Stalemate in Plateau Assembly over Supreme Court Verdict

The judgment of the Supreme Court, which upheld the election of Governor Caleb Mutfwang of Plateau State is fuelling crisis in the state House of Assembly and unsettling the state, writes Seriki Adinoyi

The All Progressives Congress (APC) last week charged the Speaker of Plateau House of Assembly, Gabriel Dawan, to swear in the party’s 16 members affirmed last year by the Court of Appeal as duly elected.

Addressing journalists in Abuja, the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Felix Morka, said the speaker’s refusal to swear in the 16 members was “violently contemptuous of the authority of the Court of Appeal, the highest court for the determination of election petition matters as it concerns the House of Assembly.”

The 16 members were issued Certificates of Return by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on December 24, 2023, after the Election Petitions Tribunal and the Court of Appeal sacked 16 members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

The APC’s warning came two weeks after attempt by the 16 sacked lawmakers elected on the platform of the PDP in the state assembly to make good their threat to resume legislative duties caused a stir in the state

While addressing journalists in Jos, the state capital, the 16 sacked lawmakers had cautioned their colleagues on the platform APC against resuming duties, claiming they are the authentic members of the state assembly, voted into office by the people of the state.

They cited the Supreme Court’s judgment that overturned the decision of the Court of Appeal and reinstated Governor Caleb Mutfwang as the duly elected governor of the state.

The Court of Appeal’s decision, which was nullified by the Supreme Court, had led to the dismissal of the 16 lawmakers and six members of the National Assembly.

But by the time the 16 sacked lawmakers arrived the assembly complex the next day, they met heavy resistance from a detachment of policemen and other security operatives who had taken over the premises of the Government House and prevented them from going into the chambers of the assembly.

Addressing journalists after emerging from the chamber, the Speaker of the state assembly, Gabriel Dewan, advised the sacked lawmakers to be law-abiding, saying he was in possession of the court order mandating him to maintain status quo.

Recall that the Supreme Court while setting aside the judgment of the Court of Appeal, which sacked Governor Mutfwang, had lamented that the judgment of the appellate court had caused many to suffer injustice.

The people who suffered the injustice more were the state and federal lawmakers who were also sacked by the Appeal Court as they had no chance to appeal the judgments as Mutfwang did.

The composition of the 24-member assembly before the Appeal Court judgment was: PDP-16, APC-seven and Young Progressive Party (YPP)-one. But after the judgment, which sacked all the PDP members and gave their seats to the APC, the number of APC members rose to 23 with one YPP member.

But before the PDP lawmakers were sacked by the court, the Speaker, who was a member of the PDP immediately resigned and the only YPP member of the assembly, Dewan, was elected as Speaker with the support of the PDP members, and immediately sworn in.

Dewan immediately suspended plenary indefinitely shortly before the PDP members were sacked. Since then, he has refused to reconvene the assembly on the ground that the complex is under renovation.

But the Supreme Court, while delivering judgment, regretted that despite several decisions of the Supreme Court that tribunals and courts lacked the jurisdiction to dabble into the internal affairs of political parties, some justices could still go ahead to sack a winner of an election on the grounds of political parties’ primaries, nomination or sponsorship.

The apex court reversed the decision of the appellate court for being perverse because the issue of the primary election that produced Mutfwang was outside the jurisdiction of the tribunal and the Appeal Court. 

Justice Emmanuel Agim, who read the judgment, said that the issue of sponsorship had elapsed long ago, as the law stipulates that a person challenging the nomination or sponsorship of a candidate for an election must institute the legal action within 14 days from which such illegality was said to have occurred.

The presiding judge, Justice John Okoro probably referring to Plateau lawmakers, lamented that “a lot of people have suffered” because of the wrongful judgments of the appellate court which had sacked several legislators who won elections on the platform of the PDP.

Justice Helen Ogunwumiju also berated the appellate court for going into the issue of nomination and sponsorship, despite several decisions of the apex court to the effect that a political party cannot challenge the primary election of another.

Since the judgments of the apex court, there has been outrage and frustration by Nigerians, especially the electorate from Plateau State.

While some have called for the outright sack of the panel of the Court of Appeal that sat on the appeals, others alleged that the President of the court, Justice Monica Dongban-Mensem was unduly influenced by politicians to cause the miscarriage of justice.

They alleged that she used the judgments to compensate her kinsman, Senator Simon Lalong, who had allegedly favoured her.

They cited the fact that while many states had two panels sitting to hear appeals on national and state assemblies, Justice Dongban-Mensem only allowed a single panel to hear the appeals in Plateau State. This enabled the justices on the panel to effectively sack all the PDP lawmakers in the state.

Discussing the issue, a senior lawyer, Chidi Odinkalu said that Mr. Lalong appointed Justice Dongban-Mensem’s daughter, Buetanaan Mandy Dongban-Bassi, a judge of the High Court of Plateau State, adding that her mother sat on the  National Judicial Council (NJC) panel, which approved her appointment. “Two years later, in September 2023, the same NJC sent Buetnaan’s husband and Justice Dongban-Mensem’s son-in-law, Paul to the Court of Appeal.”

Meanwhile, some aggrieved politicians and other stakeholders have urged the affected legislators to approach the NJC to compel the Court of Appeal to review the judgments.

The judicial crisis has caused growing tension in the state assembly where the APC candidates that currently hold the Certificates of Return are mounting pressure on the Speaker of the assembly to reconvene and swear them in at once.

They believe that further delay to their swearing-in may count against them with the rising agitation for the NJC to review the Appeal Court judgments.

But Dewan had insisted that the 16 APC lawmakers would not be recognised until the interpretation of the Supreme Court judgment, which ruled that the actions and judgment of the Appeal Court were faulty and an abuse of court processes. He stressed that he would only recognise eight members out of the 24 lawmakers.

 For peace to return to the state assembly, the miscarriage of justice on the PDP lawmakers has to be addressed, especially now that it is obvious that the judgments which sacked them were compromised.