The Supreme Court judgment affirming Governor Nyesom Wike as the validly elected governor of Rivers State will stretch the imaginations and permutations of political gladiators.
By Emmanuel Aziken, Political Editor
The Supreme Court of Nigeria has since 1963 when it became the court of final arbitration been regarded as a god which can do and undo. Last Wednesday, the court, out of the blues, gave a final ruling on three governorship contests that inevitably put a seal to the aspirations of some of the major political contenders in three states – Rivers, Ebonyi and Ogun.
However, of the three, none has drawn more controversy and searchlight than the judgment in Rivers. It validated the mandate of Governor Nyesom Wike of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP and cut off the aspiration of Dr. Dakuku Peterside, his major rival from the All Progressives Congress, APC.
The finality of the judgment and the consequence remain a wonder to many supporters of Dakuku who had been egged on by the positive judgments given by the two lower courts. The Tribunal and the Court of Appeal had earlier annulled the election that brought Wike to office on the strength of what was claimed as the non adherence by the electoral officers in the state to the guidelines for the election issued by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
One of the major guidelines was that votes which do not pass through the test of the card reader should be discountenanced.
Subsisting provisions
Remarkably, the Dakuku legal team had at the lower courts produced two senior officials of INEC who affirmed that the governorship election in Rivers State was largely conducted in disregard of the subsisting provisions of the Electoral Act.
That was besides the avalanche of reports of violence that characterised the elections. Reflective of suggestions of the poor conduct of the elections, the elections that produced all three senators and all nine members of the House of Representatives from the state were dismissed by the Court of Appeal.
File: Governor Nyesom Wike during his swearing-in on May 29, 2015.
In dismissing the appeal by Wike against the judgment of the Tribunal for a rerun of the governorship election, the Court of Appeal had said that it would be a bad precedent to overlook the glaring malpractices that attended the election.
"It portends great danger for our democracy and electoral process for INEC officials to have the effrontery and temerity to thwart laid down directives and go ahead to conduct elections according to their own whims and caprices, notwithstanding the approved guidelines".
Remarkably, the elections that produced the majority of the members of the State House of Assembly have also been annulled by the Court of Appeal which ordered fresh elections in the affected constituencies.
Suggestive of what was alleged as the wide scale improprieties that characterised the governorship and the state House of Assembly elections that took place on the same day, the 32 member State House of Assembly has been unable to form a quorum because of the annulment of the elections of 22 members of the state legislators who were all but one elected on the platform of the PDP.
The annulment of the elections of the legislators had given hope to the camp of the APC that at worst, a fresh governorship election would be ordered as had been done for the legislative election. Suggestions of a fresh governorship election had in recent times created panic among residents and stakeholders who lived through the orgy of violence that characterised the campaigns and processes that led to the 2015 governorship election. Scores of persons were killed in the violence marshalled by sympathisers of the contenders. Not even security men were spared in the violence.
Wednesday’s judgment, to stave off another election, would no doubt be welcomed by panicky residents, even if, the decision would be seen as a pain to democracy enthusiasts.
Wike and Dakuku had in the last few months been on campaign mood preparatory to a fresh election. Governor Wike’s on the spot inspections of projects in Port-Harcourt were largely seen as pre-campaign activities, especially when he normally came out to denounce the activities of his predecessor, Chibuke Amaechi, who is largely regarded as the power behind Dakuku.
The decision to uphold the election of Wike would irretrievably mean a continuation of the political face off between Amaechi and Wike, who was once his chief of staff as governor but who subsequently emerged as Amaechi's most formidable political rival in the state.
The next battles: The staging post for the next battle between the two men would be the forthcoming rerun elections in the National Assembly constituencies and the vacant seats in the House of Assembly.
Widespread allegations
Amaechi is expected to mobilise his supporters with a freer hand given widespread allegations that the Goodluck Jonathan administration suppressed him through the instrumentality of federal security forces during the 2015 elections. The showdown in the forthcoming elections would determine the scale of political power in the state as the PDP and the APC fight to get the advantage over one another.
Conspiracies: It was not being voiced out by many, there are, however, suggestions that the Supreme Court decision may have been a bold reaction by the judiciary to the alleged disobedience of court orders by President Muhammadu Buhari in recent cases involving some corruption cases.
The Supreme Court prides itself as the ultimate protector of the law of the country and seeing court decisions being flouted by the APC led administration may have infuriated the jurists in the apex court who some now claim, may have decided to showcase its powers by hurting the APC led government where it pained most in Rivers State. Some also recollect how the Supreme Court also dealt a severe blow on a former president who allegedly trampled with the power of the judiciary. Interestingly, it is suggested in some quarters that that case may have also led the Supreme Court to delay its declaratory judgment that helped Amaechi to become governor in 2007.
Dakuku Peterside
Ahead of the 2007 election, the court had upheld the nomination of a former disciple of the president turned foe, Senator Ifeanyi Ararume as the PDP governorship candidate in the election in Imo State.
President Olusegun Obasanjo, the leader of the PDP at that time had in annoyance of the judgment of the court gone to Owerri and declared that the PDP does not have a candidate, a development that allowed the emergence of Mr. Ikedi Ohakim of the Progressive Peoples Alliance, PPA as governor of the state.
Having seen its intent scorned by the president, the apex court allegedly waited to get its pound of flesh on the former president. Two weeks after the president exited office, the court shocked many when it sacked Obasanjo’s Man Friday, Andy Uba as governor of Anambra State.
Just as it did on Wednesday night, the court did not give its reasons immediately and waited much longer to write out its judgment. Such actions some suggest could mean the jurists using their body language to show their anger at the contempt of the judiciary by those who hold executive power.
Other innuendoes that are bound to surface include the fact that the spouse of a Supreme Court justice is an implacable foe of Amaechi. Though all such claims of a political or underhand motif for the judgment remain speculative, political stakeholders are bound to bring such innuendoes to play in giving their own interpretations of the judgment.
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