Two Same Sides Of A Coin…1979/2007 Presidential Elections Tribunal Rulings

Prince Charles Dickson

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‘It was the late Bala Usman that once asked “can you buy groundnut with a coin that has ten kobo encrypted on both sides?”.

I would start this essay with the knowledge that a lot has been written already on what will go down in history as the most flawed election tribunal verdict in the nation’s history but by and large again I have chosen to go a step further by taking several steps back.

Few minutes after the Fabiyi ruling, I recall my boss and Chairman of Leadership Newspaper Group had said to me and the Sunday Editor, ‘look, Nigeria is at the edge it needs to fall, so that we can start again, any attempt at moving forward would be a disaster’.

While I completely agree with him, I also believe that another option of avoiding the unavoidable would be to look at the past and see what the issues really are.

At 12.40 p.m on Thursday 16^th August 1979, the Chief Returning Officer, presidential election, F.L.O Menkiti declared at the FEDECO office in Lagos:

I certify that having carried out my duties and the formalities required by the electoral decree 1977, the result of the poll carried out in the federation on the 11^th day of August 1979 is as follows in the order of the number of votes each candidate received:

Alhaji Shehu Shagari 5,688,857

Chief Obafemi Awolowo 4,916,651

Dr. Nnamdi Azikwe 2,822,523

Alhaji Aminu Kano 1,732,113

Alhaji Waziri Ibrahim 1,686,489

Alhaji Shehu Shagari has satisfied the provision of section 34A, sub=section (1) (c) (i) of the electoral decree No. 73 of 1977, that is to say, he has the highest number of votes cast at the elections…

With that announcement and results being expected in one state of the then 19 states, we had a crisis in our hands. In 1979 by the provisions of the Electoral Decree of 1977, for a candidate to be declared a winner in the Presidential election, two conditions had to be fulfilled especially where there was more than two candidates.

The first stipulates that he must have the highest number of votes cast, while also he must get no less than a quarter of the votes cast at the election in each of at least two-thirds of all the states.

In 1979 the issue was about the interpretation of one-quarter of the votes cast in each of at least two-thirds of all the states of the federation. On the night of Monday 13^th August I recall Richard Akinjide then National Legal Adviser of the NPN says that the proper meaning of two-thirds of 19 states was 12 2/3 and not 13.

How things change very little as he was then told to stop playing legal semantics, infact in a response Adeniran Ogunsanya had hoped that the formula would not be adopted  in his words because ‘in the last few weeks we have been shown too many new methods of rigging.

There was the problem of serious flaws in phraseology, and terminological exactitude, some supported FEDECO, and others saw it as goofing in high places.

But basically I want to say that in 1979, it was just a case if 2/3 of 19 is 12 2/3 could we have 2/3 of a person, so if we could not we could not have 2/3 of a state, but a state so therefore the 13^th State theory, and this I am told was proposed by Chief Rotimi Williams now late at the Constitution Drafting Committee some many months back.

It might be interesting to note that the 1979 electoral matter became mathematical rather than political even as the likes of Chike Obi on national television argued the maths out.

It is not news that Awolowo appealed the results but it is instructive that the court then refused Awo’s request for certain documents from the Electoral Commission, many request and documents he asked for were ruled inadmissible.

When the Tribunal ruled Justice B. O. Kazeem the Chairman, I. Aseme and A. B. Wali on Monday gave a unanimous decision that the issues was not whether Shagari got the highest vote but that of if he won less than a quarter cast in at least two-third of all the federation.

They continued that in their view it was obvious that any student in primary school would know what two-third of 19 was…the lawmakers of that subsection must therefore be taken to have intended nothing more than that; and we hold so. Moreover, we are of the view that if the legislature intended anything to the contrary, they would have provided a ‘proviso’ to take care of any possible contingencies.

At the Supreme Court on Wednesday 26^th 1979 the court was divided but the majority which included a certain Mohammed Uwais two interesting points were made.

That, one, though the section of the Electoral Decree in dispute was clumsily worded it is nevertheless devoid of any semantic ambiguity.

Two that until election returns can be computerized in the country ‘the mathematical canon of interpretation’ put forward Professor Awojobi in his testimony would remain impracticable and legally unacceptable.

While the case threw up the issue of the sociology of law, it is good that we observe that there was the political consideration which I would as the case is now see as the place of public opinion and the law, one would agree that the Ogebe Presidential Tribunal in 2008 has created a new phase to include that the same sociology of law be hinged on a corrupt pedestal.

So as it was to some wise men in 1979 who felt that public interest and national interest was in conflict with public policy. So also the ‘unlearned’ of 2008 men chose to have their accounts ‘greened’ at the expense of a new beginning for Nigeria.The Judges that dissented, in 1979 were accused of malcontent in their submission; others simply gave reasons that were at best kindergarten. In the Ogebe era why dissent at all, two sides of the same coin, and again the reason they refuse to show their faces to millions of Nigerians watching that fateful Tuesday.

 Infact I recall that it was the Commissioner For Justice and Attorney General that said that Heads of State had sent congratulatory messages, and offers of cooperation, that the Tafawa Balewa Square venue of the handing over had been bedecked with flags and flowers.

So if the Supreme Court did otherwise it would have amounted to crass legalism on the plate of social good and solidarity.

Like Graham Douglas, like Aondaakaa, how is that at every point we have such characters, today I ask why is that some of us still believe that heaven would have fallen if the right was done.

I can say categorically that the sequence only changed slightly but that except Buhari goes to the United States Supreme Court, the ruling would still be the same, a function of crass legalism, a puncture in the tyre of Yar’Adua’s slow unarticulated vehicle, one full of all sorts of thugs for conductors and drivers.

For now we are all upset but the fact remains that we may never know the collateral damage being done to democracy until the cards start to crumble. On a final note, just in case we have forgotten, all that pertained to the 1979 elections starting from the tribunal to the Supreme Court started and finished before the swearing-in.

Imagine that Buhari gets a heart pace at the Supreme Court, imagine that we would have fresh Presidential election, when and then you don’t want to hear this, Buahri won…well is just an imagination.

Reality is that another chance has gone begging, for my beloved nation, it is again, two same sides of a coin, worthless, Almighty Allah for those that put their trust in You, You protect, for those that put their trust in the ‘PDPzied’ Judiciary as encapsulated by the likes of Fabiyi and Ogebe, save us from them

Robot  Villager

# 1 I certify that having carried out my duties and the f...Read the full article. Posted by Robot| 11.03.2008 11:22

Agidimolaja  Villager

# 2 Are you hidding some facts from your readers?What are in those lines that you clogged together?You may want to rewrite or repost this article so that we may fully understand all that you've written then we can openly respond in full. Thanks! Posted by Agidimolaja| 12.03.2008 00:50