passing of Hon. Justice Nweze JSC, yet, it has been two years and seven months since previous justice from South-East died and no appointment was made.”
On funding and independence of the Judiciary, the retiring justice bemoaned that though the budgetary allocation for the Judiciary increased from N70 billion that it was in 2015 to N165 billion presently, “Justices and officers’ welfare and the quality of service the judiciary render have continued to decline.”
He noted that it was owing to allegations of corruption and perversion of justice that informed President Muhammadu Buhari’s decision to order the invasion of homes and arrest of some judges in 2016.
“Not done, in 2019 the government accosted, arrested, and arraigned the incumbent Chief Justice before the Code of Conduct Tribunal for alleged underhand conduct. With his retirement apparently negotiated, he was eventually left off the hook.
“In 2022, a letter signed by all other justices of the Supreme Court, including the current Chief Justice, the aggrieved protested against the shabby treatment meted to them by the head of court and the Chief Registrar. In the event, his lordship Ibrahim Tanko Muhammad disengaged ostensibly on grounds of ill-health.
“My lords, distinguished invitees, ladies, and gentlemen, it is obvious that the judiciary I am exiting from is far from the one I voluntarily joined and desired to serve and be identified with. The institution has become something else,” Justice Muhammad lamented.
With the unfavourable reactions that trailed the verdict of the Supreme Court on the presidential polls and the revelations of the rot in the nation’s judiciary, there is an urgent need to carry out a comprehensive reform of the judiciary in order to restore the confidence of millions of Nigerians on this tier of government, which is currently at the lowest ebb and poses a major threat to democratic rule in the country.
