Oluwadare Aguda
3 October 2008
opinion
It is perhaps not generally appreciated that the ability of the courts of law to ensure peace and order in society derives largely from the respect they are customarily given and the awe in which they are held by the people.
When the courts and the Judges are stripped of their traditional respect and awe, people will begin to deny obedience to court orders; and when obedience is denied to the orders of the courts to any considerable extent, affairs in society will tend to be controlled by the powerful and ruthless. And now that the leaders wantonly accuse Judges of bias, partisanship and corruption, ordinary folk, taking their cue from their leaders, will soon start to believe that the Judges do not deserve to be obeyed. They will regard the courts, and the law itself, with contempt.
The focus of this article is the attacks on Election Petitions tribunals and the Judges who sit on them. These tribunals are set up by virtue of subsections (1) and (2) of section 285 of the Constitution. They have the status of courts of law and as such are entitled to be accorded the same respect as is given to any court of law. Nigerian politicians are now systematically stripping the law courts of their traditional awe and respect as some wage all-out wars on the courts when judgments do not go in their favour. And these are highly placed leaders who enjoy the unquestioning following of millions of people.
In the wake of the nullification on July 25, 2008 of the election of Governor Olusegun Agagu of Ondo State, it was reported that busloads of supporters of his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) came to the State capital, Akure, from the six local government areas of the State where election results were nullified to protest against the verdict of the Ondo State Election Petition Tribunal.
An odious example of the kind of attacks on the integrity of Judges we are talking about is provided by an advertorial made in a newspaper by a group calling itself "Association of Young Professionals (AYP), Ondo State Chapter"... Titled: Election Petitions Tribunal Judgment in Ondo State: An arrest of Justice, the advertorial declared: "...we consider it absolutely necessary, as stakeholders, to encounter, open up and engage the moral issues in the judgment in order to distill Ondo State from the froth of judicial poison and social disaffection which Justice Nabaruma's judgment portends."
The group went on to state: "Our intervention must be viewed as a patriotic call to resound with the force of intellect and strength of history, the symptom of the same disease and epidemic which unfortunately Justice Garba Nabaruma inflicted on the people of Anambra State in his weak and widely condemned judgment in 2004 removing Governor Chris Ngige from office as Governor. That controversial judgment virtually brought anarchy and chaos to the State. It nearly reduced the State to rubbles, putting the entire people under siege and fear. Thankfully, Dr Ngige appealed and Nabaruma's wopt (sic) judgment was disregarded and overruled by the appeal court which upheld the legitimate election of the Governor."
They went further still: "The truth is that the poison in Nabaruma's latest judgment in Ondo State consists of the stealing and silencing of the people's votes through an intricate packing, packaging and patenting of the Tribunal's opinion in sacred voice of justice. In colour, substance, procedure and entity, the judgment is eccentric, illogical and lacks integrity." (Nigerian Compass, August 6, 2008, p. 11)
It is necessary to comment at this point that rather than being "weak and widely condemned" and far from being "disregarded and overruled by the appeal court", Hon Justice Garba Nabaruma was praised in glowing terms by the Court of Appeal and the judgment of his Election Petitions Tribunal was affirmed by that Court.
Another publication which listed two traditional rulers (the Olubo of Obe-Nla and Alagho of Odonla Kingdom), retired Colonel Wole Ohunayo and two High Chiefs (Oloja Araromi Seaside and Bobagunwa of Etikan Kingdom) as the authors raised the following point, among others, in reaction to some invalidated election results:
"It should be noted that all the affected local government areas are strongholds of the PDP where the ruling party won convincingly. This is a rather curious coincidence, turning the loser into the winner and vice versa."
The publication then concluded as follows: "Meanwhile, we say capital No to the disenfranchisement of our people. We say a bigger No to the imposition of a minority candidate as Governor in our Sunshine State. We say an emphatic No to this daylight robbery. We say an unequivocal No to this rape on democracy. We say a resounding No to judicial rascality. We demand the restoration of our votes. We condemn the part-reading of the judgment in such a landmark case. We reject any abridged judgment giving no logical reasons for its conclusion! We call for a reversal of the induced judgment. We shall strive, we shall struggle, we shall go on, till our right is secured." (Nigerian Tribune, July 31, 2008.)
A body calling itself "Ondo State Youth Action Group," under the caption: RE: ONDO STATE ELECTION TRIBUNAL JUDGMENT: PERVERTED JUSTICE, proclaimed: "We the entire youths of Ondo State under the auspices of Ondo State Youth Action Group wish to inform Nigerians and the world in general that we totally disagree with the judgment of Friday, 25th July 2008 by the Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal led by Justice Garba Nabaruma which declared Dr Olusegun Mimiko as the winner of the April 14th 2007 Governorship election in Ondo State."
The group then posited a number of points, two of which were: "6. That it is alien to any civilised society like ours for thousands of eligible voters who exercised their constitutional rights to be disenfranchised through the cancellation of election results in Irele, Ilaje, Ese-Odo, Odigbo, Ile-Oluji, Okitipupa, Akoko NW, Akoko NE, Akure North and Ose local government areas [and] 7. That the cancellation only occurred in the strongholds of Governor Olusegun Agagu." (Nigerian Compass, August 6, 2008, p.9)
The political leaders themselves are often far from being restrained in their attacks on Judges. For instance, Chief Segun Adegoke, the Special Adviser on Political Matters to Governor Olusegun Agagu of Ondo State, was quoted in The Nation under the heading: "WHY Mimiko will not be sworn in", as saying in his remarks on the verdict of the Ondo State Election Petitions Tribunal declaring Dr Mimiko winner of the election: "But the long and short of it, it appeared, the tribunal worked towards an answer... It later turned out that the tribunal wrote 673 pages of judgment. This is rather impossible in four weeks after the adoption of written addresses. .. For the four weeks, the tribunal could not have written that lengthy judgment. My thinking is that the Chairman must have been writing his judgment daily while the sitting lasted. This only shows that he worked towards an answer."
Chief Adegoke then went on to say: "I don't see why on earth the tribunal should say [that] elections didn't take place there. But the tribunal nullified elections in Ilaje, Irele councils, the strong bases of Governor Agagu. .. In these places, Agagu would always score above 90 per cent of the votes cast. .. ..The nullified elections were unjustified. The evidence on which it (sic) was based was tenuous. Members of the tribunal believed what they wanted to believe, and that was exactly what happened." (The Nation, August 14, 2008.)
It is quite inappropriate for anyone, least of all a senior member of the Bar and a spokesman for the State Government such as Chief Adegoke, to say that the Governor-elect of the State would not be sworn in. By virtue of the judgment of the Ondo State Election Petitions Tribunal, Dr Olusegun Mimiko is the Governor-elect of the State. That is the position in law. It is a very serious allegation indeed to say, as Chief Adegoke did, that a Panel of Judges "worked towards an answer" in writing their judgment.
However, lest I seem to be saying that none of our political leaders accepts with due respect any judgment of court that does not favour them, I would like to mention Dr. Kayode Fayemi, the Ekiti State governorship candidate of the Action Congress in the 2007 elections. When his petition against the election of Governor Segun Oni of the State was dismissed by the State's Election Petitions Tribunal, it was reported that, "When encouraging party faithful and the entire Ekiti electorate who were demoralised and devastated by the judgment delivered on Thursday, Fayemi said [that] in spite of the verdict of the Tribunal, his faith and confidence in the Nigerian Judiciary remained firm and unshaken." [The Nation, August 30, 2008, p. 10.]
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I am suprised that an article of this sort could come from a retired Judge in this Federal Republic of Nigeria. There is an addent need to scrutinise and look into the times and resignation of Justice Aguda from the Ondo State Judiciary. On the other hand I will not overlook this as one of the sponsored write ups from the LP cohorts but it is a thing of shame if a Judge in the class of Aguda could decsend so low to write this lowly rated article that has no iota of credibility and value, personally i see it… [Read Full Text]
It seems to me that you yourself you a PDP member, or PDP sponsored writer. It there any lie in what he says?
I don’t see anything wrong in what the supporters of the Peoples Democratic Party from the 6 local government areas whose election results were nullified did by protesting the verdict of the Ondo State Election Petition Tribunal. They have the right to protest considering nabaruma’s antecedent in Anambra State. At the end of the day, nabaruma’s verdict was overruled by the Appeal Court.
What Justice Aguda said is the whole truth. Even OBJ himself did not obeyed the court when he was the president. for nigeria to move forward, our leaders most respect the law. Remember, no one is above the law.