The
judgment of the Supreme Court determining the governorship tussle
involving Captain Idris Wada, Hon. James Faleke and Alhaji Yahaya Bello
was surprising to say the least.
In the judgment given on September 20, 2016, the Supreme Court dismissed the appeals of Wada and Faleke and affirmed Bello as Governor of Kogi State.
To my mind, this judgment – along with
the judgments of the Court of Appeal and the Election Petition Tribunal –
is bizarre and not in keeping with the provisions of the Constitution
of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended) and the Electoral
Act 2010 (as amended).
One is hard pressed to avoid the
conclusion that in reaching its decision the Supreme Court relied on
manufactured technicalities that did damage to the letter and the spirit
of our laws.
The judgment contradicts the previous
judgment of apex court in CPC v Ombugadu (2013) 18 NWLR (1385) 16;
Gbileve v Addingi (2014) 16 NWLR (1433) 56; Eligwe v Okpokiri (2015) 2
NWLR (1443) 348; Jev v Iyortom (2015) 15 NWLR (1483) 484 where the
provisions of Section 141 of the Electoral Act was applied to the effect
that a candidate cannot be declared the winner of an election in which
he did not participate in all stages of the election.
In deciding in favour of Bello, the
Supreme Court basically nullified the provisions of Section 141 of the
Electoral Act and reversed itself per the judgments given in the above
cited cases. The Supreme Court has basically returned to its holding in
Amaechi v Omehia, which is what Section 141 was enacted to prevent.
In deciding in favour of Bello, the
Supreme Court has basically violated the principle of Separation of
Powers and usurped the role of the legislature.
It is public knowledge that Faleke wrote
letters to his party withdrawing as a deputy governor candidate to
Yahaya Bello. Upon the refusal of his party to write to INEC informing
them of Faleke’s withdrawal, he did so directly by writing to INEC
informing them of his decision to withdraw as a deputy governorship
candidate to Bello.
In reaching its decision, the Supreme
Court (and indeed the lower courts) completely ignored these facts.
Instead, it surprisingly held that Faleke’s withdrawal was unknown to
law.
This assertion basically allows the APC to enjoy the benefits of its wrong doing. How is this legal? How is this equitable?
Again, one is hard pressed to avoid the
conclusion that the Supreme Court deliberately disregarded the fact of
Bello’s withdrawal to enable it reach a pre-determined conclusion. It
does not seem legal or equitable, that a Court can acknowledge the
wrong-doing of a party yet allow the party to benefit from such
wrong-doing.
While we wait for the Supreme Court to
give reasons for its decision, we can only accept the reality of 3 more
years on tepid, uninspiring leadership from Yahaya Bello in Kogi State.
Under Yahaya Bello’s leadership, Kogi
State is racking up debts in billions of Naira with no commensurate
infrastructural or developmental gains to show for it. Despite
collecting billions of Naira worth of bailout funds, the state still
owes several months’ salaries. As it stands, Yahaya Bello is currently
leading Nigeria down a path of indebtedness and financial ruin as
similar to Osun.
God bless Kogi State.
Deji Adeyanju is director of Social
Media of the People’s Democratic Party. He is also a former aide at the
Presidency. He tweets from @adeyanjudeji.
The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.
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