WITH the judiciary replacing voters in Nigerian elections, it is time all stakeholders heed the call for voters, not the courts, to decide the winner of polls ahead of the 2027 general elections.
John Onaiyekan, Archbishop Emeritus, Catholic Diocese of Abuja, recently joined the clamour to entrench credible elections as a way out of the serial usurpation of the right of voters to choose their leaders by the courts.
Afam Osigwe, a former Nigerian Bar Association president, agreed with Onaiyekan.
Earlier, former President Goodluck Jonathan lamented the role of the judiciary in determining election outcomes.
All of them are right.
In a Keynote Address at the 22nd All Nigeria Editors’ Conference in Enugu in September, Onaiyekan said, “The judiciary is supposed to be the last stage in the electoral process. It should be stressed that the judiciary is not to determine elections about who wins, but rather to adjudicate disputes when they arise…If elections were well conducted, there ought not to be any need for judicial cases. The tribunals were supposed to be there just in case.”
The cardinal proposed a seven-point agenda to transform and sanitise the electoral system.
They include appointment of the INEC chairman and commissioners by organs other than the President; institution of a special election tribunal with a time frame for determining election litigation; conclusion of election cases before the swearing-in of winners; and introduction of independent election candidature, especially local government elections, to curb “the tyranny of political parties and their ruthless godfathers.”
Others are a two-round presidential system requiring a winner to score 50 per cent to be declared the winner, and where there is a tie, the two leading political parties should go into a second round; and a rule requiring candidates who defect to another party to seek re-election under the platform of their new party.
Onaiyekan’s position resonates widely.
In 2020, the Supreme Court declared Hope Uzodimma the governor-elect of Imo State, although the umpire declared Emeka Ihedioha the winner.
In 2022, the Supreme Court declared Senate President Godswill Akpabio and his predecessor Ahmed Lawan as the winners of their party’s primaries in violation of the Electoral Act that prohibited a contestant from running for more than one office in the same election cycle,
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo recently lamented the absurdity of courts usurping the role of INEC and voters in declaring election winners.
Other Nigerians who joined their voices with the cardinal at the conference included the Obi of Onitsha, Alfred Achebe; the governor of Enugu State, Peter Mbah; Patrick Utomi; and the President of NGE and Editor of Vanguard Newspapers, Eze Anaba.
These interventions are necessary to rescue Nigeria’s captured elections and democracy and guarantee the desired free, fair, peaceful and credible elections.
It is fitting that this popular clamour is on a telegraphic rise as the country approaches the 2027 general elections. This compelling call must persist until the elections are concluded.
Public clamour, especially by well-meaning Nigerians, is one of the potent weapons to sensitise the people to own and defend democracy and rally the critical stakeholders to entrench the right strategies to make elections credible.
In a democracy, votes are weapons of transfer and use of power in trust. The people are the owners of democracy and the appointers of government.
Owing to fraudulent elections, quality politicking and governance are, unfortunately, largely absent in Nigeria. Fraudulent elections supplant votes and transfer the power of the people to choose to the courts whose corruptive tendencies are even more corrosive than the voters’ fraud they are asked to correct.
Apart from the 2015 presidential election, every other presidential election has been decided by the Supreme Court, just as a slew of governorship elections, including those of Akwa Ibom, Benue, Enugu, Lagos, Oyo, Ondo and Ekiti, have been determined by litigation.
The Supreme Court declared Adegboyega Oyetola as the winner of the governorship election in 2022 in Osun and Hope Uzodimma as the governor of Imo State in controversial circumstances in 2020 rather than ordering a rerun for the electorate to decide their governors. This is judicial tyranny and an unnecessary usurpation of the powers of voters and INEC.
These election disputes have created litigation bazaars and “billionaire judges,” according to the late Kayode Eso, a Justice of the Supreme Court.
Pronouncement of conflicting judgements by courts of coordinate jurisdiction is an unwholesome addition to the corruption of electoral litigation and mangling of the electoral process.
Fraudulent elections have enthroned low voter turnout at elections and forced the people to shun elections in the belief that votes do not count.
INEC confirmed that elections since 2007 have witnessed a steady voter turnout decline: 57.54 per cent voter turnout was recorded in 2007, 53.68 per cent in 2011, 43.65 per cent in 2015, 34.75 per cent in 2019 and 26.72 per cent in 2023.
Fair and credible elections are the springboards of democracy and good governance. They are the only routes to entrenching people’s right to own their government, sanitise the polity and chase out political impostors and non-performers.
It is sacrilegious to cede such a right to the courts or any organ, for that matter.
The 51 per cent voter turnout during the August Osun governorship election, despite threats and other antics, has demonstrated the power and willingness of Nigerians to shun politicians’ manipulations, vote their conscience and entrench their own choice. Nigerians must imbibe the Osun spirit to shut the courts out of the electoral process.
In a democracy, votes put politicians in office, put guns in the hands of the security officers, provide medicines in hospitals, create jobs, provide education for the children and transform the economy into a prosperous and secure country.
Conversely, fraudulent elections supplant votes and transfer the power of the people to choose to the courts.
The Chief Justice of Nigeria, Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, should rally the National Judicial Commission to prosecute erring judges.
As it has promised repeatedly, INEC must conduct elections devoid of fraud, and the security agencies should ensure violence-free polls.
The people must own their democracy and rescue it from judicial impostors.