PM NEWS
By Richard Akinnola
Elections in Nigeria have always been war by other means. And rather than being decided by the ballot boxes, many elections in Nigeria are decided in the courts. Votes are now being cast by judges, instead by the electorate.
The reality now is that while candidates and political parties prepare for elections, they also have to factor in possible litigation costs for lawyers as part of their budget.
In Nigeria, election cases are not only fought in the courts but also in the court of public opinion. If the final verdict goes against a party, the loser in many cases, wages a campaign of calumny against the judges that sat on the case, alleging bias and compromise.
But should judgments of our court go without any critique or critical analyses? Certainly no. For the advancement of the law and improvement in our jurisprudence, judgments of our courts should be subjected to analytical intellectual scrutiny.
However, there is a difference between an intellectual critique of a court judgment and scurrilous, personal attacks on the individual integrity of judges who handed down the judgment.
Barely few days to the 2023 presidential election tribunal judgment, a flurry of scathing attacks on the justices have gone into an overdrive.
Hails of incendiary and combustible verbal missiles from some people have been unrelenting.
Vitriolic, acerbic vituperations, opprobrious expletives, conspiracy theories and scurrilous personal attacks on the integrity of the justices, where the justices were unjustly tainted with the tar brush of corruption without any scintilla of evidence, have become the order of the day even while we are all awaiting the judgment. This is nothing short of judicial blackmail.
In the United States, a Texas woman, Abigail Jo Shry is currently facing charges of threatening to kill a US District judge, Tanya Chutkan, in charge of one of the cases against former US President, Donald Trump.
Unfortunately here, even when Justices are unfairly pilloried over their judgments, they have no avenue of reply.
Hon. Justice Niki Tobi, JSC (as he then was), poignantly encapsulated this mindset when he posited thus in the case of Atiku Abubakar v. Musa Yar’Adua (2008) 19 NWLR, a position which is quite apposite in the present context:
“Courts of law do not give judgment according to public opinion or to reflect public opinion unless such opinion represents or presents the state of the law. This is because the judge’s clientele is the law and the law only. Public opinion is, in most instances, built on sentiments and emotions. Both have no company with the law. They are kilometers and kilometers away from the law. The pulse of the Nigeria’s public opinion, if l can feel it, in this case, is to allow the appeal on the speculation or should l say belief that the election was irregularly conducted in violation of the Electoral Act. The concern of the court is whether the appellants proved their case. Even if the justices of the Court of Appeal were in the field of the election and saw irregularities and inwardly expressed some anger at the way the election was held, the adversary nature of our jurisprudence will not allow them to use what they saw to give judgment in favor of the appellants. They will insist on proof by the appellants because the Evidence Act does not allow them to take judicial notice of what they saw. This is what the Court of Appeal insisted and rightly too for that matter”.
Justice Niki Tobi, further elucidated:
“…From the trend of the judgment, the electorate and some Nigerians may ask, if l am saying that the presidential election was perfect and that there was no non-compliance with the Electoral Act. I am not saying that. The point l am making is that the appellants did not prove that. They did not prove that acts of non-compliance affected substantially the result of the election. The appellants brought the case to court and they must prove it.”
This was what the Supreme court did in the case of Nyesom Wike v. Peterside (2016) 7 N.W.L.R part 1512, when the court adopted that reasoning by stating thus:”Where a petitioner complains of non-compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act, he has an onerous task because he must prove his assertion polling unit by polling unit, ward by ward, and the standard of proof is on the balance of probabilities. In this case, the 1st and 2nd respondents did not prove their allegation of non-compliance with the Electoral Act”.
But again, l make a recourse to the timely admonition of Justice Niki Tobi in the Atiku v. Yar’Adua (Supra) when he asseverated: “Politics as it is played in Nigeria, leaves much to be desired. There is so much acrimony, bitterness and violence. Nigerians play politics as if they are in the battlefield. It is not so. I do not agree that politics is a dirty game; only some Nigerians make it dirty….In years back, the fight in politics was within, in the sense that only the players of the game were involved. In more recent times, they have involved the judiciary. Nigerian judges are called all sorts of names by litigants. They are suspected for the slightest action. Parties do not seem to believe that Judges can dispense justice in the light of the law and the law alone. The insults are getting too much. Some of us have always taken the matter as one of occupational hazard. It is gone beyond that and it is worrying. I hate to say what l wants to say to end this judgment. But l must say it. No human being and l repeat no human being can influence me in the performance of my judicial duties. Only God can. Fortunately, God is holy and can never make us commit sin. Let every human being get that one straight for now and forever.
“Despite all the insults, this court will continue to administer justice in the interest of our most cherished democracy. This court has consistently promoted democracy in its judgments and will continue to do so in appropriate cases. This court will not shy away from its responsibilities as the final court in deserving cases to promote democracy in the performance of its judicial duties in accordance with Section 6 of the constitution.”
This strong lamentation and admonition is quite apposite in respect of tomorrow’s outcome of the Presidential Election tribunal judgment. Head or tail, peace of the nation and the sanctity of our democracy should be paramount.
*Richard Akinnola is a Nigerian journalist, author, lawyer, and activist.
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