The most recent judicial pronouncement in Nigeria as at today is the Supreme Court’s decision, a few days ago which reaffirmed the principle of Party Supremacy and directed the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), to manage its own affairs. At the hearing of an appeal by Senator Sam Anyanwu who had been sacked as National Secretary of the PDP by the Appeal Court, Enugu Division, the Supreme Court unanimously re-emphasized that “political parties possess the autonomy to manage their internal affairs without undue interference from external bodies, including the judiciary, provided such actions align with their constitutions and the laws of the land.”Many Nigerians will not only agree with the Supreme Court but are likely to also urge Nigerian judges to leave our political parties alone.
The position of the Supreme Court is not new. It was the same when it allowed the All-Progressives Congress APC to choose Senator Ahmed Lawan as its flagbearer, for the 2023 Senatorial Election in Yobe North constituency instead of the winner of the primaries,Bashir Machina. But it is simplistic for anybody to assume that what the Apex Court really meant was that political parties are free to handle their internal affairs. This is because over the years events have shown that what our courts say and what they mean are hardly ever same. Indeed, while empowering political parties to handle their affairs, the courtalso added that “provided such actions align with their constitutions and the laws of the land.”Can anyone in future stop some judges from looking into whether the actions of some political parties align with their constitutions and the extant laws?
Once such opportunity arises, the judges would then begin to look into cases which contradict the autonomy of political parties which the Supreme Court has affirmed. We all know that political parties by their own rules are expected to organize party primaries to pick their flagbearers. We also know that the electoral law provides for party primaries to be monitored by the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC. Why then did the Supreme Court allow the APC to substitute those who emerged from the party’s process with persons who did not participate in the process? Having done that, does the Supreme Court have the moral right to direct lower courts from doing same especially if the lower courts have the same motivation as their superiors? Do our judges not know that examples are better than precepts?
It is also important to tell our judges that communication is not just the passing of information and messages from one source to another;the sender and receiver of such messages and information must in addition have the same meaning for them. Perhaps because our judiciary mix English and Latin quite often, not many understand the communication by the judiciary. But today’s judiciary is not same as that of the colonial government whose goal was to deceive the people. Our judiciary is now that of the people. It is a societal institution which relies on tax-payers’ money to survive. Accordingly, it is time for our judiciary to learn to speak to our people rather than to onlylawyers and litigants.Our judiciary should therefore avoid circumlocution and speak clearly to its real owners – the Nigerian people.
In so doing, it needs not be reminded that its decisions affect the entire society. For example, if it chooses to stop funds from going to a state because of the attitude of some leaders, the fate of many persons who are not before it that would suffer from its statements must always be taken into consideration. Besides, the judiciary must endeavour to engage in communication that would be easily understood by people just as it should be cautious in saying things that are capable of having several meanings. In the last 3 days, both Senator Anyanwu and the PDP have told the rest of the nation that they won the case, not only because they are bad losers but more because they are able to find in the judgment some statements that can be amplified tosupport their position.
One judgment that would have been difficult for ordinary human beings to understand concerns the order of an Abuja Federal High Court that certain lawfully elected delegates for the last Edo PDP primaries must not be excluded from the party’s primaries which had been held 5 months earlier. Similarly, it is not only the ordinary man that does not know which courts have jurisdiction in Nigerian cases, some lawyers and judges up to the level of the Court of Appeal do not also know. Hence, Senator Anyanwu’s case got to the Supreme Court before it was remembered that internal political party matters should not be entertained. Perhaps it is really difficult to remember things when they concern political cases that we hear are lucrative. The last time I raised this same issue at a public debate, I was told to go and find out why policemen are always at checkpoints notwithstanding the number of times their Inspector Generalshad told the public that checkpoints are illegal.
In the case of the judiciary, some of these bad habits can stop if the National Judicial Council NJC can be more decisive with erring judges. It is not possible to have a good judiciary if top Judges are as dishonest as ordinary persons. Some months ago, 2 state Chief Judges were found to have used affidavits to change their ages in order to remain in office. All that they got from the NJC was retirement from office. Is that the punishment for perjury? What would be the result if such judges have the opportunity to handle political cases? Can we distant such judges from the new trend of forum shopping in which cases emanating from other towns end up at the federal high court Abuja. Yet, there are federal high courts in such towns but those who tell others to go to court know where, when and how the cases would end. It is time for the judiciary to put an end to ‘go to court.’
Unknown to the judiciary, how it handles INEC has a way of making people lose faith in its decisions. At election tribunals, many petitioners always cry in vain over hurdles which INEC often places on their way to retrieve required evidence to prove their claims. In the last governorship election in Osun state, for example, the then governor Gboyega Oyetola cried in vain more than once to the relevant tribunal for help. If INEC belongs to us all, it should not be allowed to take sides by immediately standing with a winner during an election petition as if it has something to hide. The commission should also not be allowed to toy with court orders requiring it to bring certain information/documents to court – a conduct that is clearly regarded as contemptuous in other climes.
The argument by INEC that such data are in its state offices amount to hoarding of information. Are those state offices not part of one INEC? If INEC headquarters can access all the information it collated into a complete election result from all polling units, it should not become impossible to access materials when the request is from a party that participated in the election. The point to be made is that in an election-troubled society, people can become more convinced that an election tribunal has done a good job, if in addition to asking petitioners to prove their case, it also requires the body that conducted the election to establish her thoroughness. Our courts have no business protecting INEC which gets huge sums of money to procure technology and which later decides to distort, ignore or hoard digital information.
The saying that the decisions of the Supreme Court are final means different things to different people. To the ordinary man something is final only when it completes action on a relevant subject. If an opinion poll is done today concerning how the Rivers State controversial cases were handled, it would be difficult to find anyone who will agree that all sides to the case have actually ended. No one understands for instance how the purported defection of law makers of the state House of Assembly was concluded. If something remains undone concerning a subject, what does final mean to interested parties? The finality of the old case of the Imo State Governorship election in which the winner scored more votes as collated by the judiciary than the number of voters remains finally laughable. What was final about the case was that the Judiciary forgot that the person it declared winner was not the person the same judiciary accepted as the real candidate of his party.
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