Supreme Court legalises poll robberies in Rivers, Akwa Ibom: TMG
Supreme Court legalises poll robberies in Rivers, Akwa Ibom: TMG
Thursday, February 4, 2016 11:54 pm
Justice Mahmud Mohammed: chief justice of Nigeria
Ayorinde Oluokun/Abuja
Nigeria’s Supreme Court has earned the biggest rebuke so far over its shocking decisions on governorship election disputes, most especially in Rivers and Akwa Ibom states.
The Transition Monitoring Group, TMG, accused the Supreme Court of “legalising electoral robberies,” with the judgments which validated the victories of Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State and Udom Emmanuel of Akwa Ibom State in the 2015 general elections.
According to the group, the Supreme Court had by the verdicts refused to give judgments to the people of the two states whose will have been subverted by politicians.
The apex court had last week upturned the decision of the Appeal Court which nullified the election of Governor Wike of Rivers State.
Also, the apex court also reversed the nullification of the electoral victories of Governor Udom by the Court of Appeal yesterday.
Governor Udom Emmanuel: benefits from poll robbery says TMG
The apex court is yet to give reasons for the reversal of the judgments of the appellate court which was based on complaints of massive violence and electoral malpractices during the election.
The group, which was involved in the monitoring of elections in the two states said in a statement by its Chairman, Ibrahim Zikirullahi also said it is concerned by “a slew of verdicts and disturbing trend in the judicial pronouncements” on state governorship elections by the Supreme Court.
“For us, it is absolutely shocking that the Supreme Court has decided to act as if it exists in another planet. The TMG is perturbed by the strange legal reasoning that has informed the blank cheque that the court has given to election riggers.
“We make bold to say that while the legal premise behind these judgments is best known to the apex court, the open reward for electoral impunity does not resonate with the Nigerian people.
“What these judgments what they have effectively done is to ridicule Nigeria in the eyes of the international community, while diminishing our country’s stature in the comity of lovers of democracy around the world.
“As the foremost election observation coalition in the country, we see the Supreme Court judgments as clear cut attempts at legalising electoral robberies. These judgments, particularly on Rivers and Akwa Ibom States, have merely given judicial imprimatur to the damaging mind set of rapacious politicians who would stop at nothing in their bid to subvert the will of the people.
Nyesom Wike: Supreme Court sanctioned electoral heist
“What these judgments what they have effectively done is to ridicule Nigeria in the eyes of the international community, while diminishing our country’s stature in the comity of lovers of democracy around the world.
“Painfully, the biggest losers are the ordinary people in the states who have been denied their democratic choices on account of the violence and impunity that characterised the polls in those states.
“In the end, what the Supreme Court has succeeded in doing is to spit on the graves of all those innocent Nigerians who lost their lives as a result of the activities of those hell bent on subverting the will of the people,” TMG said.
While noting that beyond the justice of the Supreme Court; there is the justice of the Almighty, TMG said in “due course, those who wilfully killed and maimed in the desperate bid to capture power, would be held to account.”
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4 Comments
You missed it there. I am for justice and not for any party and that’s the difference in our views. I supported and still do support Buhari until he fumbles but I’ll never be carried away by hyper-ambitious candidates who feel their loud cries may win them electoral sympathies even in the court of law..
Now my point is, for anyone holding such claims to justice and godliness, the accusations of PDP against APC in the States I earlier cited and in some recently concluded elections In some APC States would have been sustained on the surface as typified in what you and your fellow aggrieved APC sympathizers emotionally expected.
The same way PDP tried and failed to prove their cases beyond the legal supremacy of the Supreme Court applies here. There sure would have been a better way else they wouldn’t fail.
When you say every Nigerian- that includes those who didn’t even witness the elections in those two States yet joined the “bereaved” to cry foul!!! It also includes those who must have witnessed a free and fair elections in their respective wards.
Consider also those who only witnessed what they considered as irregularities in their respective wards only but decided to generalize them. The observers whose coverage areas witnessed free and fair elections and those who did not are lumped together in your submission! We mustn’t forget too that there were some reporters from both private, national and state owned mass media outfits who covered and reported free and fair elections in most of the wards they visited in those two States. They too are part of your every Nigerian sir! Let’s face facts!
Well, even Prophet Samuel considered the “election” of Abinadab free and fair as against David’s- a common shepherd boy- but God saw it differently. So even Prophet Bayuse can not determine God’s choice neither can he speak for Wikke or Udom just as he couldn’t speak for opportunists APC Governors who toppled their aggrieved PDP counterparts and vice versa.
Mr PDP, why would you rate any view about an issue you are interested in as a partisan, as ‘typical APC ranting’.
Every Nigerian knows there was no election, in the proper meaning of it in the states of Rivers, Delta and Akwa Ibom state and also Abia. Observers who were not blind saw what transpired on voting day. And none called it an election but a travesty of democracy. The same Supreme Court that would somehow cloak its verdict ‘in public interest’ and set aside the full application of the law, this time around hid under strict legal technicalities to award victories to poll robbers. It’s like a court ruling that a robber with a toy gun did not commit robbery.
How do you prove electoral thievery other than the way the litigants in all the cases had done? Riggers know their opponents could not recreate their opprobrium acts, hence their over indulgence and licentiousness, in thwarting the real will of the people.
I wish God could intervene in this matter, instead of us to depend so heavily on the justice of mere mortals. And I am sure, Messrs Wike and others who benefitted from electoral heists, sanctioned by Supreme Court, will admit in their hearts that they did not win the election. We have heard the judgment of man, I am sure down the road will come divine judgment.
Typical APC ranting! I wish for once, partisan Nigerians could reason independently! When, in time past, the Supreme Court upturned the election results in Ogun, Oyo and Osun States and upheld Edo State result, no APC supporter called for the council of “apc” legal experts to review its rulings bla,bla bla bla. but when the ruling goes against them, even some of the best of APC elites like the APC Chairman in Akwa Ibom State, resort to incoherent violation of reasoning.
If any party in a lawsuit fails to proof its case beyond superior reasoning, its bound to lose despite the myriad of self-convinced evidences. Its ineptitude and those of its legal counsel and not the Judges are to blamed. Even if the presiding Judge was at the scene of a crime but the plaintiff and its team of prosecuting counsel fail to establish the crime, the Judge is bound by existing law to decide in the accused favour. The Judges were not necessarily in Akwa Ibom and Rivers States to witness the elections and were not joined suitors in the case, therefore their collective judgment depend solely on the abilities of both parties to present their cases and the provision of the relevant sections of the law.
For instance, how do you prove an allegation of electoral violence against the backdrop of experiences in which opposition parties have been known to initiate violence with the intent of imputing it on the other party?
A sound knowledge and application of the law is required.
With the way the Supreme Court has behaved in recent times, there should be a council of legal experts to review the judgement of the court itself. We cannot continue to leave our destiny in the hands of just a few mortals, who as some allegations had shown in the past could be compromised in reaching ridiculous verdicts as happened in the cases of Akwa Ibom and Rivers states