Ever since the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) lost at the 2015 general election, I have taken special interest in its affairs. That is simply because our democracy will not thrive without a credible opposition. So, two weeks before last month’s national convention to elect the party’s National Working Committee (NWC) members, I sought appointment with the then caretaker chairman, Senator Ahmed Makarfi for a background chat on what was going on. And in our interaction, the former Governor of Kaduna State was rather candid about the party’s challenges and prospects, including how the chairmanship election was likely to go and the factors that would shape the entire convention.

However, what struck me in my discussion with Makarfi was the fear by the party leadership at the time that a particular Senator from the South-west has the capacity to single-handedly keep PDP in crisis because of his “strong connection” to some powerful Judges who can grant him a contrived ruling, order or injunction at any given time. What I took away from that encounter is the level to which corruption has eaten deep into our judiciary such that some of our politicians are no longer content with hiring Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SANs), they also have their own judges. Nothing exemplifies this sordid state of affairs than the fact that the people of Anambra Central Senatorial district have been denied representation for over two years now.

The unfortunate drama started on 28th March 2015 when Mrs Uche Ekwunife, then of the PDP, won the senatorial election that was later nullified on grounds that she was not validly nominated by her party. After exhausting all appeal options available to seek legal redress, Ekwunife was in December 2015 disqualified by the Appeal Tribunal, the final arbiter for all litigations for National and State Assembly elections. And by way of a consequential order, the court also directed INEC to conduct a re-run election within 90 days.

In compliance, INEC scheduled the re-run poll for 5th March 2016 without the participation of the disqualified candidate (Ekwunife) and her party (the PDP). This is in line with a 2009 Supreme Court ruling that parties that field candidates disqualified by the Appeal Tribunals cannot participate in court-ordered re-run elections because the 60-day period for nomination of candidates had elapsed while the disqualified candidates can also not be replaced because the period for withdrawal of nominations (45 days to a general election under the Electoral Act) has similarly elapsed. INEC has been invoking this Supreme Court judgment to edge out parties whose candidates were disqualified from participating in court-ordered re-run elections, including for two senatorial districts in Kogi State last year.

However, Anambra politicians are a special breed. When Ekwunife’s election was nullified, the two major parties, APC and PDP, insisted that they must replace their candidates with both of them conducting fresh primaries. The PDP nominated former Governor Peter Obi to replace Ekwunife while the APC nominated Mrs Sharon Ikeazor to replace another former Governor of the State, Dr Chris Ngige, the original APC candidate who had by then been appointed a Minister by President Muhammadu Buhari. Quite naturally, INEC rejected these two nominations in line with the Supreme Court decision and this ignited another round of legal fireworks that stalled the conduct of the court-ordered re-run election.

Meanwhile, a curious twist was added to the drama following the Supreme Court ruling in the cases involving Governor Samuel Otom of Benue State and Aisha Alhassan’s unsuccessful gubernatorial bid in Taraba State. According to the Supreme Court, the improper conduct of primaries in one political party cannot be used by a member of another political party to cause the nullification of an election. Since that Supreme Court decision came after the nullification of Anambra Central Senatorial election by the Appeal Tribunal, Ekwunife thought she could use the principle to secure back her seat so she again approached the Court of Appeal, Enugu Division; urging the court to set aside the judgment of the Appeal Tribunal and to restrain INEC from conducting the re-run election.

On 3rd March 2016, the Court dismissed Ekwunike’s case as follows: “This is an appeal cloaked in the guise of a motion. We cannot sit on appeal over our own judgement. This court is the final Court. Once a court delivers judgment, subject to the ‘slip rule’ principle, that Court becomes functus officio…There must be an end to litigation. The motion is incompetent and completely misconceived. It is hereby dismissed. Consequently the Motion praying for an order of injunction restraining the respondents from conducting fresh election is hereby struck out as having been overtaken by the outcome of this motion.”

Dissatisfied, Ekwunife approached the Supreme Court for redress in the light of that decision on Ortom and Alhassan. On 10th February 2017, the apex court, in dismissing the plea, reminded Ekwunife that “the decisions of the Court of Appeal in respect of appeals arising from the National and State House of Assembly election petitions shall be final” before ruling that “this Court has no jurisdiction to hear any appeals related thereto, no matter how cleverly framed”.

While that effectively marked the end of the road for Ekwunife’s bid to regain her senate seat, it was by no means an end to the Anambra Central Senatorial drama. With INEC rejecting his nomination as PDP candidate for the re-run election, Obi had dragged the commission to the Federal High Court, Abuja presided over by Justice Anwuli Chikere. And on 29th February 2016, barely one week before the poll scheduled for 5th March 2016, the Judge granted a perpetual injunction restraining INEC from conducting the re-run election without him (Obi) and the PDP. And since INEC had to obey the ruling, that effectively stalled the election.

Quite naturally, INEC challenged the curious judgment at the Court of Appeal while the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) candidate in the election, Chief Victor Umeh, separately but on similar grounds, also approached the appellate court. And on 20th November 2017, the Court of Appeal delivered judgments in the two cases by setting aside the judgment of the Federal High Court (given by Justice Chikere). The Appeal Court also ordered INEC to conduct the re-run election within 90 dayswithout the participation of Obi and PDP; and by inference, without APC if it is not Ngige that is being fielded.

Based on these judgments that should ordinarily put an end to all litigations, INEC has fixed next week Saturday, 13th January 2018 for the re-run election. But since we are dealing with politics in Anambra State, that cannot possibly be the end of the story. And it is not!

On 13th December 2017, a Federal High Court in Abuja presided over by Justice John Tsoho delivered a judgment in a case filed by Mr Obiora Okonkwo that he was the rightful PDP candidate in the primaries conducted on 7th December 2014. And according to Justice Tsoho, the said Okonkwo won the PDP primaries and on the basis of that; should be declared the Senator-elect! What’s more, Justice Tsoho also ordered the National Assembly to pay Okonkwo every kobo (perhaps including all the under-the-table allowances) that his “colleagues” in the Senate have received since June 2015!

The implication of the foregoing is that, at the moment, INEC is faced with two conflicting orders: the Court of Appeal ruling that the re-run election should proceed without the PDP and its candidate as well as the Federal High Court ruling that a Certificate of Return be issued by the commission to “Senator” Okonkwo so he can be known and addressed as “Most Distinguished”.

While we wait to see how the latest farce will play out, this case has thrown up a number of issues. When the election Petitions Appeal Tribunal nullified Ekwunife’s election, it was supposed to end all litigations by virtue of Section 246 (3) of the 1999 Constitution (as emended) which confers finality on the judgment of the Appeal Tribunal in legislative elections. But it is also evident that the people of Anambra Central are mere pawns on the chess board of some desperate political players.

What is even more unfortunate about the debacle is that the interest of both the APC and the PDP is the same: Neither wants the re-run election to hold. The PDP, because it cannot field a candidate and the APC because, since Ngige prefers a ministerial bird in hand to an unsure senatorial seat, he has decided not to run; yet the party cannot present any other candidate except him. That perhaps explains why there are still several other cases in court by different parties on the same Anambra Central Senatorial ticket, including by some little-known electoral no-hopers who may just be fronting for some big masquerades with vested interest.

Unfortunately, that is the way politics is played in Anambra State. In my book, “Against The Run of Play: How an incumbent president was defeated in Nigeria”, President Goodluck Jonathan recounted a meeting he had with the leadership of both the National Assembly and the judiciary on how to find an institutional framework in the bid to combat corruption in our country. Let me quote the former president here: “…I also invited Chief Judges from one state in each of the six geopolitical zones. I specifically requested for Lagos and Anambra to represent their zones. My choosing Anambra was because that is one state where every political aspirant goes into election with at least two court orders in his pocket. You cannot fight corruption without dealing with such issues”.

All said, it is the judiciary that really should feel ashamed by the shenanigans that are going on. Our court system is predicated on judicial hierarchy. Section 287 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) clearly defines the hierarchy and lower courts are under obligation to obey the judgments of superior courts under all circumstances. Section 287 (1) & (2) state as follows: “(1) the decisions of the Supreme Court shall be enforced in any part of the Federation by all authorities and persons, and by courts with subordinate jurisdiction to that of the Supreme Court; (2) the decisions of the Court of Appeal shall be enforced in any part of the Federation by all authorities and persons, and by courts with subordinate jurisdiction to that of the Court of Appeal”.

The pertinent questions therefore are: How come that, in this particular instance, a lower court (on 13th December 2017) could overrule a superior court on the same subject matter three weeks after the judgement of the superior court (delivered on 20th November 2017)? How come that a High Court can order the issuance of a certificate of return for an election that had been nullified more than two years ago by the Appeal Tribunal with a consequential order for its re-run?

In his lecture, “Keeping a Republic: Overcoming the Corrupted Judiciary”, Robert H. Bork, a Professor at the Yale Law School and a former American Solicitor General, acting U.S. Attorney General and erstwhile Circuit Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, argues that the rule of law requires that “the principles announced and relied upon by judges be neutral in their application” which means that “a principle, once chosen, be applied according to its terms to all relevant cases without regard to the judge’s personal views of the parties or issues before him.”

While this, according to Bork, requires discipline, since no judge can possibly avoid seeing a case without his own worldview coming into play, “there is a chasm between a judge who knows that and consciously strives for objectivity and a judge who knowingly undertakes to impose his vision of justice upon the parties before him and upon the society.” Yet, it is that deliberate choice to impose a vision of justice that is most often at variance with public good that is at the root of the problem we are talking about in Nigeria today.

At all times and in all circumstances, the role of the courts as the interpreter of the law, resolver of disputes and defender of the Constitution, requires that Judges abide by their oath. That explains why a judiciary debilitated by, or prone to, all manner of misconduct, including corruption and political interference, is a danger to society. Sadly, we can see the evidence of this in our polity and it is important for critical stakeholders to understand that we cannot continue like this if our nation must develop and thrive.

On the immediate case of Anambra Central Senatorial election, it is incumbent on the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Walter Onnoghen, to intervene on the side of reason and common sense. Beyond that, as the 2019 general election approaches, it is not only worrisome that most of the conflicting judgements nationwide relate to political cases, something has to be done to stem the looming judicial anarchy that may imperil the conduct of elections by INEC.

This is therefore the time for the National Judicial Council (NJC) to step in to restore sanity to the bench. It cannot just wait until a petition is filed before investigating and dealing with blatant deviant behaviour that brings the judiciary to ridicule and threatens our democracy.

Credit: Olusegun Adeniyi, Thisday[myad]

I would like rely on some ancient words of a wise king who once said, “there is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heaven”. Yes, there is a time to be quiet. There is a time to be loud; a time to be politically correct in the interest of peace. And there is a time to refrain from political correctness and speak truth to power in public interest. And this should include a time to tell our best friends the truth and nothing but the truth, especially the one to set them free from unnecessary fear. I am therefore fully persuaded that it is time to tell our friends, especially in the far North, some plain truth about Nigeria. Yes, Nigeria whose destiny all of us are gambling with at the moment.

For the record, I have more friends in the North. I have had some personal relationship with the North that spanned about three decades. My professional profile was remarkably shaped in December 1990 when the premier newspaper in Abuja owned by investors from the North appointed me Editor of their newspaper, The Abuja Newsday. I once narrated part of the remarkable story of the first newspaper in the nation’s capital here. I had then noted that Alhaji Bukar Zarma, former editor of New Nigerian who hails from Borno state, set up the newspaper and appointed all the editors without consideration for religion and ethnicity. The Chairman of the Board of Directors was Alhaji Hassan Adamu, Wakilin Adamawa.

The title Editor, Nick Dazang, is a Christian from Plateau State. The News Editor was Jackson Ekwugum, a Christian from Delta State. The Chief Sub-Editor, Dennis Mordi hails from Delta State too. The Features Editor, Clement Wasah, is a Christian from the Federal Capital Territory. The Sports Editor then was Samuel (Samm) Audu, who hails from Zaria, Kaduna State. There were others. In December 1990, there was a cabinet shake-up and yours sincerely was appointed Editor from Lagos Bureau chieftaincy title.

My life as a journalist has since been significantly affected by my stint with the capital’s premier newspaper that the Gen Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBB) regime closed down in the wake of June 12 election crisis in 1993! And this beat has taken me to every nook and cranny in the North since 1988.

This is just a modest way of saying that there is a sense in which I can claim that I am quite familiar with events and developments in the northern region. Most of my best friends and mentors are from the North. Some of the most remarkable sources and resources I have had in my professional life, are from there. What is more, I have done more journalistic legworks in the North and Abuja than any other parts of the country. So, there is also a sense in which I can claim that I am a friend of the North.

That exactly is the reason I have to devote this piece (of advice) to the power elite in the significant region, who will be in the eye of Nigeria’s political storm again sooner than later because the bells are beginning to toll already for 2019 elections. The northern elite are like their counterparts in any parts of the country: they don’t vote. They may not register as members of any political party. But they wield enormous powers in coordinating the poor masses to register and vote for candidates of their (elite’s) choice.

Power elite, as conceptualised by a sociologist C.Wright Mills in 1956, is used in loose sense here to depict the elite corps members in the North who continue to wield powers, who mobilise the wretched their strange politics has massively created.

All told, this is not a time for intellectual masturbation we always indulge in, especially in the media. It is indeed a time to see the elite ‘theory’, in this context, as explaining the power relationships in contemporary northern society. The ‘theory’ posits that a small minority, consisting of members of the economic elite and policy-planning networks, holds the most power and that this power (is not so) independent of a state’s democratic elections process.

According to Mills, the eponymous “power elite” are those that occupy the dominant positions, in the dominant institutions (military, economic and political) of a dominant country, and their decisions (or lack of decisions) have enormous consequences, not only for a country (such as U.S) population but, “the underlying populations of the world.”

We need to understand that the elites have intellectual, moral, and material superiority that is highly esteemed and influential in organized societies. In 2013, I had some useful discussion with Dr. Wale Babalakin on the role of the elite in a society and the implications of their docility. He promised to do an article on it for me as editor… He has been ‘too elitist’ to deliver on his promise, though he has been delivering other services as he built and is operating Nigeria’s best local airport, MMA2 through his purpose-driven B1-Courtney.

There is no debating the fact that most members of the Nigerian elite corps have been very greedy and complicit in the conspiracies and politicking that have kept the country under-developed. Most of the public intellectuals among them have been, above all things, desperately dishonest. They most often deny that they are part of the ruling class. They want to pose as part of those ruled. They don’t get interested in organising even non-governmental organizations to examine the problems of societies and build active citizenry. They don’t even register to vote. But when, according to my brother, Fela Durotoye, their complacency allows the unelectable, incompetent to be elected through the ignorant, uneducated poor, they step forward for spoils of office, notably appointments accepted from mediocrities in power.

But specifically, let’s leave the national council of the Nigerian elite and speak eloquently to the ruling and the ruled elite in the North who are again perfecting strategy to return President Muhammadu Buhari to power in 2019. Most of us, especially their friends in the sphere of amateur political risk analysis need to tell them now that this 2019 is the last chance they have to redeem their image.

When it is time to insist on the turn of the North to fill quota, they insist so strategically that no one can stand in their way. This is being done within a very complex diversity we always fail to recognise as some sensitivity. One is not too sure of whether they (the elite) retain political risk analysts within their fold to tell them the implications of their actions within the (nation’s) polity. There have been so many contentious issues. But let’s examine some of the most critical ones that have formed some complex perception index in other parts of the country that political correctness has prevented from the mainstream media.

A counter elite corps is emerging in the country because most members believe in some inconvenient truth that the North has been unable to help itself out of its political cocoon. Another side of the uncomfortable degree of truth is that the far North is against even sustainable development in the region, no thanks to the elite that have failed and refused to develop quantitative and qualitative education in the area. Thus, there is a large pool of illiterate citizens, useful only for elections of who-ever they want in power. There was a recent credible publication to the effect that N15 billion worth of Almajiri integrated model schools built during the tenure of President Goodluck Jonathan had deteriorated. The model schools were built then to tackle the high rate of illiteracy in the northern region. But the project has failed according to an exclusive report by Daily Trust (November 27, 2017). This is part of the issues that under-develop the region while the rapacious elite quietly send their children to the best schools abroad.

Another inconvenient truth that makes this discussion timely is that the far north has so far failed to bring out its best for election to the highest office in the federation. Now the coast is clear and we can see that they(northern elite) are not interested in the development of the region, they are enthusiastic only about who can win election in 2019. This is intriguing. And so it is tragic to note that there are very educated, knowledgeable and organised members of the elite that the ruthless establishment would always like to destroy instead of supporting them for national leadership from the region. They always don’t encourage youth leadership development and succession arrangement. The corrupt elements in the region’s elite corps have failed to develop their best brains for national public offices.

Alas, a few competent ones, who have shown interest and have been tested, have sadly been demonised by a dangerous cabal within the ruling elite. They have failed to encourage their best including the Abubakar Umars, the Sanusi Lamido Sanusis, the Nuhu Ribadus. There have been more promising leaders that their cabals have always demonised instead of supporting (them) as their brand ambassadors in the federation.

Now, let’s agree that the north deserves a second term in 2019. But why should the candidate be General Buhari who was Petroleum Resources Minister 40 years ago and Head of State 34 years ago?

Therefore, the powerful elite in the north should note that the reason agitation for restructuring has become a recurrent issue is frustration with the way the current leadership has been wasteful and lethargic about national integration and development issues. What is worse, it is frustrating that the North cannot confront its frontline leaders and powers including president Buhari now: that they have to step aside. Apparently, President Buhari has some integrity and charisma that the north used in enticing us in 2015. But it is now clear that he is too frail and too old to run again. But the ‘tragedy of the present ambush is that nobody in the region has the courage to confront General Buhari about his frailty nurtured by failing health and old age. The ruling elite in the North are aware that the president is too old to run but they too need his name, his connection to the ignorant and poverty-ridden voters to remain in power. And the audacity of this grand deceit within the northern elite is that they don’t have electable people anymore in the region.

Yes, there may not be too many prominent candidates that can easily garner the Buhari’s 12 million votes but there are far more significant leaders in the region that can be supported to run Nigeria better than President Buhari. Clearly, the last two and half years have shown that President Buhari’s integrity has been massively overrated. Besides, he lacks dynamic capabilities to plan and develop a team for operational efficiency. And if the north would like the rest stakeholders to continue with one Nigeria, as the glimmer of hope of the black race, they should step into the rain and look at other stakeholders who are weeping (in the rain) so that their tears cannot be seen at the moment. Yes, tears in the rain that some people are already planning another four years for a man who at 75 now, is clearly too frail and too old to run Nigeria that is failing in his hand at the moment. We will (by His grace) continue these discussion points next week! I would like to wish all followers of Inside Stuff column a prosperous and fear-free 2018.