2023 in retrospect: The Nigerian Judiciary’s independence and credibility
By Fatai Kasali
The Judicial arm of government is saddled with the responsibility of interpreting the laws enacted by the Legislature and executed by the executive arm. In doing this, the court plays a supervisory role and a check on the other arms of government. The courts have powers to review the acts of the legislative and executive arms as well as powers to review the decisions reached by courts especially on appeal. The principle of judicial precedent stipulates that the decisions of superior courts are binding on inferior courts. The Supreme Court has power to review its previous decisions and sits on appeal in decisions of the Court of Appeal.
This article examined the Nigerian Judiciary’s Independence and credibility taken into cognisance the electioneering process in 2023 using five judiciary cases as a case study
PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
The February 25 presidential election was held across the 774 local government areas across the country, with minimal challenges. For the first time, a new law known as the Electoral Act 2022 was put to the test. Before balloting, Nigerians were confident in the ability of the Independent National Electoral Commission to get it right given the robust provisions in the Act.
At the end of balloting, INEC declared Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress the winner of the election and subsequently returned him as President and commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, Federal Republic of Nigeria. The former Lagos State Governor, according to INEC secured a total of 8,794,726 votes, representing 37 percent of total votes cast to beat Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party who got 6,984,520 votes or 29 percent of votes cast, and Peter Obi of the Labour Party who garnered 6,101,533 or 25 percent of votes cast, to second and third place finish respectively.
Not only did Atiku and Obi reject the declaration of Tinubu as the winner of the election, but they fought their way up to the Supreme Court, which affirmed the election as meeting the required standards, thus dismissing their applications as lacking in merit.
After this, various individuals had come out to express their disappointment on the judiciary. In one of the television interview, former president of the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) expressed his concerns over the credibility of the judiciary.
“I have lost a bit of confidence in what the courts have been doing lately. There was a time you could say, oh, on the facts and the law, this is the likely outcome. Today, you cannot because there have been all kinds of silly decisions.”
Former Chairman of Orile Agege Local Development Area Hon Taofeek Adaranijo also said, “The petitioners didn’t compile enough evidence to meet the time frame that will enable the supreme court to deliver judgement in their favour. So, the judiciary is on the right track on this.”
ADAMAWA GOVERNORSHIP ELECTION
Another interesting political events which put the judiciary in the eye of the storm was
The March 18 governorships election in 2023.
The controversy that trailed the election started when the incumbent governor and candidate of the PDP Fintiri scored 421,524 votes while Binani pulled 39,027. Fintiri had established a clear lead of 31,249 votes above his major challenger, Aisha ‘Binani’ Dahiru, of the APC.
After the collation of results from 10 LGs, Fintiri was in a clear lead, but as the collation of results from supplementary polls was ongoing, the Adamawa State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Hudu Yunusa-Ari, arrived at the collation centre and announced Binani winner of the election.
Apart from the false declaration, it was not the duty of Yunusa-Ari to declare the winner of the election, but Mele Lamido, the returning officer. Following widespread condemnation, the disgraced Adamawa REC went into hiding but has since been arrested and is currently facing prosecution.
However, the electoral commission declared the announcement null and void and summoned the REC to its headquarters in Abuja and also continued the collation of the suspended results.
The final results showed that Binani scored 398,788 votes, while Fintiri had 430,861 votes to win the poll.
After the election, Yunusa-Ari was arrested and handed over to police for prosecution.
So Ardo of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) had challenged the outcome of the March 18 election and April 18 declaration of Fintiri as the winner following the April 16 supplementary election. Ardo, in his petition instituted on May 8, joined the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Fintiri and 16 others as respondents, alleging that the election was not conducted in substantial compliance with the Electoral Act.
The petitioners further alleged that the exercise conducted by the 1st respondent was marred by corruption practices (bribery), threats and violence and however sought the nullification of the entire exercise.
In her judgement, the Chairperson of the tribunal, Theodorer Uloho, dismissed the petition as “incompetent, defective, incongruous and not properly instituted before the tribunal.” She also held that the petitioners were not certain about what they wanted.
She further held that the allegation of corrupt practices must be proven with cogent and credible evidence and that failure to do so rendered the petition worthless, lifeless and without any probative value.
She dismissed the petition and awarded the sum of N200,000 in favour of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th respondents.
Reacting to the judgement, Adamawa State deputy governor, Prof. Kaletapwa Farauta declared it as a “victory for Adamawa State.”
Adamawa State deputy governor, Prof. Kaletapwa Farauta declared it as a “victory for Adamawa State.”
She however extended an olive branch to the party that lost out to join hands with the Fintiri’s administration to move the state forward.
The counsel for the petitioner, Sylvester Emanube, faulted parts of the judgement, saying, “There are many decisions that were made excellent, there are some that we think we have to look at again; particularly the ones that the Court of Appeal had made decisions on, which were also decided today.”
KANO STATE GOVERNOR ELECTION
Another judiciary lapse in 2023 was the Kano State Governorship Appeal Court judgement.
The Court of Appeal Kano had delivered judgement on November 17 on the case,. Interestingly, the parties had applied and obtained the certified true copies of the judgement., the Deputy Chief Registrar of the Court of Appeal on November 22, wrote to lawyers in the case to return the judgement for what he called “Typographical errors.” This came barely Two days, when a human rights activist lawyer Mr Femi Falana raised an alarm that there were significant inconsistencies in the judgement and that what was delivered in court was at variance with copies of the judgement given to parties.
In the interim, the appellant had filed its appeal before the Supreme Court. What a shame of the Judiciary.
Should we now talk about an error in the lead judgement, when the the appeal court judgement had earlier been considered a collective decision. These types of clerical errors as stated by the court registrar should not have occured, so this singular act of incompetence calls for serious concerns among Nigerian as to the credibility of our judiciary system in Nigeria.
A legal luminary and social commentator, Barrister Liady Wakeel of The Bridge Chamber said, “Though to err is human but to forgive divine, such error should not have occurred at this time, because it will put a dent on the image of the judicial process in the country.”
The vice chairman PDP in Ward K in Orile Agege Hon. Folarin also blamed the judiciary system for loop holes in the judiciary credibility.
“What we have witnessed in the Kano case was nothing but a mere charade of incompetence’s on the part of our judiciary process. Until this lapses are addressed ,the whole word will make jest of our judiciary system.”
Zamfara Appeal Court Judgement
The Court of Appeal held that the All Progressives Congress candidate, Bello Matawalle, successfully proved that Lawal was not duly elected and ordered a rerun in three local government areas of the state including Maradun, Birnin-Magaji, and Bukkuyum.
However, Lawal said that the court’s ruling would not stop him from retaining the mandate given to him by the people of the state in the election, stressing that he was elected due to people’s dissatisfaction with the status quo in the state.
Lawal saw the rulling as an act of backwardness because he saw himself duly elected governor based on the people’s will.
“The ruling by the Appeal Court is a temporary setback. However, I remain optimistic that the collective decision of the people will ultimately prevail.
“We will emerge victorious as our unwavering determination and steadfast commitment leave no room for doubt or fear. We faced numerous challenges on the road to victory in the last election. But let me assure our people that we are fully committed to going to great lengths to retain this widely acclaimed mandate.”
Since the people of the state had unanimously voted the governor turning the judgement against the person whom the people had chosen will make the judiciary process look like clown.
Caleb Mutfwang also has a taste of what the judiciary system look like when the election that brought him to power was nulified on the ground of the Lapses from his party PDP.
OYETOLA AND ADELEKE’S GOVERNORSHIP RULING
Oyetola and Adeleke had been involved in a long legal battle over the governorship election in Osun State.
Following the conclusion of the Osun gubernatorial poll, during which Adeleke emerged winner, the election petition tribunal ordered the withdrawal of his Certificate of Return, and declared Oyetola as governor on the grounds that the Adeleke’s election was marred by over-voting.
Reacting to the verdict by the tribunal, Adeleke described the judgment as “a miscarriage of justice” and “an unfair interpretation against the will of majority of voters.”
The verdict was followed by a series of appeals, and on Tuesday, May 9, the Supreme Court declared Adeleke winner of the election, noting that Oyetola failed to establish the allegation of over-voting. Although, so many factors have been attributed to the victory of governor Adeleke, some of which are money, the Aregbesola’s factor, people of Osun wanting change and Oyetola’s style of administration among others, but the election results cum issues that surrounded it would have been resolved at once instead of the court to twist the collective decision of the people.
There should be a general and comprehensive overhaul of the judiciary and justice system. In fact, the overhaul should be from time to time.
This reform is necessary because a lot of people now have little or no trust on our judicial system any more.
According to a Professor of Law at the Faculty of Law, Ahmadu Bello University, Yusuf Danko who said that it was worrisome that many Nigerians had zero trust in the judiciary, noting that this concern was also shared among many legal professionals.
“The truth must be said: there is a lot of disaffection by the people by the kind of decisions that continually come from the judiciary these days, unlike before,” Prof Dankofa said.
According to a public opinion poll published by NOIPolls in August 2020, 67 percent of Nigerians noted that they were not confident in the Nigerian judicial system. In contrast, 33 percent stated that they had confidence in the judicial system. Only four percent of the 33 percent indicated a high level of confidence in the judiciary.
Two of the major reasons highlighted in the NOIPolls for the lack of confidence in the judicial system were the perceived level of corruption within the system and some controversial previous rulings of publicly known cases.
In a country of sore losers and those for whom victory has become their favourite hobby; the crisis of confidence the judiciary has suffered for many years running is manifesting itself by the fact that whichever way a court leans in its judgment, there is always the tendency for the losing party to sulk and say that the court was compromised.
