Not many Nigerians saw it coming the way it did, otherwise they would have drawn a word of caution from the words of William Shakespeare in one of his classic works, McBeth where he said: “And be these juggling fiends no more believed, That palter with us in a double sense; That keep the word of promise to our ear, And break it to our hope.”
Even though Nigeria’s Presidential Elections Petition Tribunal (PEPT) Judges did not personally give the promise, the very arm of government (Judiciary) they represent is the last hope of the common man as a purveyor of justice – and that is the promise.
How about all the promises made to the Nigerian people months and weeks leading to the elections by Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, Chairman of the nation’s electoral umpire, known as the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC)? How about the promises of the Electoral Act 2022 (amended)?
However, on September 6, 2023, five Nigerian Judges, by their actions, egregiously maimed the very system they swore to uphold when they engaged in gross miscarriage of justice.
On February 25, 2023, the people of Nigeria went to the polls to elect a new president and members of the National Assembly. It turned out to be one of the most tension-soaked elections in the history of the country.
It was because the average Nigerian voter desperately desired a change at various levels of government. On top of the target of the masses for a change was the presidency, given the fact that previous occupiers of the seat had blatantly dashed their hopes.
Muhammadu Buhari, the last occupier of the Presidential Palace known as Aso Rock, for instance, was viewed by most Nigerians as the most incompetent in the history of the country.
Under Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC), the country was thrown under the bus of mind-boggling corruption, extreme nepotism, heart-wrenching insecurity, and hyperinflationary trends.
Among the presidential contestants were Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP); Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Pary (PDP) and Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the then ruling All Progressives Congress.
Of all the three candidates, Bola Ahmed Tinubu was grossly embroiled in multiple scandals about his age, education, drug related issues etc., a development which was very nauseating to the Nigerian masses.
Most importantly, shortly before the Presidential Election, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) severally promised the people that the electioneering process would involve the electronic transfer of results from the polling units/centres, as contained in the nation’s Electoral Act 2022.
It was part of INEC’s much touted plans to checkmate electoral malpractices for which Nigeria democratic space has been indisputably known.
This, they vowed to do by using the much talked about and touted BIVAS and the Card Reader (devices that were used by INEC to conduct previous elections in states like Edo, Ekiti and Osun States respectively).
Ironically, on the day of the presidential election, the Chairman of INEC, Prof. Mahmoud Yakubu shocked Nigerian voters by resorting to manual transfer of results that emanated from the crucial elections, while results from the National Assembly election conducted the same day were electronically transferred from the polling units/centers.
Reports of massive electoral riggings, voter intimidation, vote buying, stealing of ballot boxes, killings, among other horrendous crimes characterized the elections.
It was a grandiose unprecedented display of political barbarism and brigandage, especially, as displayed by many of APC/Tinubu’s supporters as seen by the whole world.
Bola Ahmed Tinubu ended up being declared the winner of the controversial election by INEC Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu and was subsequently sworn in as Nigeria’s new president on May 29, 2023.
Honest local and International Election observers, including the European Union, all captured the electoral malpractices and incidents in their reports, classifying the polls as heavily flawed, citing instances, such as stated above.
When the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT) was constituted by the appellate court, most Nigerian voters felt justice would be served; so, they remained calm as Atiku Abubakar, the Presidential flagbearer of the PDP and Peter Obi of the LP challenged Tinubu’s victory.
But on September 6, 2023, Nigerian voters were aghast when the PEPT ruled in favor of Bola Ahmed Tinubu, saying that INEC could use any method it deems fit to conduct election (without even resorting to the much talked about electronic transfer of results) – a very strange and disappointing verdict which has forever cast a dark shadow on the Nigerian judiciary.
Above all, the brazen disregard for the 25% mandatory provision in the 1999 Nigerian Constitution (as amended) that a presidential candidate must secure in Abuja, as part of the conditions to win the Presidency and the massive electoral malpractices represents an outright validation and celebration of electoral fraud and brigandage.
PEPT, also not only ruled that there was no evidence that Bola Ahmed Tinubu was a drug courier in the United States; it rejected the European Union’s Report about the 2023 Presidential Election which was tendered as evidence by Peter Obi to support his claim of a heavily tainted or compromised presidential polls.
Besides, the Tribunal threw out ten of the thirteenth witnesses called by Peter Obi and the Labour Party.
One of the most annoying aspects of the judgement was that instead of reprimanding INEC, and its Chief, Prof. Mahmoud Yakubu who presided over the massively rigged elections, the judgement tended to glorify and project them as winners.
The judgement also tended to project them as above the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the Electoral Act 2022 (as amended).
The deliberate decision of INEC to abandon the use of electronic transfer of the results of the said election, as mandated by the 2022 Electoral Act (as amended), no doubt was the hallmark of the orchestrated plan to rig the election.
The PEPT’s judgement in our view amounted to stabbing Nigerian voters whose votes were stolen on the back as it only protected election riggers.
Since the delivery of the judgement, several legal scholars have wondered what happened, how we got here as a nation, especially for an election that was envisaged to be a reference point in measuring successful subsequent polls in the country.
Elder statesmen, leaders, retired judges, lawyers, and activists, who recently spoke to Saturday Vanguard, faulted the judgment, saying that the operators, not necessarily the nation’s laws, were the problem of democracy in Nigeria.
They expressed dissatisfaction that the PEPT did not dispense justice on the glaring issues that arose from the elections tabled before it for determination.
According to former Attorney General of Akwa Ibom State and a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Uwem Edimo Nwoko: “My position built on my experience, over the years, both as a lawyer and participant in the electoral process would be that human beings are the architects of the unfortunate democratic experience we are having.
“Why do I say so? The laws we have today, particularly the Electoral Act 2022, can engineer a perfect electoral process, but the problems lie with those executing and implementing the law.”
There is no doubt that the appellate judges in PEPT rode roughshod against the will of Nigerian voters and denied them their choice of president.
In Alltimepost.com Special Report published on April 24, 2023, we captured the fraudulent involvement in the rigging of the election by those educated elite who are supposed to be the beacon of hope for Nigeria’s fledgling democracy.
Rather, they went to the mud with uncouth politicians to attack the very foundation of the country for pecuniary benefits.
In the report titled, Electoral Heist: When Nigerian Varsity Professors, VCs Turn Enemies Of Democracy, was the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law Intersociety’s disclosure that it found out that no fewer than 50 top Nigerian university professors who played various conspiratorial roles in rigging and voter suppression in the February 25 Presidential/National Assembly and the March 18, 2023 Governorship/State Houses of Assembly elections were identified.
Among the fifty university professors conspiratorially or vicariously involved were 34 Vice Chancellors and a Deputy Vice-Chancellor drawn from Federal, State, and Private Universities across the country.
The record revealed that, apart from the 50 culpably or conspiratorially involved, many other Nigerian University Professors were culpable.
Also involved, were Doctorate Degree holders and other former top military, police, and spy police officers, and former ministers and Government Commissioners.
A responsible Government ought to ensure that the institution such as the judiciary works transparently and independently; instead, we see extreme exploitation in the hands of those who have programmed themselves to inherit the machinery of supreme political power in Nigeria, by hook and force.
Sadly, the idea of free and fair elections is an illusion in Nigeria, as the presidency in cahoots with some elements in the judiciary have turned statutory cum constitutional clauses in managing electioneering process into a disaster of an unimaginable proportion.
We are concerned that the democratization process in Nigeria is becoming a mirage as the deep irregularities embedded in the structure of electoral game is mind boggling.
If the crime committed by Mahmood Yakubu’s INEC, using some corrupt university Professors/Vice Chancellors is not acknowledged and the people involved punished, Nigeria does not deserve to conduct any further elections under the guise of democracy as it is a mockery of the system when the peoples’ votes do not count.
With the next level of possible redress being the Supreme Court of Nigeria, it is extremely important for the survival of democracy in Nigeria that the Apex Court takes a critical look at where the Tribunal erred in law and make amend.
That way the people’s confidence in the judiciary would be restored, fortifying the nation’s democratic institutions.
Right now, what we have in Nigeria is an institutional and systemic disaster – a system, bereft of checks and balances, where people only care about their own personal interests as opposed to that of the nation. This has been the bane of the Nigerian nation since its birth.
The judiciary and INEC need an urgent reform. As for INEC, it should be disbanded and replaced with a new commission comprised of properly vetted men and women of impeccable characters representing the academia, the human rights and civil society and must be truly independent of any government in power.
The current practice where the government/party in power has absolute control over an organization that is supposed to be independent is abhorrent, anti-people and anti-democratic and must be stopped.
The Nigerian people need to step up with agitation to make this, among others happen, as it will be an exercise in futility to expect that those in government who got into offices through the INEC-corrupt system will have the courage and political will to initiate the move.
We must note without any equivocations, that any system of government that denies the people justice, equity and fairness cannot stand – it is only a matter of time. A word is enough for the wise!
An Alltimepost.com Editorial. Email: publisher@alltimepost.com
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