Given the special status that is accorded courts and tribunals as inviolable institutions being temples of justice and rectitude, it should be ordinarily inconceivable to have “roadside Appeal and Supreme Courts”. But considering how deeply the plague of corruption has permeated the country’s public life, and has literally exposed to the withering effects of the syndrome, virtually all that the country holds dear, it should not be surprising to have tendencies that suggest the existence of untenable interpretations of the law, by roadside or unauthorized and unreliable sources. What better name should such be called if not roadside interpreters of the law, having taken over for the purpose of less ennobling goals, the role of the formal courts?
The foregoing notwithstanding, the coinage of “roadside Appeal and Supreme Courts” formally entered into official reckoning with reference to them by the President of the Senate Bukola Saraki, who was represented by Deputy Leader of the Senate Bala Ibn Na’ Allah, at a public hearing of the Senate Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters. Saraki’s targets ostensibly remain the mustering lobby of interests who are opposed to the amendment by the National Assembly of the Electoral Act, especially section 25 of it. The section provides for a change of the sequence of elections from that outlined by the INEC which places Presidential elections first with a new one that places National Assembly elections first. The enterprise of the lobby has manifested outcomes aimed at discrediting the National Assembly and include sundry attempts by courts to restrict the National Assembly from exercising its liberties to regulate its own business as provided for in the Constitution. Reportedly one court actually evoked the absurd by ‘stripping’ the federal legislature of its constitutionally granted powers to legislate on electoral matters.
To accentuate its profile the anti-reform lobby is not a push-over but features at least ten Senators, 21 governors serving on the platform of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) platform, and of course the leadership of the APC itself. To these can be added a motely group of sundry activists that for all practical intents and purposes may be misreading the full import of the reforms by the National Assembly. This is especially so, as their common concern remains a fixation on only one of the several landmark amendments to the Electoral Act which is that of election sequence. Meanwhile their enterprise has featured little or no consideration of the fact that the consequence of their exclusion of interest on the ‘abandoned’ amendments even offers more injury to the country than whatever gains they hope to earn from their tendentious advocacy.
For the purpose of clarification the now abandoned amendments which are namely (a) Instant electronic (no more manual) transmission of results; (b) Online publication of voters’ register; (c) Full Biometric Accreditation in line with all of the requirements as shall be stipulated from time to time by the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC); (d) Removal of unfair qualification processes by political parties aimed at providing wider range of opportunities for would-be aspirants to political office; (e) New regime of conflict resolution mechanisms to deepen party internal discipline: (f) Introduction of ceiling on electoral expenses by aspirants in order to strip the country’s politics from a cash-and-carry orientation: (g) Schedule stipulating guidelines for substitution, resignation and replacement of candidates; (h) Procedure in the circumstance of death of a candidate: (i) Removal of imposition of candidate(s) by party bigwigs and other parochial interests.
These are the reforms which if taken together with the election schedule clause constitute a makeover of the country’s electoral law. Yet these are the same reforms which President Muhammadu Buhari denied assent to, and thereby tacitly sent out the message that although he believes in change and offered himself for an opportunity to effect same if elected into office, he also does not envisage such change in the country’s electoral process, compromised as it is. Hardly therefore can there be more significant disservice to the country than his denial of assent to the amendment to the Electoral Act as he was apparently wrongly advised to do. And with his return of the bill to the National Assembly, all that the good people of this country are saying now is that the latter should deploy its constitutionally provided veto power, to override the President and save Nigeria’s democracy from its presently, untenably handicapped state.
The imperative for the National Assembly to override the President in the circumstances remains heightened by some of the reasons offered by the anti-reform lobby and includes the lame, self-serving argument of the APC hierarchy, that an override of the President by the legislature could lead to a disgrace for the President. In that case therefore their concern is more for saving the face of the President than redeeming Nigeria’s democracy.
Even the odiousness of the situation is more acute for Senators and Members of the House of Representatives who as part of this pro – Buhari lobby may not have even contacted their constituencies for direction over where to place their votes. For such actors, their primary loyalty to the status quo – especially the President and their respective state Governors, and not to their respective constituencies – out of fear of losing their political ratings before these potentates remains misplaced. For as experience has shown, selling themselves cheap before their political godfathers does not always guarantee political ascendancy from these powers that be.
It therefore needs no emphasis to state that for the National Assembly the task of overriding the President on his denial of assent to the Electoral Act reforms as passed initially, constitutes an acid test which for the sake of the institution’s integrity as representing Nigerians in various walks of life as well as nooks and corners, it must pass. Anything short of such, remains a ‘roadside’ legislation as it falls short of the expectations of Nigerians, which were expressed in various fora including the public hearings that preceded the passage of the Electoral Act reforms.
