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This article is in response to an article written by one Ikenna Ellis-Ezenekwe titled: “Andy Uba remains the Legally Sworn in Governor” published in the Nigeriavillagesquare on Tuesday, 4th day of March 2008. In the said article, Mr Ellis-Ezenekwe said:
”And in the case of Supreme Court judgment received by Peter Obi, it is important a point be made that the Justices of the Supreme Court only adjudicated on the constitutional interpretation of a governor’s tenure and not on whether the gubernatorial elections conducted in Anambra. It is also important a point be noted that the Justices’ mention of the gubernatorial election as having been conducted in error by the INEC was NOT a Supreme Court decision. The comment was made in passing while rendering the judgment that Peter Obi’s tenure will last till March 2010 and that the seating governor should vacate the seat.”
Mr Ellis-Ezenekwe continued:
“In the first place, it ought to be made clear that the federal appeals court ruling does not stand in conflict with the judgment of the Supreme Court….. The federal appeals court only adjudicated on the electoral matter brought to its court. It ruled that the gubernatorial election of
April 14, 2007
as valid and that the inauguration and swearing in of the then Governor Andy Uba in
May 29, 2007
as valid. And through extrapolative deduction, it implies that the election of 2007 stands while that gubernatorial election of 2003 which saw Peter Obi as the winner, also stands”
In one of my articles titled: “Before the Court of Appeal Rule of Governor Obi’s Term” published in Nigeriaworld on Wednesday 16th day of May 2007, I discussed extensively the merits of Peter Obi’s challenges and why the Court of Appeal at the time should interpret the constitution and rule in his favor. However, the Court of Appeal did not accept my view and went ahead to dismiss Obi’s appeal. Obi was undaunted and took his prayer to the Supreme Court. It was the very decision of the Supreme Court that Andy Uba and his hatchet men are trying to see if there is a way for them to circumvent its effects on them.
For starters I wish to give a little run down of the events leading up to the latest state of affairs. A gubernatorial election was conducted in
Anambra
State
in April 2003. Dr Chris Ngige of PDP was declared the winner of the election by virtue of the massive rigging supervised by the discredited kingmaker, Chief Chris Uba. Peter Obi, the flag-bearer of APGA challenged the monumental fraud in the Election Tribunal. As Mr Obi’s challenge in the tribunal was going on, Dr Ngige was sworn in as the duly elected governor of the state on the 29th day of May 2003. Mr Obi fought for the return of his mandate for 3 years and won at the tribunal. Dr Ngige appealed to the Court of Appeal and the later court upheld the decision of the tribunal and on the 15th day of March, ruled that Peter Obi and not Dr Chris Ngige was the winner of the election as Obi scored the highest number of votes. After the decision of the Court of Appeal in his favor, Governor Obi was sworn in on 17th day of March 2006.
As Dr Chris Ngige had already ruled for 3 years leaving barely 1 year for Peter Obi, the latter headed to the Federal High Court,
Enugu
, for interpretation of Section 180 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria with regard to his tenure. The Federal High Court declined jurisdiction and struck out Obi’s case. Obi appealed to the Court of Appeal but the latter court also declined jurisdiction and dismissed Obi’s appeal. Undaunted, Obi proceeded to the Supreme Court. In a nutshell, that section of the constitution stated that tenure of office for a governor starts from the day the governor is sworn in and took the oath of allegiance.
As his fight for the interpretation of the constitution was going on, Independent Electoral Commission under Professor Maurice Iwu, purportedly conducted an election to the office of the governor on
the 17th April, 2007
. Dr. Andy Uba was declared the winner of election eventhough reports had it that there was no election as many people waited in vain to vote on that day but there were no ballot papers even as at 7pm on that day in many places. Andy Uba purportedly won the election and was sworn in as governor of
Anambra
State
. It has to be noted that few days before his swearing in, the Supreme Court warned him that if finally they determine that Obi’s case has merit, that he would be ordered to pack and go. However, few weeks after his swearing in, and by a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court on
June 14th 2007
found for Governor Obi and declared that Obi’s tenure subsists until
March 17, 2010
to enable him to serve out his tenure.
Armed with the Supreme Court’s ground-breaking judgment in his favor, Governor Peter Obi resumed his tenure. But not satisfied with the answer he got from the Apex court, Andy Uba went back to the Supreme Court asking it to reverse itself. Last month, the Supreme Court by another unanimous decision, dismissed Andy Uba’s appeal for reversal.
As this was going on, there were series of petitions against Andy Uba purported election of
the 17th April, 2007
. After the Supreme Court decision reinstating Governor Obi, the election tribunal struck out the election petitions as in its opinion, the petitions have been overtaken by events. The intervening circumstances being the Supreme Court’s decision that an election was purportedly held for a position that was never vacant.
Still not satisfied from the apex court’s decision reinstating Governor Obi, Andy Uba went to the Court of Appeal to determine that his election was not rendered nugatory by the decision of the Supreme Court, and that the election tribunal decision that the election petition has been overtaken by the Supreme Court judgment was given per incuriam (in error). The Court of Appeal, erroneously found for him!
It was on the strength of that ruling that informed the article of Mr. Ellis-Ezenekwe. I must say upfront that the ruling of the Court of Appeal is totally misguided, erroneous and an affront to the hierarchy of courts in
Nigeria
. Even the uninitiated knows that the Supreme Court is the highest court in the land and all its decision are binding on every inferior court including the Court of Appeal.
Section 287 of the I999 Constitution stated clearly that:
"The decision of the Supreme Court shall be enforced in any part of the federation by all authorities and persons and by courts with subordinate jurisdiction to that of the Supreme Court".
By the above section of the constitution; any decision by the Court of Appeal in contrast with that of the Supreme Court, no matter how slight, is a nullity. It would amount to a judicial anarchy for a Court of Appeal to go contrary to decision of the Supreme Court.
There is an age-long legal maxim called ‘stare decisis’ (stand by what was decided). That means that there is a guideline that judges follow whenever they determine cases. They cannot go against the superior court of records. Again, even if a decision of a superior court was reached in error, the court is still bound by the decision of the superior court unless and until that decision is overruled by the Supreme Court. Even the Supreme Courts decision is binding also on the Supreme Court unless it overrule itself.
Also, there is this well-known principle of law that there must be an end to litigation. There must be a conclusion to every legal cause of action. For some people that would never take “no” for an answer, they would forever be deceiving themselves thinking that they can buy every Supreme Court Justice.
The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria clearly stated in Section 178(2) that:
“An election to the office of Governor of a State shall be held on a date not earlier than sixty days and not later than thirty days before the expiration of the term of office of the last holder of that office.”
That being the case, the INEC was in violation of the constitution by going ahead with an election knowing full well that there was a contentious case before the Supreme Court bordering on interpretation of the constitution with regard to Gov Obi’s term of office which could possible render nugatory any election to that position of governor.
According to Section 1(1) of the constitution:
“This Constitution is supreme and its provisions shall have binding force on the authorities and persons throughout the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”
The case instituted by Obi had a 50-50 chance, an INEC would have reasoned that it would be prudent to wait and see how it would turn out before going ahead with an election. However, Iwu’s INEC went ahead and purportedly organized an election, which in his little mind would circumvent whatever the decision of the Supreme Court would be in order to install his benefactor, Andy Uba.
This means that the purported election of Andy Uba as governor was an illegal act and subsequently, the mere act of swearing in of Andy Uba as governor did not cure that illegality. Going by this decision, the only time the INEC could validly organized an election to that office is 60 days before
March 17th 2010
.
Consequently, the article of Mr Ezenekwe arguing that Andy Uba is remains the sworn in governor of
Anambra
State
is pitiful to say the least. Basically, what Mr. Ezenekwe is arguing is that the Court of Appeal decision makes Andy Uba a governor-in-waiting or worse still a co-governor. It is nowhere in our constitution that there would be two governors in a state at the same time. Andy Uba’s fate was sealed by not one, but two Supreme Court decisions. The post of governor was already occupied as at
May 19th 2007
, and any election to that office cannot be said to exist in law.
He also argued that Andy Uba’s election stands and that come
March 17, 2010
; Andy Uba would go back to the Government House, since in his opinion, the recent Court of Appeal decision did not contradict the decision of the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court decision as the Election Tribunal in Awka had ruled took the foundation off of any other petition pertaining to the governorship election of April 2007. Mr Ezenekwe also argued that the apex court’s ruling did not cover the fairness or otherwise of the April 2007 election. That is a correct observation. However, what he failed to understand is that the Supreme Court’s decision has rendered impotent any act in form of election to the seat of governor held on
the 17th April 2007
.
By the combined effects of Sections 1, 178, and 287 of the constitution, whatever election that was held on
the 14th April 2007
, was an exercise in futility, and a wild geese chase as was ruled by the Supreme Court last month. It is biologically impossible for a woman to conceive a second time while she is still pregnant. That in essence is what the apex court was saying.
The kernel of the Supreme Court decision as it affects INEC was that it went on to conduct an election to a position that was not vacant. This is a violation of the afore-mentioned Section 178 of the Constitution. This means that whatever the result of the election to an office that was not vacant is an exercise in futility. Whether or not the result was free and fair is immaterial.
According to the Lord Denning in the case of Mcfoy Vs.UAC:
“When an act is void, it is in law a nullity. It is not only bad but incurably bad. There is no need for an order of the court to set it aside. It is automatically null and void without much ado….You cannot place something on nothing and expect it to stand, it would collapse”
Andy Uba and his co-travelers continue to think that they can buy
Anambra
State
with their stupendous ill-gotten wealth. It is not going to happen. One has expected Ikenna Ellis-Ezenekwe, having fallen from grace to grass and having been discredited as a hack-writer or "pepper-soup journalist, aplologies Alozie Ogugbuaja; to know that his cover has since been blown. After his nanka.org was discredited and after his Nanka town people cautioned him to stop using their town's name to curry favor and bring notoriety to them, he formed ukpakareport.com.
It was reported that he also formed ogene.com for same reason which is to take his act of blackmail to court the highest bidder. It was also reported by Governor Obi’s Media Assistant that it was because Governor Obi refused to give him contract that made Mr Ezenekwe to sell his conscience to Andy Uba with the aim of frustrating Gov Obi efforts to turn the state around. He went on publishing falsehood against the sterling activities of the Governor Peter Obi.
However, despite Ezenekwe’s antics, only yesterday,
4th March, 2007
, it was reported in the Guardian Newspapers that Anambra government under Gov. Obi has paid down the state debt from $107 million to $15 million. It was also reported that
Anambra
State
has maintained its lead as the most improved state in the country according to the World Bank and European Union records. This should be cheering news to the people of
Anambra
State
all over the globe.
It is really very unfortunate that our so-called intellectuals can stoop so low to illiterate money-miss-roads. It is for the acts of people like Ezenekwe that all these illiterate money-bags do not respect Nigerian intellectuals scattered all over the world. It it for this reason that young people look up not to hard work and education but to these money bags because our so-called intellectuals like Ezenekwe has sold their souls cheap for crump at the table of Andy Uba and people like him.
Anambra people will continue to do like the owl’s kinsmen. The owl farted and asked his kinsmen to beat drums for him. His kindred told him “tufiakwa” we cannot beat drum for an abomination. Anambra people will continue to resist the antics of the Uba brothers and his retinue of praise-singers and hack-writers. We shall never, ever be conquered by Uba brothers and all the people of his ilk.
*Chukwudi Nwokoye writes in from Upper
Marlboro
,
Maryland
,
USA
and can be reached at nwokoyeac@hotmail.com
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Posted by Robot| 05.03.2008 21:46