For the reason that habits of elections in Nigeria is in overall shambolic and inept, as with all the pieces else within the country, I deem it’s proper to ask the credibility of electoral outcomes. It’s equally legit to suspect the independence of the judges who hand out verdicts, along side essentially the most modern one, more so as that the first certified apt copies of the judgment that circulated within the public sphere had a header that be taught “Tinubu Presidential Appropriate Workers.”
In spite of all the pieces, in an August 29, 2020, column titled “Aso Rock Cabal’s Judicial Cabal on Election Petitions,” I exposed confidential knowledge that a high courtroom think shared with me in regards to the sodding apt hideousness of electoral tribunal judgements. The think mentioned there became as soon as a cabal of judicial bandits in Buhari’s Aso Rock who wrote election tribunal judgements.
“The correct writing of the judgments is on the full performed by a consortium of justices and ethical practitioners,” I wrote. “This subversion of justice by a conclave is a low-risk-high-reward endeavor. Participants of the judicial cabal are routinely compensated with promotion and monetary reward.” So, it isn’t a ways-fetched to accuse judges of the PEPT of wheeler dealing.
On the other hand, no neutral, neutral-minded particular person would fail to spy that Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi had after all historical cases. If a judicial cabal wrote the PEPT judgement, Atiku and Obi made the job easy for the cabal.
The centrepiece of the electoral petitions in opposition to Tinubu’s victory became as soon as that Tinubu desires to be disqualified from working for the final presidential election thanks to a complete bunch of issues they alleged in opposition to him, most of which revolved around questions of his irrefutable apt turpitude. Unfortunately, immorality isn’t consistently illegality.
The petitions had been high on emotions, conjectures, apt posturing, grandstanding, logical absurdities (such as insisting that candidates must fetch 25 per cent of the FCT to fetch a presidential election thereby making Abuja more crucial than every phase of Nigeria, that Tinubu desires to be disqualified for a voluntary civil forfeiture of drug money within the US more than three an extended time ago, that Tinubu desires to be disqualified thanks to faux and ignorant claims that he didn’t graduate from Chicago Jabber College, or for perjuries he committed more than Two decades ago, etc.) than on legally sound, substantive arguments in regards to the election itself.
They didn’t most modern foolproof, unimpeachable evidentiary info, admire Atiku did in 2019, to expose that their proper votes had been greater than INEC gave them—and thereby greater than Tinubu’s proper votes. Wishful thinking, online bullying, tendentious accounts of events, and inaccurate, previous, illiterate invective in opposition to of us that have diverse opinions must not substitutes for substance. Neither are mass delusion and blind political cultism ensures of electoral victory.
The proof for electoral irregularities they offered to the tribunal became as soon as, for essentially the most phase, inept, tangential, historical, and with out teach disputable. Plus, they also are responsible of those irregularities of their hold areas of recognition. It isn’t sufficient to relate; it is probably you’ll presumably well well presumably additionally serene present your allegations previous all shadows of doubt, previous merely providing libidinal raw presents for the moist dreams of your worshipful supporters.
You don’t might perhaps presumably well additionally serene be a lawyer to know that the petitions had not a snowball’s probability in hell of upending Tinubu’s victory. Only self-indulgent, illusory hope would motive folks to depend on to procure anything else out of the petitions.
Obi’s wildly Trumpian dissimulation is basically the most mystifying for me. It beats me how, with a narrow electoral point of interest, he thought he won a “mandate” that became as soon as “stolen” and the plot he might perhaps presumably well well by some means had been declared the winner of an election in which he performed third with out first asking the tribunal to invalidate the votes of the 2d-build of dwelling finisher. By what common sense would the tribunal have declared Obi the winner with out first nullifying Atiku’s votes, which Obi didn’t ask for in his petition?
In other words, the petitions weren’t as extra special in regards to the vote as they had been about who Tinubu became as soon as and wasn’t (most of which made more apt than judgment of correct and unsuitable) and why Tinubu desires to be disqualified, and a rerun ordered that will presumably well well exclude Tinubu. That doesn’t strike me as a serious field.
The petitions are predictably heading to the Supreme Court docket the build they’ll procure a final ethical burial. But I am overjoyed that the appeals might perhaps presumably well help procure us ethical closure on two thorny components as soon as and for all: the electoral price of the Federal Capital Territory and the intent of the framers of the 1999 Constitution after they barred dual electorate from working for optionally accessible positions.
It’s apparent to somebody with even a accepted thought of the English language that the constitution merely regards the FCT as the same to a allege for the motive of determining the geographic spread of votes cast all the plot through a presidential election. It’d be absurd for the constitution to confer supernumerary electoral impress to the votes of the residents of the FCT by requiring that a hit 25 per cent of votes there might perhaps be a precondition to be declared president.
It makes neither logical, linguistic, nor political sense to isolate a exiguous phase of a complete and arbitrarily elevate its electoral impress above others. The choice of the Supreme Court docket will bury this nonsense forever.
The tribunal’s ruling on the matter to Tinubu’s alleged dual citizenship is its worst, and I hope the Supreme Court docket will give us readability on it. In the future final year, I had an impassioned dialogic alternate about dual citizenship with a newspaper editor who has a guidelines degree. It became as soon as from him I first grew to become mindful that I had been misinformed in regards to the matter.
Corpulent disclosure: I am a dual citizen of Nigeria and the United States. I thought I could perhaps presumably well well by no methodology flee for an optionally accessible build of dwelling of job in Nigeria, but questioned why light Senate President Ahmed Lawan, light Home of Representatives Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila, light Senate President Bukola Saraki, and a whole lot of other others who are dual electorate held optionally accessible offices.
Effectively, it has turned out that there are preexisting courtroom judgments that in overall train dual citizenship is disqualifying only if Nigerian citizenship is purchased through naturalisation.
In a 2004 case between Willie Ogebide and Arigbe Osula, for instance, Justice Walter Onnoghen held that “… it is miles obvious and I, hereby, protect that the acquisition of dual citizenship by a Nigerian per se shouldn’t be a ground for disqualification for election… seriously the build the Nigerian citizen is a citizen by delivery. That is the clear which methodology of the provisions in sections 66(1) and 28 of the 1999 constitution when taken collectively.
“The single Nigerian citizen disqualified by the mentioned sections is one who’s a citizen of Nigeria by both registration or naturalisation, who resulting from this truth acquires the citizenship of one more country apart from to his Nigerian citizenship…”
Equally, in 2022, Justice Oghohorie dominated that the dual citizenship of Shocking River Jabber deputy governor Peter Odey didn’t invalidate his eligibility to flee for build of dwelling of job because his Nigerian citizenship became as soon as purchased at delivery.
On the other hand, despite those precedents, the Federal High Court docket in Port Harcourt invalidated the candidature of Rivers Jabber APC governorship candidate Tonye Cole on story of dual citizenship. Our courts obviously construct not have any recognize for precedents, but I hope the ruling of the Supreme Court docket on the matter will establish as soon as and for all whether or not of us that had been born Nigerian but purchased one more citizenship later in existence are disqualified from working for optionally accessible offices.
Pointless to train, it will probably presumably perhaps additionally be reassuring if the Supreme Court docket grants ethical safety to the technological safeguards that INEC spent billions to compose in characterize to mutter voters that it will probably presumably perhaps flee a credible pollbut whose employ the tribunal mentioned became as soon as optionally accessible and discretionary.
