On Friday February 13, 2020, the Supreme Court delivered one of its most shocking judgements in the history of electoral disputes in Nigeria. The apex court sacked David Lyon of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the governor-elect for Bayelsa State, 24 hours to the inauguration.
In a unanimous judgement delivered by Justice Ejembi Eko, the court nullified and set aside the nomination and participation of Lyon and his running mate, Senator Biobarakuma Degi-Eremienyo in the November 16, 2019 governorship election.
The learned jurists held that the running mate to the governor-elect forged certificates to secure clearance for APC deputy governorship ticket.
They said that from the documents submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), which were also tendered before the court, it was established that the then deputy governor-elect forged certificates and fraudulently used multiple names at different times, including the ones used in the form CF001 submitted to the electoral body.
Justice Eko revealed that the said deputy governor-elect had different names on his Primary School Leaving Certificate, General Certificate of Education (GCE), First Degree Certificate, NYSC Discharge Certificate and the Masters degree Certificate. According to the judgement, the culprit used these different names whenever it suits him and did not approach lawful authorities to synchronise and authenticate the names on the certificates.
The apex court also held that an affidavit of regularisation of names purportedly done by the deputy governor-elect and published in the Chronicle newspaper was a futile attempt to justify the multiplicity of names contained on the certificates.
The Supreme Court therefore came to the conclusion that the primary school certificate obtained in 1976; GCE, 1984; first degree, 1990 and others were product of forgery and that the deputy governor-elect violated section 182 of the 1999 Constitution.
The apex court upheld the judgement of Justice Inyang Ekwo of the Federal High Court, Abuja, that the case of forgery has been established going by the documents presented by Degi-Eremienyo with various names.
The court therefore voided the joint ticket of Lyon and Degi-Eremienyo and set aside their participation in the November 2019 governorship election in Bayelsa State.
The court ordered that the Certificate of Return already issued to the governor-elect by INEC be withdrawn immediately and a fresh one issued to the candidate who scored the second highest number of lawful votes with required geographical spread.
It was the climax of the highly intricate power tussle between APC and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Bayelsa State. The immediate consequence was that APC, which had earlier secured the mandate of the people, lost it to PDP at the court.
It was one loss too many for APC given the losses it had already suffered in Zamfara and Rivers states as a result of the discrepancies that occurred in the course of filing nomination papers for its governorship candidate before the 2019 general election.
In the case of Rivers State, APC lost out completely because internal squabbles among its leaders factionalised the party to the extent that they held parallel congresses and had no legitimate governorship candidate to contest the main election.
In fact, the court barred APC from fielding any candidate in all the elections because it did not hold any valid party primary election to select its candidates.
It was even more pitiable for the party in Zamfara State where it won all the positions at the polls, but equally lost all of them at the court for its failure to hold valid primary elections to choose its candidates.
Unfortunately, rather than situating these judgements properly and doing some introspection to understand the real reasons for these losses, the party chose to lay the blame at the doorsteps of the judiciary and the opposition. Indeed, the party has continued to blame everyone and everything but itself for its chain of electoral woes.
If one were to look at the serial losses of APC in the 2019 elections dispassionately, one would discover that these were self-inflicted wounds triggered by the reign of impunity and lack of internal democracy in the ruling party.
In Nigeria, the rule of law is seldom followed in the day to day running of political parties. The struggle for power is seen as a do or die affair because of the pecuniary motives of our politicians. The result is that those in charge of a political party do not want to create equal opportunities or a level playing field for all those seeking elective positions. Hardly is anything done according to the rules and regulations set in the party’s constitution and the Electoral Act. It is usually a jungle system where only the rugged and fittest survives.
When the internal democratic systems are compromised and the right candidates are not allowed to emerge, anger and frustration would engulf the party, leading to factionalisation and multiple pre-election suits in the courts.
We are alarmed at the current trend where judgements of the Supreme Court are being subjected to varied political interpretations.
Even more worrisome is the latest trend of staging protest marches against the Supreme Court, picketing the homes of judges believed to have delivered such judgements and going back to the same court to compel them to review their judgement.
We believe that the best way to escape the hammer of the courts in any election dispute is for a political party to put its house in order and ensure that only the right candidates are fielded at every election.
Until our political parties learn to embrace internal democracy by entrenching a transparent system of conducting party primaries and allowing the best candidates to emerge for every position, they might keep receiving shocking verdicts from the courts of law and loud condemnations from the court of public opinion.
