JUDICIARY NOW DECIDES WHO WINS OR LOSES AN ELECTION IN NIGERIA
The 2023 general election may have come and gone, but the post-election litigation that arose after the election again symbolizes that our electoral system continues to be characterized by irregularities and political malfeasance – solely from the political gladiators who are the major state actors.
Without any opaqueness, our democracy is on the verge of losing its constitutional credibility in the hands of the electoral body, INEC, saddled with the obligation of conducting elections and announcing the winner of an election to the hands of the judiciary.
The 2023 general elections recorded the highest number of post-election litigation in the history of elections in Nigeria; which is a sign of electoral despondency.
The conflicting court rulings, particularly the Appeal Court judgment and Supreme Court final judgment almost dent the legal embodiment of the judiciary.
The Appeal Court judgment of the Kano and Plateau gubernatorial elections almost spun the country upside-down over the sacking of the two governors but the Supreme Court which is the final arbiter upturned the judgments of the Appeal Courts.
Before the amendment of the Electoral Acts, the governorship post-election litigation ended at the Appeal Court and that would have been an end for the Governors of Kano and Plateau States – over the Appeal Court rulings that went against them.
It was as a result of unsubstantiated judgment at the Appeal that the Supreme Court in its discernment said the final legal battle must be at the Apex Court.
Without any equivocation, the judgments of the Apex Court are brilliant and highly estimable by the justices – for upholding the victories of the governors that their elections were challenged in court by their oppositions – because removing them would have amounted to a huge democratic knock to our electoral system in Nigeria.
We must develop a system that the voting will of the electorates at the polls will no longer be subjected to legal tussle; whereby five(5) or seven(7) people will have power over millions of voters to determine who wins or loses an election.
The decisions of the Supreme Court, over gubernatorial cases have further conserved the system from frantic politicians to truncate the voices of the electorates.
At this juncture, we must strive to ensure that this issue of post-election litigation which is now taking the constitutional responsibility of INEC to the judiciary put on permanent abeyance.
It is irrefutable that electorates have lost trust and convince in the electoral body; as exigency demands that INEC must build the electoral trust in the electorates by conducting transparent, credible fair, and free elections that will be widely accepted by both the winners and losers.
We must not subject our electoral process – the decision-making in the hands of the judiciary.
By: Sam Olorunfemi Jr
