June 12, 2003
April 12 and a Judicial Mockery
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On June 3, 2003, a new National Assembly was inaugurated following the April 12 National Assembly elections. Before the members of the two chambers took their respective oaths of office, they were led to choose their leaders by the clerk of the National Assembly.
At the Senate, Senator Adolphus Wabara, representing Abia South Senatorial district of Abia State emerged as the President of the Senate while at the House of Representatives, Honourable Aminu Bello Masari was elected Speaker of the House.
The circumstances surrounding the emergence of Senator Wabara has been somewhat controversial. It was widely reported after the April 12 National Assembly elections that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Elder Dan Imo, a candidate of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), as the winner of the elections in the Abia South Senatorial district and issued a certificate of election to him. Senator Wabara, being dissatisfied with the declaration, petitioned the election tribunal contesting the victory of Dan Imo.
Without doubt, the legal regime governing elections and electoral issues in Nigeria is very clear. The 1999 Constitution in Section 285(1)(a) & (d) provides for the establishment of the National Assembly Election Tribunals and gave it original jurisdiction, to the exclusion of any court or tribunal, to hear and determine petitions as to the validity of election of any person as a member of the National Assembly; as well as the propriety of any question or petition brought before the election tribunal. This provision is further reinforced by section 131 of the Electoral Act 2002.
But in a dramatic twist of events, Senator Wabara filed a suit at the Federal High Court, Abuja, which court granted him an injunction compelling INEC to issue him a certificate of return. Senator Wabara was thus elected President of the Senate following INEC’s compliance with the said court order. Thereafter, the Senate President-elect had embarked on a thank you visit to Aso Rock (the Presidential Villa), he had also begin to put up a spirited defence on his claim to the senate seat. It is noteworthy that under the provisions of the Electoral Act, a returning officer cannot review his/her decision on declaration of scores of candidates and the return of a candidate, such a review is to be undertaken by an election tribunal.
With this melodrama, a myriad of questions begin to agitate the mind. Does the Federal High Court (FHC) have jurisdiction in this matter? Are INEC and FHC not merely playing to the gallery? Who wants Wabara as senate president at such a grievous cost? In all of these, the judiciary, no doubt, is coming out the worse for it.
In the last four years, the judiciary has worked assiduously to carve a niche for itself as the last anchor of hope for the polity, indeed for the sustenance of democracy in Nigeria.
CRP strongly believes that the judiciary has a critical role to play in the sustenance and stability of our present polity. Posterity will never forgive the judiciary if it allows itself to be used again to destabilize the polity.
CRP therefore calls on the judiciary not to allow itself to be drawn into partisan politics nor compromise its integrity as a truly independent and virile institution of democracy in Nigeria.
Copyright© 2005 Constitutional Rights Project (CRP). All rights reserved.
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