- Frivolous court injunctions injurious to conduct of elections
For about the umpteenth time, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had occasion to warn last week that ceaseless and conflicting court orders over the affairs of political parties were clogging its operations and portended danger to preparations for upcoming elections. It canvassed urgent intervention by the National Judicial Council (NJC) and the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) to rein in the trend.
The electoral body said politicians were going forum shopping for court orders over internal party crises and were obtaining conflicting verdicts from courts of coordinate jurisdiction that it (INEC) was finding it difficult to keep up obedience with. It warned that the tendency portended danger to the 2023 general election, and more particularly the Anambra State governorship poll scheduled for November 6, this year.
Speaking at a meeting on voter enlightenment and publicity for the Anambra State governorship election in Awka, last week, INEC National Commissioner Festus Okoye said: “This is frustrating. What the commission does in terms of obedience to court orders is that if a judgment comes today, the commission obeys the order, because it is the latest in time. If on the same issue, another court of coordinate jurisdiction or from a court of another judicial division comes to us, because that one is the latest in time, the commission obeys that one. So, what the political parties have been doing is that they anticipate the commission, and the moment you’re proceeding, they get court orders. This is impeding our performance and making things difficult.” He added: “Elections require sanctity and adherence to guidelines, The leadership of the NBA and the NJC should look at this. This is urgent and imperative, because if it persists, this can jeopardise the conduct of the 2023 general election. We are having court orders on a daily basis from courts in all parts of the country and that is not right.”
Okoye spoke against the backdrop of conflicting judicial orders affecting nomination of candidates by the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that held their primaries for the Anambra governorship last June. In APGA, there is a tussle between the Victor Oye-led faction that picked Professor Charles Soludo as flagbearer and the Jude Okeke faction fielding Chuma Umeoji. In the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), the tussle is between the faction that produced Valentine Ozigbo as standard bearer and another fielding Ugochukwu Uba. Each of the factions has an order from either a federal high court or state high court approving its candidate, including one obtained from a court in Jigawa State by Jude Okeke-led APGA. While the All Progressives Congress (APC) isn’t hobbled by factional litigation, 11 of its 14 governorship aspirants rejected the outcome of the primary in June that produced Senator Andy Uba as candidate and demanded repeat primary.
INEC complained that the courts and lawyers were gradually taking over its duties, warning that the spate of court verdicts could make it difficult for the commission to steadfastly obey judicial orders going forward. Besides the shifty determination of candidature, the trend, INEC said, was frustrating its deployment of technology for aspects of the electoral process and compromising timelines for polling activities. For instance, whereas the commission issues access code to the national chairman of each political party with which to upload the particulars and list of their candidates electronically, “some of the judgments and orders given, especially on the primary elections in Anambra State, have bypassed our portal and sought to restore the manual submission of the list and personal particulars of candidates,” Okoye lamented.
Frivolous litigation and judicial over-activism are long-standing menaces to the Nigerian electoral process, especially in this Fourth Republic, and it is sad that the NJC has hitherto not risen to the challenge of remediation. It is the responsibility of the regulator body to wield the big stick against courts that overreach their jurisdiction and give orders sought by political actors just to force the hand of INEC. Of course, NJC only acts on petitions brought before it, so stakeholders must come alive to petitioning the council over dubious orders by judges. But their lordships themselves need to become wary of issuing conflicting orders in cases already adjudicated upon by courts of same jurisdiction and advise litigants dissatisfied with existing orders to pursue their grouse on appeal.
Not that these are novel prescriptions. What is lacking is the will for implementation and INEC’s fresh call should be an awakening towards that end.
