It does appear that the Nigerian judiciary is dutifully bracing up to confront the daunting challenges the bench is likely to face in the aftermath of the 2015 general elections which kicks off on March 28 with the presidential poll. The Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Mahmud Mohammed, for example, is said to be investing a lot of effort to ensure that democracy is not scuttled in the land with election-related suits now littering the courts; and had warned judges against entering verdicts that are capable of re-enacting the June 12, 1993 presidential election mess. A good example of one of such cases would be the March 4 ruling of an Abuja Federal High Court, which asked the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to register a new political party, the Young Democratic Party (YDP), but which the beneficiaries of the court verdict misinterpreted, twisted and exploited to mount intense pressure on INEC to either shift the forthcoming elections or reprint ballot papers to accommodate the party’s name and logo, roughly three weeks to the polls. As fate would have it, however, reports last week said the judge involved had summoned the leaders of YDP to appear before him on March 23 for misinterpreting his judgement.
Just last week, the CJN assured the international community of the readiness of the Nigerian judiciary to dispassionately hear disputes that might arise from the forthcoming general elections and dispense justice without fear or favour. Much earlier, the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, Justice Ibrahim Auta, had also charged judges to dispose of all pending primary election cases before the 2015 elections. He directed the affected judges to draw lines on issues bordering on disagreements during party primaries to avoid carrying them over to the general elections; and that no political case should be filed in a division of the court other than the division from where the cause of action arose.
The said proactive measures are commendable, considering the grave harm judicial corruption had done to the nation in times past. Recall the spoiler role Senator Arthur Nzeribe/Association for Better Nigeria (ABN) played during the June 12, 1993 general elections. Nzeribe and his ABN, conspiring with one Abimbola Davies, a faceless Dr. Atkins and, perhaps, the government of the day, obtained a midnight court injunction on June 10 that year that stopped the election in a court presided over by the late Justice Bassey Ikpeme, barely some hours to June 12 poll. Another Abuja High Court judge, Justice Dahiru Saleh, sealed the coffin of the judicial robbery when he ordered the then National Electoral Commission (NEC), headed by Professor Humphery Nwosu, to stop further announcements of election results and declared the entire poll, acclaimed to be free and fair; and won by the late Chief MKO Abiola, illegal on the grounds that it was held in contravention of a subsisting court order. Defending his action in 2008, Saleh had said both the late Ikpeme, who first ordered NEC not to conduct the elections, and himself were only doing their jobs. Indeed, hatchet jobs par excellence! The then military government of ‘President’ Ibrahim Babangida cited the court shenanigans as part of the reasons it nullified the June 12 election.
Still fresh in the nation’s memory was the judicial rot that drenched the judiciary arising from the dubious handling of post-election petitions after the 2011 polls.The fray pitted former CJN, Justice Aloysius Katsina-Alu, against Justice Ayo Salami, then President of the Federal Court of Appeal. No head or tail was made out of the scandal till date, to public knowledge, despite the intervention of the National Judicial Council (NJC), then headed by ex-CJN, Justice Dahiru Musdapher. The main casualty was Justice Salami, who was arbitrarily booted out of office. What is obvious, it would seem, is that perhaps before the coming of the immediate past CJN, Justice Mariam Aloma Mukhtar; and the current one, care was scarcely taken to select judges with untainted integrity to handle election petitions. Nor were they availed of strict directives and words of caution concerning their conduct while handling election cases, except for the purposes of meddlesomeness and miscarriage of justice.
Consequently, CJN Mohammed should not limit his intervention to merely cautioning judges on how to handle politically-motivated cases. He should ensure first and foremost that credible judges are appointed to preside over election cases and then follow-up with close monitoring and punishment for proven cases of misconduct against erring judges. It will be to the woeful discredit of the CJN if the experiences of past judicial corruption are re-enacted before, during or after the 2015 polls and under his tenure.
