12 Dec 2008 |
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The Supreme Court and Yar’Adua’s Victory by Chido Onumah It would have been a real surprise if the Supreme Court of Nigeria ruled otherwise in the presidential election petition. The question is: why did it take them so long? As one writer put it: “The timing is important … Yar’Adua was to some degree being held hostage by the Supreme Court's delay. It's possible that he has done enough to assuage the fears of his backers who were holding this decision over his head and they are now comfortable with letting their chip go…” The Guardian online (12/12/08), reported that the Supreme Court upheld the decision of the Court of Appeal that lawyers did not provide strong enough evidence the irregularities that marred the 2007 election were pervasive to overturn the official result. What was the level of evidence that these lawyers needed to show that the election was a sham? According to the presidential candidate of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) in the 2007 general elections, Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (rtd), “This judgment is overtly perverse in the sense that it was agreed by all parties in chambers in the lower court that depositions would be accepted without oral testimony. For the courts to now turn round and conclude that there was no evidence is squalid in the extreme." I witnessed the 2007 election in Abuja as an unofficial observer. I also took reports from colleagues who travelled to other States as observers. The result was a damning indictment of Prof. Maurice Iwu and INEC; a bizarre lesson on how not to conduct elections: ballot papers didn’t arrive on time, numerous cases of misprinted ballots, reports of violence in many cities, poor information and lack of coordination on the part of INEC, including the indiscriminate disqualification of candidates and the non-serialization of ballot papers which the dissenting justices said was “enough to nullify the entire poll result”. Everybody who had anything to do with the 2007 presidential election, except for INEC and the “winners”, were of the opinion that it was one of the worst, if not the worst election, in Nigeria. Even the president has had reason to admit that the 2007 election was characterized by “irregularities and flaws”. The Supreme Court tried to diminish the role of the media as an integral part of the democratic process by claiming that the “justices would not submit to media and ‘Internet’ blackmails in giving a judgement”. I do not think there was any deliberate attempt on the part of the media to “blackmail” the Justices of the Supreme Court. The media simply played its traditional watchdog role during and after the 2007 election. There are two quick lessons Nigeria can learn from this: the Independent National Electoral Commission really needs to be an independent organisation so that it can play the role of an unbiased umpire; election petitions must be resolved not more than a month after the election, certainly before the “winners” are sworn in. That there was a dissenting decision by three out of the seven justices is consolation that all hope is not lost for our judiciary. The world is waiting to read the full dissenting opinions of Justices George Adeshola Oguntade, Aloma Mariam Mukthar and Walter Samuel Onnoghen. Meanwhile, now that the Supreme Court has validated his victory, let us hope President Umaru Yar’Adua, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, will actually start running Nigeria the way a country in dire straits ought to be run.
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