Come Friday March 2, the Supreme Court will deliver ruling on a case that will ultimately test its integrity and commitment to the cause of justice. While it has at various instances upheld the sanctity of the judiciary in Nigeria, its decision on March 2 may either buoy its public rating or smash it.????
In rare twist of fate, former Governor of Imo State, Ikedi Ohakim is asking the apex court to set aside the decision it took on the April 2007 poll that brought him to power. During that election, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had cancelled the results of the poll in which Martin Agbaso, the candidate of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), claimed victory.
A rerun was subsequently conducted and based on the result declared by INEC; Ohakim, who was the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), was issued a certificate of return. Angered by this, Agbaso had dragged INEC, Ohakim and the PDP to court, challenging the legitimacy of INEC’s cancellation of the poll he claimed to have won convincingly.
First, he applied to the High Court for an order of mandamus to compel INEC to announce the result of the first election held on April 14, 2007 in line with the provisions of Electoral Act 2006. He also sought the cancellation of the re-run election of April 28, 2007 won by Ohakim on the grounds that INEC had no power to annul an already concluded election.
As the case moved from the Election Tribunal to the Appeal Tribunal and then to the Supreme Court, Ohakim had fielded some of the best lawyers in the country to prove that INEC had the right to cancel an election which had been concluded.? In fact, he had asked the apex court to determine whether INEC could be challenged for cancelling a concluded election, just as it did in the April 14, 2007 gubernatorial election in Imo State.
In the appeal in which INEC, under the Chairmanship of Prof. Maurice Iwu joined as an appellant, Ohakim had also asked the Supreme Court to set aside the decision of the Court of Appeal, Abuja division in which it held that INEC can be challenged on the issue of the cancelled poll by any aggrieved contestant. The appellants canvassed that since a re-run election had been conducted and a winner emerged, no court has jurisdiction to entertain any suit on the cancelled poll. The apex court gave its ruling on July 16, 2010 and Ohakim was the beneficiary of the ruling. The victory was sweet as the former governor and his teeming supporters in the PDP called a party. Agbaso and APGA went home and licked their wounds.
However, the table turned during the April 2011 poll when INEC again cancelled the results of the gubernatorial election conducted in some parts of the state. Just as it did during the 2007 polls, the electoral body conducted supplementary poll in the three council areas and a ward where the results were declared inconclusive. The affected councils included Mbaitoli, Ngor-Okpala, Ohaji/Egbema, Orji ward in Owerri North LGA.? At the end of the supplementary elections helkd on May 6, 2011, Rochas Okorocha, the candidate of APGA was declared winner.?
Not given to throwing a pity party, the tough-talking former governor decided to contest the cancellation of elections in the disputed council areas and ward. He again gathered some of the eggheads in the nation’s judiciary and stepped into the legal ring, to wrestle with Okorocha, APGA and INEC. Just like Agbaso, the former governor and the PDP approached the Election Petitions Tribunal to declare the May 6, 2011 supplementary election illegal and revalidate the results obtained during the April 26 polls which he claimed to have won. However, the gods of law were averse to these prayers and through the tribunal, they passed a damning no verdict.?
The Tribunal insisted that the case was dead before its arrival and therefore should be thrown in a trash basket. And it was so done. Not satisfied with the outcome at the tribunal, Ohakim and his co-political travellers sought redress at the Court of Appeal.? Again they lost. He then took the battle to the Supreme Court, where its justices will likely make their decision on the matter known Friday March 2.
As the apex court is set to decide on the contentious case, some Nigerians have expressed disappointment that the former governor is trying to reverse a ruling that he benefited from in the past. Ohakim, who is now wearing Agbaso’s shoes, is kneeling at the altar of justice to beg the gods to favour him.
But foremost constitutional lawyer, Prof. Itse Sagay (SAN) is appalled by the action of the former governor. Sagay, who described the whole case as “contradiction,” said the position of the law is that INEC can cancel an election if the result of the first one has not been announced; and insisted that that was the case in the May 6 governorship election in Imo State. He argued that has been announced, INEC would have lost the legal right to declare the election inconclusive.????
Sagay said it was regrettable that after congratulating Okorocha on his victory, Ohakim turned around to challenge the same election in court.? He came strongly on the argument canvased by Ohakim and his lawyers that the election was held outside the stipulated timetable for the 2011.? He said, “The argument by Ohakim and his lawyers that the supplementary election was held outside the timetable for the 2011 poll is nonsense. It was indeed part of the same election that was inconclusive. We must learn to interpret our laws in good faith.”?
However, a former President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Olisa Agbakoba (SAN), who was Agbaso’s counsel when the case first came up before the apex court in 2010 said the case has “become a joke,” saying that “it is not good for our rule of law.”
Agbakoba expressed so much disappointment at what is happening at the apex court. He said, “I have a lot of disappointment with the major actors in this case. It is unfortunate that when the Supreme Court gives orders and the lower court fails to obey, nothing happens to such erring judges. I also blame the lawyers who blow hot and cold at the same time. You see some SANs on one side of a case, and the next time, he is speaking on the other side. It is not good for our rule of law. We also have litigants who do not want to lose cases and they do everything to ensure that they don’t. Ohakim knew that INEC cannot cancel election. Why is he now in the opposition? Today, he finds it very convenient to stand on the other side. It has become a joke.” In a disparaging tone, he continued, “I blame the lawyers, the judges and political office holders for what is happening. But most of all, I think it is high time the court became more assertive in dismissing such lawyers and litigants who want to make a mockery of the judicial system.”
However, human rights lawyer, Mr. Wahab Shittu said Ohakim, having submitted to the apex court is “rendering a valuable service to the nation’s jurisprudence. “Any attempt by participants in the political process to ventilate their grievances through the judicial process can only deepen the democratic process and enrich the cause of jurisprudence,” he argued.
Shittu insists that it is better to for all the parties and Nigerians to wait and see how the pronouncement of the apex court on the matter would deepen the nation’s democratic experience.
No matter the side which the pendulum would swing on March 2, it is important for the justices of the apex court to know that Nigerians don’t expect anything less from them. In fact, the justices of the highest court in the land are standing at the threshold of history and they cannot afford to fail the country at this critical stage of its democratic experience. Recent events have shown that Nigerians demand not only a stable polity and improved democracy but are also? unwilling to accept anything less.