Presidential Election Verdict---The Ultimate Vindication of INEC
(History Will Vindicate the Just)
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By Franklin Otorofani, Esquire
02.27.08
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"Umaru Yar'Adua and Goodluck Jonathan remain validly elected as president and
vice-president of Nigeria.”----Court of Appeal
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Let’s rejoice and indulge ourselves a little amid the unspeakable miseries in
the land and give three thunderous rounds of applause each to INEC, Nigeria, and
Democracy:
Hip! Hip! Hurrah!! Hip! Hip! Hurrah!! Hip! Hip! Hurrah!!
Say, shame on EU Election Monitors and damn their jaundiced report on the
Nigerian general elections:
“Shame on you: EU Election Monitors!”
Esteemed Readers,
I need not bother you with the genesis of the case before the Tribunal arising
from the last presidential election in our dear country. Suffice it to state
that for sometime now, many of us have had the courage of our convictions to
stick out our necks in defense of the results of the last presidential election,
which returned candidate Umaru Yar’Adua as duly elected in accordance with our
electoral laws and the constitution.
In a follow-follow country like Nigeria with a herd mentality, where everybody
is expected to blindly, ignorantly, and uncritically condemn INEC and its
Chairman, Professor Maurice Iwu, over the results of the general elections, it
was no mean feat swimming against the tide of public opinion, shaped by the
press, which was heavily tilted against INEC, OBJ and Iwu. To defend any of
these bodies was to incur the internal wrath of our pocket sized despots who
masquerade as ‘democrats’ in Nigeria.
This was not helped by heavyweights like Wole Soyinka, Femi Falana, even former
Senate President Ken Nnamani, Gani Fawehinmi, NBA President, Mr. Olisa Agbakoba,
and a host of other notables taking their turns to bash Iwu and INEC and
threatening fire and brimstones over alleged electoral malfeasances which they
impetuously placed at the doorsteps INEC for reasons best known to them. Right
up to the judgment these characters were still calling for the head of Maurice
Iwu even as the case had yet to be decided. In other words, Iwu had been
charged, prosecuted, and found guilty by the mob before the Tribunal had had a
chance to determine the case. That is the sense of justice of our self-styled
democrats and so-called civil rights activists who worship at the courts of
London and Washington, DC.
Iwu bashing was the most fashionable pastime in Nigeria and all manners of
political charlatans and opportunists seized upon the anti-Iwu sentiments to
feather their political nests. At the public level it fueled media frenzy in the
celebration of infamy. And at the strictly partisan level it gave rise to the
idea of Government of National Unity (GNU) which was conceived in a frantic bid
to placate aggrieved parties who had alleged, without any proofs whatsoever
other than the utterly inane effusions of some EU Electoral Monitors, that Iwu
had robbed them of their victories. And based on those unproven allegations
Yar’Adua was browbeaten, intimidated, and in fact blackmailed into ceding
ministerial positions to the opposition under the guise of a government of
national unity, which this writer had kicked against from day one. Could you
imagine an opposition not willing to play its role in the opposition anymore and
actively seeking to be part of the government it should be monitoring? Where
does that leave the Nigerian people?
I’m eminently proud of the role I played through my numerous articles in support
of Iwu/INEC. But I’m more proud about the role played by my other compatriots
not the least of whom is Mr. Aloy Ejimakor, the Chair of the Organization of
Nigerian Lawyers in the Diaspora (ONLID) who refused to be led by the nose by
public sentiments and the tendentious ranting of the anti-Iwu crowd at home and
abroad, and went out of his way to bring Maurice Iwu to Washington, DC to state
his case before the world. Today Iwu has been vindicated, for as they say,
history will vindicate the just.
The Court of Appeal verdict is thus the ultimate vindication of our long held
position that President Umaru Yar’Adua is the duly elected President of the
Federal Republic of Nigeria in the 2007 presidential election. In other words,
he won the presidential election fair and square in substantial compliance with
the extant electoral laws of the land. This is not only a victory for Yar’Adua,
it is a victory for Iwu/INEC and former President Olusegun Obasanjo who had been
unfairly and maliciously accused by the hordes electoral losers looking for
scapegoats.
While I’m yet to get the details of the judgment, however, it’s fair to conclude
from the initial media reports that the petitioners, Abubakar Atiku and
Muhammadu Buhari had failed woefully to prove that the presidential election was
not conducted in ‘substantial compliance’ with the electoral laws of Nigeria. In
a previous article published last Sunday titled: Presidential Election Tribunal:
Gathering Clouds of Judicial Activism, which appears on this blogsite:
http://www.nigerian-newspaper.com/,
I averred that the crucial question to be determined by the Court of Appeal on
which everything else hinges is whether or not the presidential election was
conducted in substantial (not 100% ) compliance with the Electoral Law. Wrote I
in that article and I quote as follows:
All said and done, and in any case, it will be an uphill task for Buhari and
Atiku to successfully overturn Yar’Adua’s victory at the Tribunal. This optimism
is premised on the fact that while there may have been irregularities, which
have yet to be established, the 2003 Electoral Act, (as amended) as indeed, all
other Electoral Acts before it, does ‘not’ (supplied) require 100% compliance
with the electoral provisions because such a requirement is impracticable and
impossible to enforce. On the contrary, the Act provides for “substantial
compliance” with its provision. Substantial compliance means certain degrees of
compliance, which requires judicial calibration.
Therefore, what the Tribunal has been called upon to determine is whether or not
there was substantial compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act and
not whether some of its provisions have been infringed upon. To hold, therefore,
that one or two provisions of the Act had not been complied with by INEC, the
candidates, or whoever, in any material particular, is not to say that the
Electoral Act has not been complied with as a whole. In other words,
non-compliance with parts of the Electoral Act is not tantamount to
non-compliance with the entire Act, upon which verdict alone an outright
nullification of the presidential election could be judicially and judiciously
founded.
So, as Buhari and Atiku prime their political forces for another presidential
duel, they should keep in mind that a finding of electoral irregularities may
not necessarily translate into a victory for them that could produce a re-rerun
of the presidential election. As Buhari knows too well, nullification of the
results in Ogun or any other state (s) for that matter, based on electoral
irregularities, might make him and Atiku feel good and massage their huge egos,
if feeling good is their goal, but it will not get them any nearer to Yar’Adua’s
throne than they were at the beginnings. In the end, Atiku and Buhari may find
out belatedly that working together before the presidential election is a whole
lot better than working together after the presidential election!
What more should I add to the above quote in the light of the Court of Appeal
ruling? Hasn’t our position been vindicated enough?
Going by the BBC Report, the panel of 5 Judges unanimously held that Atiku and
Buhari “had failed to prove that violations of the electoral law were
substantial enough to invalidate the election result.”
The onus was on them to show by preponderance of evidence that the election was
not conducted in substantial compliance with the Electoral Law and their failure
to discharge that onus was fatal to their case. And given the fact that the
standard of proof required here was on the ‘balance of probabilities’ rather
than on proof beyond ‘reasonable doubt’ as in criminal cases, it is pathetic, in
fact atrocious, that the petitioners could not even meet this lower threshold of
standard of proof while dragging the nation through their pretentious, face
saving judicial adventures. Buhari, in particular, should have known that while
wild allegations of rigging celebrated by the media may excite the public they
have no evidential value in our judicial system, and so was the so-called but
utterly malicious ‘EU Election Monitors Report.’
It is interesting to note in this regard that neither petitioner claimed to have
won the election. All they wanted in their consolidated petitions is to be given
a second chance to re-contest the election on the basis of late arrival ballot
papers without serial numbers. It would appear that their entire case was based
on this issue of ballot papers printed and imported from South Africa without
serial numbers. I guess the question that readily pops out of the head of any
reasonable observer is: How did that affect Buhari and Atiku’s chances of
winning the election vis-avis the other candidates and Yar’Adua in particular?
How did the absence of serial numbers confer any undue advantage on Yar’Adua in
particular as against other contestants? And if the law provides for ballot
papers with serial numbers and the numbers were omitted by the printer how does
that amount to substantial non-compliance with the electoral law? Would the
presence of serial numbers on the ballot papers given Atiku and Buhari more
votes to defeat Yar’Adua? I just don’t get it folks and I suspect the Court of
Appeal couldn’t get it, either. Who would, anyway? It’s absolute rubbish!
In reviewing the case of the petitioners, therefore, it seems to me that it was
totally based on mere technicalities rather than on substance. One would have
thought that their case would be fought on the basis of the much touted vote
rigging allegations and absence of elections in the 25 states (presumably only
PDP won states), as alleged in their depositions. It’s amazing that the
petitioners could not adduce sufficient evidence to back up their allegations in
even half of those states, which could have satisfied the evidential threshold
of substantial non-compliance with the Electoral Law. One wonders what business
the SAN-studded legal team of the petitioners had at the Tribunal if it did not
have, and ipso facto, could not adduce sufficient proofs that could meet the
very low evidential bar of proof on the balance of probabilities in at least
half of the 25 states as alleged.
The fact that the petitioners only questioned the results in PDP won states and
gave a pass to the states won by the opposition parties exposed the underbelly
of their case. For how could the results in states won by the opposition from
Lagos to Kano, Taraba, Imo, Abia, etc. be applauded by the opposition while at
the same time claiming that elections did not hold in 25 states won by the PDP?
Was it the same INEC and the much vilified Iwu that conducted the elections in
those states? It doesn’t stand to reason and commonsense.
In law a litigant is prohibited from approbating and reprobating at the same
time. Therefore, if INEC did so wonderfully well in states won by the opposition
and the results thereof are acceptable to the petitioners, the law forbids them
from rejecting the results of the states won by the PDP in the same election
conducted by the same INEC. They are precluded from accepting one part that is
favorable to them and rejecting the other part that is unfavorable to them. It’s
like professing Christianity by accepting one part of the Holy Book and
rejecting the other part that is not convenient to us. It doesn’t work that way.
The law will not allow us to eat our cake and have it.
By this verdict, therefore, the Nigerian Judiciary has given affirmation to the
legal dictum that a litigant would not be allowed to approbate and reprobate at
the same time by accepting one part of a document, process, or result and
rejecting the other parts at the same time. A timeless and sound principle of
law has, thus, found profound re-validation in this ruling.
That said, perhaps, the most opportunistic and shameless averment of the
petitioners was the claim by Abubakar Atiku that he was not allowed to contest
the 2007 presidential election! So what was he campaigning for before the
election? Oh what a shameful allegation! Do I really have to address this
allegation here? No, I would not dignify it with any commentary. All I would
permit myself to say here is that, that Atiku included that averment as a ground
for nullifying the result of the presidential election shows a contemptible and
desperate attempt to get a shot at the presidency at all costs by whatever means
necessary. This much I would ask: On what basis then did he challenge the
election of Yar’Adua if he, Atiku, was not a candidate in the election as
alleged? What was his locus standi in the case if he was not a candidate on the
ballot? That’s a bit of self-contradiction, isn’t it? It’s shameful that his
battery of SANS could not see this barefaced lie. But the Honorable Tribunal and
the Nigerian people would not buy such a white lie like Atiku’s bootlickers and
paid hirelings.
While the case winds its way to the Supreme Court it is gratifying to note that
the Court of Appeal has averted a potential apocalypse in Nigeria. With the
specter of presidential re-run lifted by this verdict the professional political
blackmailers who had until now literarily held President Yar’Adua hostage in the
past seven months will have no place to hide to ply their evil trade. President
Yar’Adua, OBJ, PDP, and INEC, led by Iwu, have been given a shot in the arm.
OBJ in particular, who had been at the receiving end of vitriolic personal
attacks, can now hold his head high for conducting a presidential election
adjudged to have been conducted in substantial compliance with our electoral
laws. No more would anyone waive the banner of rigging in their faces in order
to secure undue political advantages. President Yar’Adua must now proceed
forthwith, fully backed by his popular mandate which has been reinforced and
validated by the verdict, to dump the idea of GNU and carry out his party’s
programs without let or hindrance. He will not be looking behind his frail
shoulders anymore with Atiku and Buhari in hot pursuit to snatch his national
mandate from his trembling hands in broad daylight through the backdoor.
This writer therefore looks forward to a revamped Yar’Adua presidency that is
focused, undistracted, proactive and now well positioned to tackle the
intractable problems bedeviling the Nigerian polity and take her to a whole new
level of socio-economic and technological development.
Messages
To the Opposition:
This is a poignant lesson for the opposition that elections are not won by the
power of propaganda but by hard work on the ground. The Nigerian opposition
would do well to imbibe the following in its tool kits for the next elections:
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Sitting in cozy offices in Abuja and state capitals and shouting: Rigging!
Rigging! does not elections win;
- Attacking INEC, its functionaries, and the security agencies for carrying out their lawful duties for the sole purpose of tarnishing their image and destroying their credibility before the public does not elections win;
- Gallivanting from one Western capital city to another on a negative campaign of dis-information to undermine the credibility of a general election before the international community does not elections win;
- Ganging up against the ruling party at the eleventh hour without prior homework to seal a working deal amongst the opposition parties and leaving the summit in disarray without a deal does not elections win;
- Fielding mushroom parties with little or no electoral bases and/or structures in place against a juggernaut like the PDP does not election; win.
- Failure to represent and sell a coherent and credible development agenda to the electorate and covering up such inadequacies with vitriolic attacks on OBJ, INEC, and the ruling party does not election win;
- And worse of all, rushing to the Tribunal on the basis of hearsays and weak anecdotal evidence about rigging that cannot be substantiated in a court of law does not election petition win, because the Judiciary is not a place for upturning the mandate of the electorate on the basis of hearsays and cheap propaganda.
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To Fellow Nigerians:
My dear compatriots,
I hope you have learnt useful lessons from this verdict. For those of you who
were urging Buhari and Atiku to do the Kibaki thing in Nigeria and plunge the
nation into political turmoil on false and unsubstantiated allegations of
rigging, you should know better by now.
Now, you know that not every smoke has fire underneath it—some smokes are
contrived in make-believe schemes to hoodwink the public as special effects in
movies. Buhari and Atiku’s case was a house of cards built on hearsays and false
claims that could not pass the test of judicial scrutiny.
Thank goodness, Nigerians did not answer Buhari’s selfish and unpatriotic call
for “mass action” such as is happening in Kenya today. Nigerians have become
wiser than their so-called leaders. Rabble rousers in pursuit of their private
agenda will no longer have a field day in Nigeria. Had Nigerians responded to
Buhari’s call many would have died in vain on false allegations that could not
be substantiated in a court of law for the better part of a year with all the
SANS in Nigeria at their disposal and a complicit Press at their beck and call.
That should be something to ponder by the Nigerian people.
When next political losers call on you to go out in the street and die for them
on the basis of allegation of rigging that has not been proved, I hope you will
think twice before baring your chest in the street in mass protest that is, at
least, potentially founded on falsehood. If Buhari and Atiku cannot prove their
case in court why should you be called up to go and die for them when they lose
an election?
And just in case you missed the verdict, below is what the Tribunal said:
"Umaru Yar'Adua and Goodluck Jonathan remain validly elected as president and
vice-president of Nigeria." --- AFP news agency reports.
What that says is that President Musa Yar’Adua was not imposed on Nigerians by
OBJ as the detractors would have us believe, but was validly elected by the
Nigerian people in the 2007 presidential election. That was what INEC declared
and that was what the Tribunal affirmed. Can’t get any clearer folks; can it?
What don’t you understand? Does that sound to you like a verdict delivered by
Franklin Otorofani? No, that was the unanimous verdict of a panel of 5 Judges.
And if Buhari and Atiku have been crowing all along that they have absolute
confidence in the Nigerian Judiciary, they should have confidence in this
verdict as well and accept same without question. Shouldn’t they?
They had better, for they will not be permitted to pick and choose which
judgment of the courts to accept and which to reject.
The lesson I urge you, the reader, to take away from this verdict is that you
should think twice, even thrice, before joining the anti-Iwu and anti-OBJ
bashers and react to issues on the basis of facts and figure rather than on raw
emotions that have no empirical foundations. Human beings are supposed to make
use of their reasoning faculties and not act like zombies or robots.
To the Nigerian Press:
It is time to grow up and move away from sensationalism and armchair journalism.
The nation would have been spared a great deal of headache but for the
unquestioning and mercenary instincts of the Nigerian press in covering the
electoral processes. To say that the Nigerian Press is incurably partisan is to
state the obvious.
When true investigative journalism is sacrificed on the altar of commercial
expediency and/or partisan considerations, the result is nothing short of
disaster for the polity. The Nigerian people have been shortchanged by the
Nigerian press and I’m not the only one bandying this opinion. Even foreigners
visiting our nation hold similar views about the Nigerian press. Yes, it is
critical of government. Yes, it is free and fearless. But no, it is not
professional. No, it is not sufficiently investigative in orientation. Rather it
wallows in sensationalism and hearsays. Oh, it is notoriously partisan.
To Mr. President:
Mr. President, I have been quite critical of your pace of governance and seeming
detraction from the economic reforms initiated by your predecessor, which you
had sworn to uphold—all in a bid to please Obasanjo’s enemies in the opposition
who were urging you to distance yourself from him and his ambitious, daring, and
progressive agenda for our nation; all because you were mischievously seen as
having a weak electoral mandate. That self-inflicted weakness has been removed.
OBJ and Iwu have been vindicated by the Court of Appeal. Yes, the two men who
gave Nigeria democracy have been vindicated by the Judiciary. What a beautiful
ending to a national tragi-comedy!
But I must say that I was utterly disappointed by your timid attempts to defend
your mandate. In the face of relentless crude attacks from the opposition
against INEC, Iwu, and OBJ, one would have expected you, the greatest
beneficiary of the OBJ transition, to vigorously and robustly defend your
mandate and the integrity of the electoral agency with every fiber in your body.
But what did the nation see? The nation was treated to cowardly, feeble, and
timid attempts to defend the mandate, which has been reaffirmed by the Tribunal
in this verdict.
I hope you’ll stop listening to the opposition that is out to destroy your party
and your presidency. I hope you understand that you were elected to carryout the
mandate of your party and not the mandate of the opposition because their agenda
is not and should not be your agenda. Take their criticism if you will, in your
strides, but do not listen to their poisoned and unsolicited counsel. It is like
taking advice from the enemy in the battlefield. Only a foolish and incompetent
general would take advice from the enemy in the battlefield.
Therefore, your initial attempt to distance your government from OBJ was one of
the most naïve and uncharitable actions you have been led to undertake by the
opposition. Now that you’ve seen the futility of that and have seeming retraced
your steps, I humbly urge an acceleration of the implementation of the reform
agenda of the PDP which you have the good fortune of leading as the greatest
party in Africa. I have absolutely no apologies for supporting those reforms and
the party that produced them—PDP.
Yet the reforms must be translated from mere paperwork to groundwork for the
benefit of Nigerians. The destiny of 150 million Nigerians and the hope of the
black race are in your hands. As a patriotic Nigerian, I’m committed to
monitoring your presidential performance and will not hesitate to give kudos
where deserved and wield the big stick and beat you into line whenever and
wherever you are found to have fallen short of public expectations. That, in
part, is my duty to the fatherland and to the race.
That’s all we ask for, Mr. President, and that is what Nigeria deserves.
Long Live Democracy!
Long Live the Judiciary!!
Long Live the Federal Republic of Nigeria!!!
Franklin Otorofani, Esquire (USA)
Contact: mudiagaone@yahoo.com
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