Supreme Court And The Presidential Elections Verdicts By Abdulrasheed Ibrahim

By Abdulrasheed Ibrahim, LL.M, Notary Public

As a student of history, I was not surprised by the outcome of
the ATIKU/PDP’s appeal against the unanimous decision of
Presidential Election Petition Tribunal in favour of BUHARI/APC. In
a very short pronouncement, the Supreme Court threw the appeal
overboard and said it would give reasons for that another date to
be communicated to the parties’ lawyers.

While the ATIKU/PDP as losers were not happy about this
development, the BUHARI/APC as winners were going about beating
drums and dancing on their victory. From further reactions from the
supporters of the both sides, it became apparent that many of them
have been very unfair to the Supreme Court as an institution.
Whenever a court, particularly the Supreme Court gives judgment in
favour of a politician, that politician or his supporters will see
the Supreme Court as an uncompromising institution but if the
judgment goes against him, he would say the institution is
compromised. We live in a country where a loser before an Election
Petition Tribunal wants the Tribunal to manufacture evidences for
him to win election rather than doing his home work properly before
coming before the tribunal, forgotten that the law is settled that
“he who asserts must prove”.

For the fear of being misunderstood, I must make myself clearer
before going further.When you take a critical look at the history
of the presidential election petitions since the return to the
uninterrupted democracy in 1999 which was about 20 years ago, you
will remember the case of BUHARI Vs. OBASANJO wherein General
Buhari was challenged the victory of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo in the
April 2003 second term re-election. At the tribunal then, there was
what the only dissenting Justice in the panel called the “Black
Saturday” and went further to say that “In absolute terms Obasanjo
received over 600,000 votes more than the governorship candidate on
the same date, time and same polling unit.The presidential results
in Ogun State were manipulated and hereby cancelled”. Since
dissenting judgment was not a judgment of the court, Buhari
eventually lost out at the Supreme Court which he was not happy
about. While Buhari was flying his kite of annoyance against the
Supreme Court for not allowing his appeal , Atiku, a co-beneficiary
of the Supreme Court’s judgment with Obasanjo as well as their
political party PDP were celebrating victory. When Atiku later had
brush with his boss, Obasanjo who tried to illegally remove him as
Vice President, Atiku proceeded to the court of law where Obasanjo
was told point blank that since he had joint mandate with Atiku,
there was not way Obasanjo could remove him as the Vice President
of the Federal Republic Nigeria.

In Buhari’s appeal to the Supreme Court challenging the 2007
electoral victory of Alhaji Umaru Yar’adua, he only succeeded in
splitting the Supreme Court Justices on that panel into 4 Justices
in the majority upholding the Yar’adua’s victory, while the other 3
Justices in the minority held otherwise. Yar’adu when being
sworn-in as the President honestly admitted that the election that
brought him to power was flaw. I also believe that the Buhari’s
voyage to the Supreme Court challenging the electoral victory of
Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan in the 2011 presidential election was
not a successful one. Before and after the 2019 presidential
election, I did some series of this platform advising whoever lost
the election to accept the defeat in good faith and be ready to
congratulate the winner as done by President Jonathan in 2015 for
Nigeria to move on. When the presidential election result was
finally announced my expectation was that ATIKU/PDP would accept
the people’s verdict but that was not to be. I had written after
the election that:

“I was highly impressed the other day when Alhaji Abubakar
Atiku, former Vice President of Nigeria and the Presidential
flagbearer of the People Democratic Party (PDP) in the just
concluded election quoted and adopted Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan’s
popular remark that: ‘My ambition does not worth the blood of any
Nigerian’ at the meeting organized by the General Abdulsalam
Abubakar’s Peace Committee for the presidential candidates before
the election to sign a peace accord to abide by the outcome of the
election. But I was depressed when the presidential election result
was declared by the INEC Chairman but the Turaki of Adamawa refused
to follow the footstep of GEJ by picking up his phone to
congratulate the President-elect…I commend Atiku for the well
fought electoral battle and I still advice that he should take the
defeat in good faith.In every election there is bound to be a
winner and loser.A loser today may be a winner tomorrow.But since
Atiku and PDP have remained adamant on going to the election
tribunal to ventilate their grievances and challenge the election
verdict,I wish them best of luck. At least going to the Election
Petition Tribunal is better than calling people to violent or
creating crisis as being earlier suggested to him by some people. I
advise Turaki Adamawa to beware of those people pretending to be
his friends.”

When I told some people that if I were Atiku, I would not go to
court to challenge the election result but accept it in good faith
and went my way, since I have not seen in the history of the
Supreme Court’s verdicts on presidential elections setting aside
one, even the most controversial AWOLOWO Vs. SHAGARI of 1979
presidential election where only one jurist out of the seven
jurists on the panel dissented. There were people that considered
such thought as being foolish, that if Atiku refused to go to court
to challenge the tribunal’s verdict, how would his lawyers and
supporters laugh to the banks with the fortune be derived therein?
The question still remains that if the PDP as a political party in
the past had accepted several Supreme Court’s judgments in its
favour , why is the party now refusing to accept the recent one
against it in good faith but rather continue to blackmail the
Supreme Court as an institution. It was under this same political
party when in power that the Supreme Court as an institution was
unnecessary over-burden because it wanted to rule for 60 years. The
Supreme Court which was already then over-burden with high volumes
of cases before it was made to shoulder more gubernatorial election
appeals from the Court of Appeal which ought to be the last bus
stop for such appeals. The same PDP earlier succeeded in pitching
the Justice Katsina –Alu, a former Chief Justice of Nigeria against
Justice Ayo Salami, a former President of the Court of Appeal.

The problem with the political parties and politician in Nigeria
is that they are never ready to learn from history and take
caution. While the PDP has not learnt enough from his past mistakes
and blunders, the APC is now treading the path that led to the fall
down of the PDP. PDP leadership in the past was used to removing
elected politicians in their midst unlawfully like what was done to
Rashid Ladoja ,a former Governor of Oyo State when he was illegally
removed by his State’s House of Assembly before the intervention of
the Supreme Court that declared the act illegal and reinstated him
as the Governor. There is no way this is different from what
recently happened in Kogi State where the Deputy Governor of the
state was illegally removed. Under the constitutional democracy any
illegality that is duly challenged in the court of law will surely
have no feet to stand on. The politicians must always be advised to
abide by the due process of law.

LAW SCHOOL RESULTS: WHEN SHARIAH LAWYERS PROVE THEIR
WORTH

In the break down of the recent results released by the Nigerian
Law School for the 5689 law students that registered for the August
2019 Bar final examinations, 147 students bagged First Class
Honours; 741 students bagged 2nd Class Upper Division, 2,246
students bagged 2nd Class Lower Division; 1291 students bagged
Pass; 319 students had Conditional Pass; 894 students failed; 41
students were absent while 10 students’ results withheld. Some
people may ask : why am I excited or what is my business with the
results released by the authorities of the Nigerian Law School?

The reason why I am excited or the result is my business is that
I have once again being justified and proved right. Those who have
been following this column before I recently decided to go on
“sabbatical leave” , will remember that on I recently wrote two
articles one after the other titled : IN DEFENCE OF THE HOLDERS OF
LLB DEGREES IN SHARIAH AND COMMON LAW posted on 28th April 2019 and
another one titled STILL ON DEFENCE OF THE HOLDERS OF LLB DEGREES
IN SHARIA AND COMMON LAW posted 5th May 2019. The efforts made in
those articles was to correct the erroneous misconception being
held by some people that those of us that studied Law in the
Universities in the Northern part of the country are only taught
Islamic or Shariah Law with no background in what is known as
Common or Civil Law. My intervention came around the time when some
of our colleagues were trying to down grade the incumbent Chief
Justice of Nigeria in person of Hon. Justice Tanko Ibrahim that
since he is a holder of Ph. D in Islamic Law, he was not qualified
to sit on the Supreme Court bench talk less of being appointed as
the CJN. An objective clarification had been made on this and I do
not want to repeat the arguments here. I must confess that the
reactions generated by those two articles when posted were too
overwhelming.

In the two articles, I used Usmanu Dan Fodiyo Univerisity,
Sokoto where I graduated about 20 years ago as a case study. A
student that graduated from the Faculty of Law of that institution
is awarded “LLB Degrees in Common and Shariah Laws” by the Senate
of the University after passing all the required law courses.
Thereafter, the student will proceed to the Nigerian Law School to
meet with other law students from various the Faculties of Law of
other Universities for the professional training. From the latest
result released by the Nigerian Law School, out of the 147 students
bagged First Class Honours, two of them are from Usmanu Dan Fodiyo
University, Sokoto and they are ABDULRAZAK AHMED (Male) and
KHADEEJAH ISMAILA AKEWU (Female). When this was brought to my
attention, my immediate reaction was as follows:

“Congratulations for making the UDUSOK proud.This has again
justified my position that we, DANFODITES are not push away.I have
argued this in a post titled: IN DEFENCE OF THE HOLDERS OF LLB
DEGREES IN SHARIAH AND COMMON LAWS”

I rejoice with these two great Danfodites as well as their
families and the institution, Usmanu Dan Fodiyo University, Sokoto,
that produced us and often referred to as the most peaceful
university in Nigeria. I am proud to be associated with these two
great upcoming lawyers because it was as if they read me when I was
arguing to correct the misconception and they decided to prove me
right in their Bar Examinations in which they are now bagged First
Class Honours by the Nigerian Law School authorities. While I must
extend my congratulations to all the other students who have made
it in the Bar Examinations Results, I appeal to those who could not
make it this time around to please take hearts and go back to the
drawing board to re-prepare for the next resit Bar Examinations as
a loser today may be a winner tomorrow. Life is nothing but stream
of struggle. May the Almighty God make the call to bar ceremony for
the new wigs already fixed for the 26th, 27th and 28th November
2019 a reality.

REMARKABLE PRONOUNCEMENT ON THE FINALITY OF SUPREME
COURT

“We are final not because we are infallible; rather we are
infallible because we are final. Justices of this court are human
beings, capable of erring. It will be certainly be short-sighted
arrogance not to accept this obvious truth. It is also true that
this court can do inestimable good through its wise decision;
similarly, the court can do incalculable harm through its mistakes.
When therefore, it appears to the learned counsel that any decision
of this court has been given per incuriam, such counsel should have
the boldness and courage to ask that such a decision be overruled.
This court has power to overrule itself (and has done so in the
past) for it gladly accepts that it is better to admit an error
than to persevere in error.”

Per OPUTA, JSC in the case of Adegoke Vs. Adesanya (1989 ) 4
NWLR (Pt. 109) at 274-275

THE SETTLED PRINCIPLE OF LAW

On election petition as sui generis
It is trite law that matters of election petition are regarded as
sui generis. Hence rules that govern them are most of the time
different from rules that govern other civil actions.
See UZODINMA Vs. UDENWA (2004) ALL FWLR (Pt. 213) Pg. 1844, Para
B

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11th November 2019

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