For the people’s justice

The Supreme Court verdicts in Imo and Bayelsa States show we must save the people’s mandate from politicians and judges.

Finally, the Supreme Court has its word and its way. After all the partisan outcries and naysaying, the top court of the land has upheld its own supremacy. It will not share its glory with anyone. Ironically, not even against itself. It will not subvert its own authority.

By its decision on the counter-appeals from the given governorship elections in Imo and Bayelsa states, it has closed the door to any hint of jurisprudential anarchy. It has stanched the capacity of lawyers, no matter their brilliance and stature, to tamper with the appellate integrity of the Supreme Court.

In the case of Bayelsa State, the Supreme Court ruled with inflexible certainty that it would not reverse its decision to upturn electoral victory of the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate David Lyon, on the basis that his deputy had forged certificates and had adopted different names from primary education to the university and even beyond.

By that verdict, the candidacy was nullified to understandable hoopla. The court, on its adjudged technicality, handed the seat to Douye Diri of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), in a stunning reversal of fortunes.

In the Imo State saga, the court did not have a consensus. But by a six-to-one ruling, it struck out the counter-appeal of the PDP. Hope Uzodinma will shepherd the state for the next four years. The dissenting judgment notwithstanding, the Supreme Court has raised itself above the fray of a litigious political elite.

The issue of challenging the Supreme Court is strange anywhere. The fact that it happened testifies to a desperate and rapacious political class that believes it can somehow bend the rules to fit its own peculiar standpoint.

After the court dethroned former Imo State Governor Emeka Ihedioha, the leadership of the PDP could not rein in their histrionic grief; as the PDP National Chairman, Uche Secondus, led other party top hierarchs in a public protest to foreign embassies, including the United States and the European Union in what became a circus of self-mockery. That was before it turned into a chamber of wild ecstasy when the same court gave it victory in Bayelsa.

Ditto APC. When it won Imo State, it applauded the infallibility of the Supreme Court. But it performed a pirouette when Bayelsa State fell from its grasp.

The top politicians must learn the supremacy of the law. The dynamics of the rule of law is to maintain a society of order and civilized regularity. The beauty of a democratic election forbids a right to the throne by any big man or cabal. It is only the people that encase such privilege. Because it is a republic, we cannot guarantee anyone or party an eternal hold on power. Hence, a term limit.

Anyone whose appeal falls short will have to await another opportunity. This way we enthrone the virtue of patience in our practice of democracy. Our political elite have demonstrated a lack of the long-suffering needed to nourish the election. This is partly because of the winner-takes-all mentality of our politicians, who invest a limb and a heart in every poll; and see it as a commercial venture, which time for profit is now.

This has led many to think less of the mandate of the people; and more about the greed of a few men.

Normally an election should not generate controversy but in Nigeria it is often a storm. We are often at war not only against the opposing party but also with the electoral empire, especially when the results fall short of our expectations.

Hence in the Imo story, a party was up in arms against the independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) while the other party defended it or kept silent.

But it is not the political elite alone that holds the blame. The courts, in the past decade, have come under fire as some of its judges have been accused of compromising justice on the platter of commercialism. They have been accused, even by some retired justices, of staining their robes with filthy lucre.

Since the advent of formal justice system in Nigeria, this generation of the Bench has been the most accused. Quite a few judges have been fired and disgraced; even a former Chief Justice of Nigeria, flushed from his perch.

The Supreme Court, too, ought to be wary of its position as the last arbiter of justice. The fact that the justices are not trusted is not just a flash of impulse of the times. The perception has grown, whether rightly or not, that the Supreme Court is not immune to the charges that have plagued other courts, though subordinate.

This is also due to the fact that some of its judgments have raised perfidious eyebrows even among the top legal minds in the land.

They have pointed to what they perceive as inconsistencies in its logic and conclusions. Law is a very nuanced enterprise and some fine points of law may be liable to a multiplicity of perspectives and interpretations. So while pundits may cite the Bayelsa verdict as inconsistent with the Kogi imbroglio, the court could have its own watertight logic for its decision.

However, the Supreme Court should realise that it is a product of a dynamic society and its decisions, while final, holds little traction if the prevailing sentiment is otherwise. We agree that law should not cow to sentiment but it should be conscious of it.

That is why we urge the courts to not subordinate justice to technicalities. Far from sanctifying a compulsively activist court, we also want justices to know that elections have consequences and the people’s votes are the bedrock of any democracy. Therefore, it makes better sense when technicalities collide with, or are perceived to clash with, the popular will. The courts will do well to take the matter back to the people, so the people’s voice prevails.

It will erase any doubt about who the people want and unpopular parties will know that the people cannot be conned by appealing to the fine points of law instead of the will of the people.

Such a trend ought to be discouraged or else we shall have a democracy in which the people are not the mandate givers. The court are not electors, and they are becoming selectors. It does not bode well for a system of the people.

In the Bayelsa counter-appeal, the justices rebuked two senior lawyers, Afe Babalola and Wole Olanipekun, both senior advocates of Nigeria, and its point was the irreversibility of its verdicts.

It is as well that the Supreme Court understands its stature in the evolution of Nigerian democracy. The people should also know that. Hence, we can condemn the attack of hoodlums on the home of Justice Mary Odili. It is a new low in our politics that led to exchange of rhetorical onslaughts between two party mavens.

Again, the Bayelsa case threw up a flaw in our electoral process. The overthrow of the APC and a few others may not have generated hubbub if the law insisted that all pre-election disputes should be resolved before the elections. This may call for a retweaking of the electoral calendar, and this might affect the beginning of the campaign seasons. But it is worth the sacrifice.

What we want is not just justice but the justice of the people.