Will INEC Yield to Court Orders on Akpabio?

GAVEL

Udora Orizu writes that the ruling by a Federal High Court in Abuja ordering the Independent National Electoral Commission to accept and publish the name of Godswill Akpabio as the candidate of the All Progressives Congress for Akwa Ibom North/West senatorial district for 2023, may be a breach of the Electoral Act

Last week, a Federal High Court in Abuja ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to accept and publish the name of Godswill Akpabio as the candidate of the All Progressive Congress (APC) for Akwa Ibom North/West senatorial district for 2023.

In the last three months, INEC had engaged in a battle of words with several critics and political analysts who believe that the electoral body may reinstate Senate President, Dr. Ahmad Lawan and former Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio as the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidates for Yobe North senatorial district and Akwa Ibom North West senatorial districts come 2023.

Akpabio and Lawan were both presidential aspirants on the platform of APC for the 2023 general election but lost out to Ahmed Bola Tinubu.

Since then they have been making frantic efforts to claim the senatorial tickets of the party for the Yobe North and Akwa Ibom North West senatorial districts, respectively.

But, Bashir Machina (Yobe North) and Udom Ekpoudom (Akwa Ibom North West) who had earlier emerged as candidates in the primaries supervised by INEC officials in their respective senatorial zones, have refused to withdraw from the contest to pave the way for the two party bigwigs.

Though the APC submitted Akpabio and Lawan’s names to INEC, the electoral umpire had rejected the names, insisting that it would only recognise those who won the primary elections.

However, there are fears and speculations that INEC may have doctored documents to allow Lawan and Akpabio actualise their senatorial ambitions despite not participating in APC primaries.

A media report last month claimed that INEC had backdated Certified True Copies of reports of the APC primaries “to accommodate” Lawan and Akpabio.

But in a statement by its spokesperson, Mr. Festus Okoye, INEC denied doctoring or certifying any document in favour of either of the two APC chieftains. The commission said it had followed through its timetable, adding that there was no point in its schedules where the names of the persons in question were published.

“The forms of the two personalities in question were not published by the commission. The decision of the commission triggered legal actions which are still ongoing. It therefore defies logic and common sense to go around and submit doctored documents purportedly recognising the duo as candidates when the matter is clearly sub-judice,” the statement said.

Okoye said the copy of the form uploaded on the online news platform as evidence, was not properly fact-checked and had thereby encouraged misinformation. He called for responsible reporting of the development just as he described the story by the online platform as an unwarranted attack on the electoral body.

Meanwhile, delivering judgment in a suit marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/1011/2022 and filed and prosecuted for the APC and Akpabio, Justice Emeka Nwite, held that INEC acted illegally by refusing to accept and publish Akpabio’s name when it was submitted to it by the APC as its candidate.

Justice Nwite found that Akpabio was validly nominated as the Akwaibom North/West Senatorial District candidate of the APC from the primary conducted by the party’s National Working Committee (NWC) on June 9, 2022.

The judge declared that INEC “is bound by the provisions of Section 29 (3) of the Electoral Act to publish only the personal particulars of the candidate of the first plaintiff for the Akwa-Ibom North/West Senatorial District elections in the person of the second plaintiff (Akpabio) as received from the first plaintiff.

The judge also declared that INEC cannot publish any other name or particulars of any other candidate as candidate of the APC for the Akwa – lbom North/West Senatorial District elections, “except as nominated, submitted and received from the first plaintiff (APC).

Justice Nwite held that INEC’s claim that it had monitored an illegal primaries and could not monitor the one conducted by the APC’s NWC, was not tenable and unlawful because it is only the NWC of a political party that can conduct valid primaries.

He then ordered INEC to publish the name and particulars of Akpabio as the candidate of the APC for the Akwa-Iborn North/West Senatorial District in the 2023 general election as nominated and submitted to it by the party.

Justice Nwite rejected INEC’s claimed that it declined to monitor the primary conducted by APC on June 9, which produces Akpabio as the party’s candidate, because it had monitored the one conducted on May 27.

The judge faulted INEC for electing to monitor the May 27 primary, conducted by an illegal faction of the party led by Augustine Ekanem as against the June 9 primary authorized conducted by the APC NWC, an organ of the party authorised by law to conduct such primaries.

Justice Nwite said: “I am of the view that the defendant (INEC) cannot choose and impose a candidate on a political party. The fact that INEC chose to monitor an illegal primary and produce a report, cannot give it legitimacy. INEC cannot unilaterally pronounce a primary conducted by a political party or a candidate submitted to it as invalid, without a valid court order.”

With this ruling there are concerns about the court being biased. The judiciary is an indispensable part of the institutional bulwark of every nation and its nation building efforts. Of all the branches of government, the judiciary is charged with dispensing justice according to law and facts, which must be done without bias or ill-will. Concerns are also mounting on the fate of Ekpoudom who legally won his election, what becomes of him if INEC decides to go with court ruling?

Akpabio, from the onset broke the Electoral Act by standing for two positions in the same election period.

Section 115 (D) of the Electoral Act, 2022 stipulates that no person shall sign, or obtain more than one form as a candidate for different elections. If found guilty the offender is liable to two years imprisonment.

Despite repeated assurances by the electoral body that it had not altered electoral documents in favour of Lawan, and Akpabio, with this ruling by the high court, concerns have continued to mount on whether the electoral umpire will go against the rule of law and yield to the demand of the ruling party and the court to pave the way for the two party bigwigs.