By 1983, Shagari’s NPN utilized its incumbency factor to muzzle its way to electoral victory to the consternation of the opposition parties. But this time around, none of the opposition political parties and their presidential candidates submitted to electoral petition adjudication as Awolowo and Azikiwe merely denounced the claimed ‘landside’ victory by hehu Shagari’s National Party of Nigeria. The military relied on the grievances from the disputed 1983 presidential election to seize power from Shehu Shagari and his NPN.
The worst kind of military autocracy was unfurled from 1983 to 1999 during which whatever modicum of socio-economic and political values, were subverted and replaced with values tainted with corruption and impunity. A largely dysfunctional country sliding to disintegration was rescued by General Abdulsalami Abubakar who took over from General Abacha who had seized power from the Interim National Government led by Chief Earnest Shonekan.
General Abubakar` simply wrote a basic law called the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria which he attached to Decree, No 24, 1999 and imposed same on Nigeria on May 29, 1999. It is this ruling autocratic constitutional framework that Nigerians have been subjected and subjugated. Every iota of normality has been turned upside and politics has been turned into lucrative criminal enterprise where the participants could be anything from pickpockets to drug barons, bullies and armed robbers and the legal system is powerless to rein on these malfeasances.
Progressively, from 1999 when Olu Falae challenged Olusegun Obasanjo and Buhari challenged respective electoral victories of Obasanjo, Umaru Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan the Supreme Court alongside High Courts and Appeal courts have been saddled with election petition cases which had been a mixed bag of judicial interpretations bordering from the bizarre to the ludicrously ridiculous. In recent years, some election petition cases have made Nigerians question the propriety of the Courts as the custodian of the Constitution and its authoritative interpreter.
The Rotimi Amaechi case, Hope Uzodinma case and recently the Lawan and Akpabio cases have given Nigerians cause to worry about the commonsense and propriety of these cases in the promotion and entrenchment of democratic culture and rule of law in Nigeria. Between 1999 and 2015 the Peoples Democratic Party which was the ruling party since 1999 when the military transferred political power to the civilian wing of the ruling caste, elevated politics to a level of impunity that can only be compared to the Northern People’s Congress’ escapades in the Northern Region and Western Region between 1964 and 1965 as politicians turned politics into a gambling sports as sanctity of votes no longer nattered.
The Independent National Electoral Commission became plaything in their hands churning out fake results to procure questionable mandates from the presidency to councillorship. It was this roguish and kleptocratic electoral process that President Yar’Adua on assumption of office promised to change. Setting up Uwais Commission whose Report was implemented half-way, this reform restored some measure of credibility to the electoral process and his successor, President Jonathan continued the reforms which led to the 2015 General Elections whose integrity was measured by the All Progressives Congress’ Muhammadu Buhari achieving electoral victory over an incumbent President Jonathan.
But these electoral reforms were reversed by President Buhari who upon assumption of office boasted that the instruments of election rigging were then in his hands. By the electoral outcomes thereafter, it turned out that he and his party utilized the rigging machinery to rig elections in favour of his party. Since 2015, APC instituted rigging culture that mostly favours APC candidates through such electoral malfeasance of “inconclusive” elections to outright electoral banditry as witnessed in Adamawa State in March 2023.
In all these electoral heists, the victims of these electoral charades were taunted to “go to court” to challenge the electoral heists, knowing that the Constitution, the law and the electoral praxis protect the riggers. It is against the background of this kleptocratic electoral system that 2023 general elections held. Nigerians, especially the youthful population of new voters who having borne the brunt of brazenly corrupt governance, being the consequences of sham elections bestirred themselves and got interested in Nigeria’s electoral problems.
In 2019, Nigerians had clearly rejected the All Progressives Congress and its General Buhari but the election was manipulated to return Buhari to power. The highlight of that election was the deployment of money to buy votes which had since 2015 when APC came to power been the ruling electoral culture. APC’s chieftain Asiwaju Bola Tinubu was reported to have stationed two bank’s bullion vans on the Election Day to dish out cash for the elections. Since 2015, vote-buying has been entrenched as a means of winning elections in Nigeria.
Vote buying could also extend to judgment buying as the Election Petition Panel in Kano recently had cause to cry out against threat to bribe it to return favourable verdict to the bribe-giver. The 2023 Presidential Election was a three-pronged electoral contest by the ruling party, APC’s Bola Tinubu, the PDP’s Atiku Abubakar and the Labour Party’s Peter Obi. What makes 2023 politics interesting was the interest by the youths in politics and the deployment of social media infrastructure for mobilisation, organisation and propaganda.
At first, the two main political parties dismissed this new political praxis adopted by the youths, majority of who were supporting Peter Obi and his Labour Party as fake activities being coordinated by some few persons housed in one-room cybercafé. But as the youths migrated from the social media to the streets leading millions named the ‘Obidients’, the traditional politicians massed in APC and PDP panicked and started attacking Peter Obi as the major threat confronting them.
Meanwhile, President Buhari and INEC headed by Yakubu Mahmud had promised clean and fair election but at the end the 2023 elections particularly the Presidential Election has allegedly turned out to be worst elections so far in the annals of elections in Nigeria. As the elections tumbles down to the amazement of Nigerians, the electoral kleptocrats have taunted their victims to go to court to complain.
The parties, especially the PDP’s Atiku and the LP’s Peter Obi approached the court for a review of the results of the election and the processes leading to them to determine whether the elections met the minimum standard of a clean and fair election regard being had to the constitution, law and the regulations governing the processes and the elections.
The Court of Appeal, being the court of first instance has returned a verdict in favour of the respondents (APC, INEC and Bola Tinubu) dismissing the petitions as incompetent and unmeritorious. As could be seen from the precedents handed down in all previous election petitions at the various courts up to the Supreme Court, there is a yawning uncertainty in the law and their interpretation stretched to its inelastic point because the course of justice is circumscribed by inadequate legal provisions to do justice to the parties.
In the light of the foregoing, the law is clearly incapacitated and the courts are overwhelmed by the kleptocratic culture of which the judges and justices are products. Limitations of the society and its constitutional framework hamstrung the judges to succumb to the overwhelming ruling kleptocratic culture after all they are all humans.
When President Buhari illegally attacked the judges/justices, what did the society do to protect them from harm’s way? By 2027, the election petition tribunals will be redundant as nobody will be ready to go to court as taunted by the kleptocrats. The elections will be decided on the field of political battles – with the winners and losers, lying on the field dead or alive’.
The winners, if alive will gloat and celebrate. The losers, if alive will appeal to posterity to judge. What happens thereafter is what nobody can predict.
