Mobilisation against Judicial Verdicts in Abia

Don Ubani

E ither deliberately or by error, but most probably deliberately, the drafters of 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, as amended, made the courts the final arbiters in the country’s electoral process.

Apart from winning overall majority votes in an election, there are conditions precedent that a contestant must have to fulfill.

To this extent, the said constitution stipulates qualifications for each elective position that the contestant shall possess.

In the case of the governor of a state, the Constitution clearly states in Section 177(c) that a contestant shall be a member of a political party and shall be sponsored by that political party.

Drawing its strength from the above Section 177(c), the National Assembly made a legislation which became an Electoral Act in 2022. Section 77(2) of the Act states that ‘every political party shall have/maintain a membership register of its members in soft and hard copy’. Section 77(3) stipulates that ‘every political party shall submit its membership register not later than 30 days to the date fixed for its primary elections, congresses and convention’. This simply means that every contestant in an election conducted by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), shall be sponsored by a registered political party, as there is no provision for an independent candidate.

These constitutional and Electoral Requirements are a sin qua non for any aspirant to the office of state governor. Any person placing emphasis only on Section 77 of the 2022 Electoral Act without juxtaposing it with Section 177(c) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, as amended, is simply deliberately but vainly being on a mischievous mission.

For election into the National Assembly, Section 65(2)(b) stipulates that a ‘Contestant shall be a member of a political party and shall be sponsored by that Political Party’.

The 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, as amended, is the country’s grundnorm. It provides the underlying basis for Nigeria’s legal system. Anything that is done in contradiction to its dictates shall amount to building something on nothing.

The truth that is quite glaring is that almost all members of Labour Party in Abia State who contested the 2023 general election were not only members of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, but were aspirants who had bought nomination forms in PDP and were also successfully screened. Few of them, like Governor Otti, were in APC.

As at the time they migrated to Labour Party, their names were not in the membership register of Labour Party, that was if the party had any membership register at all.

Taking a cue from proceedings in state Governorship Election Petition Tribunal that was in the state not long ago, it was obvious that the purported state congress of Labour Party in Abia State took place on 1st June, 2022 while, ironically, the waiver the party Chairman of Labour Party, Mr Igara, tendered as proof of Governor Otti’s membership of Labour Party was dated 2nd of June, 2022.

What the said waiver, which was tendered by deposition by the State Chairman of Labour Party in Abia State, showed was that Governor Otti became a member of Labour Party in Abia State only after the state congress that was expected to produce the governorship candidate of the party had come and gone. Can this be funny?

That the Court of Appeal in Lagos based its judgment in the appeal filed by Col Austin Akobundu of PDP against Hon Darlington Nwokocha of Labour Party, in favour of the appellant, Col Austin Akobundu, who is now the Senator-elect for Abia-Central Senatorial District, on Section 65(2)(b), stands unassailable.

It is, therefore, embarrassingly discomforting to observe that Governor Otti of Abia State surreptitiously hugely used state resources at his disposal to  mobilise his party members to openly protest against judges at the state Capital, Umuahia, today.

By mobilising party members who, as it were, were joined by hoodlums against members of the judiciary simply because they adhered to the provisions of Section 65(2)(b) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, as amended, and Section 77 (2) and (3) of the Electoral Act 2022, Governor Otti has only succeeded in poisoning the minds of Labour Party members in Abia State against members of the judiciary. This, surely, puts the lives and safety of judicial officers who may wish to visit the State in future to a very big risk.

Thank God, the top hierarchy of the Nigerian Judiciary had foreseen intemperate disposition of Contestants like Governor Otti and had wisely moved the siting of the Appeal Court out of Abia State, it would have been very difficult to guarantee the lives of the Honourable Justices of the Appeal Court from unimaginable conduct of an irate members of the Labour Party that Governor Otti would, most probably, have instigated against the Justices.

Centre For Equity And Eradication of Rural Poverty commends the Justices of Court of Appeal for upholding the tenets of 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, as amended. That is the way to go. The Court is the final Arbiter in this circumstance and the case stands closed.

The Centre equally believes that, in the same vein, the Judiciary will stick very tenaciously to upholding the Constitutional Provision of Section 177(c) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, as amended, and Section 77 (2) and (3) of the 2022 Electoral Act in Petitions relating to state governorship elections.

Centre For Equity and Eradication of Rural Poverty strongly thinks that it is by observing strict adherence to the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria that the country’s constitutional democracy can be best sustained.

Sir Ubani is a former Commissioner for Information and Strategy in Abia State