Governor Nyesome Wike, of River state last Wednesday got a reprieve at the Supreme Court which upheld his victory in the April 11 2015 governorship election. The seven-man panel at the apex court in a unanimous decision read by Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, returned the embattled Wike as the valid winner of the poll as declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
In arriving at the verdict, the Supreme Court Panel which was led by the Chief Justice of Nigeria CJN, Justice Mahmud Mohammed, said the three separate appeals filed by Wike, the People’s Democratic Party PDP and INEC were meritorious. It consequently quashed the judgments of the River state governorship election petition tribunal and Court of Appeal, Abuja Division. The latter had on December 16, 2015 dismissed Wike’s appeal which sought to reverse the tribunal’s judgment which voided his victory.
With the judgment, the Supreme Court has stated the position of the law on the issue of card reader usage in the last year’s general election. As the final arbiter in all legal disputes, its judgment is the law and that is what it is in the instant case.
More importantly, the judgment has again brought to the front burner the conflicting and inconsistent nature of appeal court decisions. In dismissing Wike’s appeal, the appeal court said his election failed to comply with the provisions of the Electoral Act as laid down by INEC.
The apex court judgment has affirmed certainity of the law, ignoring the massive rigging perpetrated by some politicians who wanted to win by all means, by following its decision in the case of Buhari vs Obasanjo. The ratio in that judgment is that where there is a conflict between the Constitutional provisions and the Electoral Act, the former must prevail.
Why the judgment has provoked shock wave and disbelief across the nation, but jubilation in the Governor Wike camp, judicial purist have commended the Supreme Court for restating the law as it is in the River’s governorship election dispute regarding the use or not of the card reader machine.
