Nigeria: Go To Court, Or Go To Hell?

 By Andy Ezeani

It has not been too long ago that Nigerians celebrated the coming into being of Electoral Act 2022, the new body of laws for their electoral system. The Act replaced Electoral Act 2010, on which proceedings in the country’s electoral process had hitherto been anchored. 

The process that eventually culminated in the enactment of the new electoral law was not easy, by any means. The forces that preferred the continued reign of the hitherto existing electoral law, were determined to retain the status quo. The reason was obvious. The provisions of Electoral Act 2010 were more amenable to what politicians want than what the new body of electoral laws was promising. 

How Nigeria’s Courts Became ‘The Lost Hope Of The Common Man’

 By Chidi Odinkalu

When Ogbonnaya Ukeje died in Lagos two days after Christmas Day in 1981, Bode Rhodes-Vivour was a 30-year-old lawyer making his way up the rungs of public service in the Ministry of Justice in Lagos State. Mr. Rhodes-Vivour had been called to the Nigerian Bar a mere six years earlier, in 1975. 

In 1989, when Mr. Rhode-Vivour succeeded Nureini Abiodun Kessington as the Director of Public Prosecutions in Lagos State, the case concerning the estate of Ogbonnaya Ukeje was already in its sixth year in the High Court of Lagos. Mr. Ukeje’s daughter, Gladys, had filed the case in 1983 to challenge her exclusion from a share in her father’s estate merely on the ground that she was female.

Adamu’s Forced Exit: The Post-Power Humiliation Of Buhari

 By Olu Fasan

Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria’s immediate past president, had a post-power syndrome. He once said he would find life difficult if a president from another party succeeded him. He genuinely feared that a successor from another party would treat him and his allies the same way he treated his predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan, and his loyalists in 2015.

*Adamu and Buhari 
So, Buhari exploited his incumbency and pulled all the stops to secure “victory” for Bola Tinubu, saying “he will continue my legacy”. Indeed, in his last days in office, Buhari made several appointments and launched several initiatives as if saying: “they’re safe in Tinubu’s hands.”

Nigeria: The Real Subsidies Are Not For The Poor, But The Rich

By Femi Falana

Globally, subsidies, whether for food, transportation, energy or housing, are part of good governance. So, the issue is not subsidies but who benefit from them. In Nigeria, subsidies are primarily of the rich, by the rich and for the rich. I will highlight a few, how they are being manipulated and how huge sums of money can be recovered not just to subsidise fuel but also provide funds for development.

Election Petitions: Nigeria’s Judiciary Must Redeem Itself

 By Olu Fasan

In Nigeria, elections almost always end up in court. To stem this tide, the Electoral Act of 2022 introduced the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS, a technology that would drastically reduce electoral malpractices. If that happened, election results would be more credible and less prone to legal challenge, although election matters remain justiciable, that is, subject to trial in a court of law.

Indeed, BVAS reduced the number of petitions arising from this year’s general elections, compared to the six previous elections since 1999. However, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, wilfully refused to use BVAS in the presidential election and in some governorship elections. Consequently, several results announced by INEC raised issues of process values and substantive justice that are now subject to trial in the election tribunals and the courts, ending up, inevitably, in the Supreme Court.

Towards A Democracy-Sensitive, People-Oriented Judiciary

 By Tunde Olusunle

On Thursday, March 16 and Friday, March 17, 2023, an editorial titled “The judiciary and public criticism” featured on prominent pages of a Nigerian national newspaper. The editorial alluded to public denunciation of certain judgments delivered and actions taken by the nation’s apex court and its leadership. 

Principally cited in the commentary are pronouncements gifting Ahmed Lawan, president of the Senate, and Godswill Akpabio, a former governor of Akwa Ibom State, tickets to contest the recent senatorial elections. Such appropriation was done by the Supreme Court, even when both political leaders did not participate in the primaries which would have presaged their emergence. 

When A Leader Is Demystified In Power

By Okey Ndiribe

A recent attack on President Muhammadu Buhari’s convoy in Kano is a clear sign of rejection by the youths of the ancient city. Coming shortly after a similar incident in his home state of Katsina, it sends a signal of regional resentment against a leader who enjoyed a massive personality cult-following at the beginning of his  tenure eight years ago. 

These seeming acts of rebellion on the part of a once docile populace -which gave him over 12 million votes during the 2015 presidential election-appear to be a direct response to the President’s recent self-award of a pass mark to his administration. Buhari’s remark which was made in Bauchi had elicited a huge controversy among Nigerians. One had thought that was the end of the matter.

Nigeria: Supreme Hooliganism?

 By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu

In June 2020, Malawians took to the streets and the judges joined to resist the attempt by President Peter Mutharika to fire Chief Justice Andrew Nyirenda in order to enable him rig a presidential re-run. The people trusted the Chief Justice more than the president, so they got rid of the president in order to keep the Chief Justice. One month later, in Mali, an uprising began when an unpopular ruling party used the Constitutional Court to rob the opposition of its victories, eventually leading to the dissolution of the court and a military coup.

Judicial immersion in political disputes is hazardous and judges called upon to do it have a clear choice to either resist importunations that compromise their authority or canoodle with the politicians at the risk of irremediable damage to judicial office. Nigeria’s Supreme Court appears to have made its choice and the consequences are unflattering.

2023: Between Atiku, Tinubu And Obi

 By Charles Okoh

For Nigeria, the year 2023 is just not another year. It is a year that will determine the fate of the nation. The campaigns by political parties would not commence until September 28, 2022 as provided by Sec. 94(1) of the Electoral Act 2022. But, the tension around the election has reached boiling point. What happens to this nation going forward would be determined by the choice we make in 2023.

*Obi, Tinubu, Atiku 

There are several reasons why 2023 could make or mar Nigeria. One of the biggest reasons why Nigeria and Nigerians must get it right is that for the past seven years we have been living the reality and facing the pangs that come with our wrong choice of President Muhammadu Buhari. In seven short years, Buhari has squandered the enormous goodwill he had coming to that office. That more than anything else, is the reason there is so much tension in the land. It is the reason Nigeria has remained on the edge of a precipice.

As the campaigns commence, it is imperative on all political parties and candidates to focus on issue-based campaigns. This way we can ensure that the polity is not unnecessarily heated up and it will also afford us the opportunity to assess the competencies and preparedness of those who seek to rule us in order to ensure transparent elections in which only the votes cast by citizens determine the winner. Sentiments, emotions and selfishness must take the backstage in making that vital decision.

Will Northern Politicians Do To Tinubu What They Did To Wike?

 By Rotimi Fasan

The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has been spending the last couple of few weeks fence-minding the relationship between their presidential flagbearer, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, and his closest rival and challenger at the convention that produced the presidential flagbearer, Nyesom Wike.

*Buhari and Tinubu

The winning side of the contest initially acted like a short visit to Wike, whose hope of being selected as the winner’s running mate was not only dashed when Ifeanyi Okowa, Delta State governor, was picked over and above him, but was also portrayed as patently unfit for any position outside the one he presently holds as governor of Rivers State- the Atiku team acted as if snubbing Wike in the manner it did required nothing more than an advertised short visit of party members to his home to soothe his bruised ego.

This it promptly did and went about its way planning for the next phase of the presidential contest while its foot soldiers went about with their narratives of triumph, highlighting the unmarketability of an Atiku-Wike ticket on account of the real and perceived inadequacies of Wike that are too well-known to be repeated here.

Nigerian Lawmakers As Champions Of Electoral Malpractices!

 By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

There is no doubt that members of Nigeria’s National Assembly have grown too big for their boots and it is time the Nigerian people are massively fed with the liberating enlightenment that they possess the powers to cut them to size. Yes, the lawmakers need to be served an urgent reminder that they are in that Legislative House because the people have so far chosen to tolerate their deficient representation and can wake up one morning, decide that they have had enough of their abject lack of patriotism, suffocating arrogance and insensitivity and ask them to pack their loads and return home.  

 *Senate President Lawan, President Buhari and Speaker               Gbajabiamila   

Their recent decision to brazenly sabotage the yearning of Nigerians for a more transparent and credible electoral process by voting against electronic transmission of results only served to open the eyes of many Nigerians to the extent these lawmakers have convinced themselves that they have become untouchable emperors who can ride roughshod on the citizenry and abort their most cherished aspirations without the minutest fear of any consequence.

Nigeria: National Assembly In Chains

 By DAN AMOR

In all democratic nations of the world, there are three major arms of government: the Legislature, the Executive and the Judiciary. As an assembly of elected and authentic representatives of the people, the legislature makes the laws that govern the day-to-day operations of government. The executive formulates and implements policies based on the framework of the laws promulgated by the lawmakers; whereas the judiciary, as the safety valve or sole arbiter of the common man, interprets the laws of the land and adjudicates on matters arising from any breach of the law between parties to the common wheel. 

                       *Lawan, Buhari and Gbajabiamila

What makes the legislature the bastion of democracy in any society, except in a few totalitarian states, is that its functions encapsulate representation of the people, lawmaking and over-sighting the executive. This is the crux of the matter. In a presidential democracy, like the type we practise here in Nigeria, the legislature exists not only to make laws but also to serve as the voice of the people in government and to make government accountable to the people. This makes the legislature the pillar of democracy.