14112022
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
14 — Vanguard, MONDAY NOVEMBER 14, 2022<br />
In what appears to be the<br />
average Nigerian’s<br />
penchant to thwart any<br />
process, it is becoming cogent<br />
and verifiable that there is a<br />
high level of collusion,<br />
conspiracy and compromise of<br />
the Federal High Court of<br />
Nigeria’s pre-election<br />
practice direction 2022. With<br />
litigants breaching<br />
procedure, suggestive of<br />
alleged collusion with some<br />
staff of the election<br />
management body, there are<br />
fresh fears that the 2023<br />
general elections may not<br />
turn out the way most<br />
Nigerians are expecting it to.<br />
This is because contrary to<br />
the provisions of the preelection<br />
practice<br />
direction as<br />
spelt out by<br />
the Hon.<br />
Justice John<br />
Terhemba<br />
Tsoho, The<br />
C h i e f<br />
Judge,<br />
Federal High<br />
Court of<br />
Nigeria, the<br />
rules are<br />
b e i n g<br />
breached<br />
with reckless<br />
abandon,<br />
leading to a<br />
surfeit of<br />
c a s e s<br />
numbering<br />
over 600 - at<br />
the last<br />
count, that<br />
is. Some of<br />
these cases,<br />
By JideAjani,<br />
General Editor<br />
too, are<br />
a consequence<br />
of the nonadherence<br />
of the<br />
Independent National<br />
Electoral Commission, INEC,<br />
to some provisions of the<br />
Electoral Act 2022. This report<br />
presents some parts of the<br />
practice direction and the<br />
Electoral Act 2022 and drilldown<br />
on aspects which are<br />
being breached by politicians,<br />
judiciary and INEC, thereby<br />
creating a muddle in the<br />
process.<br />
Section 84(1)<br />
Nomination of<br />
candidates by<br />
parties<br />
Section 84(1) of the Electoral<br />
Act, 2022, regarding<br />
nomination of candidates by<br />
parties<br />
states,<br />
unequivocally: ”A political<br />
party seeking to nominate<br />
candidates for elections under<br />
this Act shall hold primaries<br />
for aspirants to all elective<br />
positions which shall be<br />
monitored by the<br />
Commission”.<br />
The import of this section is<br />
that there is contingent<br />
compulsion that political<br />
parties<br />
fielding<br />
candidates shall, must and<br />
necessarily hold primaries to<br />
all elective positions<br />
which shall, must and<br />
SYSTEMIC, WILLFUL SABOTAGE<br />
How breach of pre-election<br />
practice direction and<br />
Electoral Act threaten<br />
2023 elections<br />
• INEC’s alarm over 600 cases, partly self-inflicted<br />
•Provisions of Electoral Act 2022 ignored; compromise<br />
of practice direction dangerous<br />
•President Muhammadu Buhari,<br />
signed Electoral Act 2022 into law<br />
and has promised to deliver free,<br />
fair and credible elections next year;<br />
necessarily be monitored by<br />
the Commission.<br />
Section 29(1)<br />
Submission of list of<br />
candidates and their<br />
affidavits by political<br />
parties<br />
Section 29(1), regarding<br />
submission of list of<br />
candidates and their affidavits<br />
by political parties, states<br />
that ”Every political party<br />
shall, not later than 180 days<br />
before the date appointed for<br />
a general election under this<br />
Act, submit to the<br />
Commission, in the prescribed<br />
Forms, the list of the<br />
candidates the party proposes<br />
to sponsor at the elections,<br />
who must have emerged<br />
f r o m v a l i d<br />
primaries conducted by the<br />
political party.” But in some<br />
instances, the mandatory 180<br />
days is being flouted.<br />
• Chief Judge of the Federal<br />
High Court, Honourable<br />
Justice John Terhemba Tsoho<br />
This section also places a<br />
condition on the parties to<br />
submit the list of candidates,<br />
but qualifies the nature and<br />
context of their emergence as<br />
candidates. The section says<br />
the candidates must emerge<br />
from valid primaries. The<br />
implication is that if a<br />
candidate proposed by any<br />
political party emerges from<br />
a primary that is not<br />
deemed valid, such a<br />
candidate cannot and must<br />
not be allowed to stand for any<br />
election.<br />
What this section attempts to<br />
cure by insisting that<br />
INEC shall monitor<br />
primaries, is to allow for an<br />
independent and<br />
authoritative assessor who<br />
would validate any party<br />
primary as meeting<br />
the statutory requirements of<br />
the activity. Before now,<br />
political party bigwigs<br />
engaged a whimsical, nay,<br />
.<br />
• INEC Chairman<br />
Mahmood Yakubu<br />
despotic mode in the<br />
emergence of candidates for<br />
offices.<br />
Party<br />
leaders determined, in most<br />
cases, without any form of<br />
pretence to election or party<br />
primary, who becomes a<br />
candidate. Therefore, the<br />
framers of this Act chose to<br />
infuse sanity into the process,<br />
hence the insertion of the<br />
phrase ”...shall<br />
be monitored by the<br />
Commission”.<br />
Now, the question is, what<br />
makes a primary valid?<br />
Section 84(13) (Still<br />
on Nomination of<br />
candidates by parties)<br />
Section 84(13) provides the<br />
remedy to the question. The<br />
section states that ”Where a<br />
political party fails to comply<br />
with the provisions of this Act<br />
in the conduct of its<br />
primaries, its candidate for<br />
Indeed, while some politicians, who have a<br />
very unhealthy relationship with decency<br />
continue to appease crookedness as a deity,<br />
INEC’s seeming irresoluteness and<br />
complacency, in some instances, have not<br />
been helpful<br />
election shall not be included<br />
in the election for the<br />
particular position in issue”.<br />
The major provision of the<br />
Electoral Act 2022 in respect<br />
of conduct of party primaries<br />
is spelt out in Section 84(1);<br />
and the provision makes it<br />
mandatory that INEC<br />
must monitor party<br />
primaries. Verily, the<br />
leadership of INEC publicly<br />
warned political parties that<br />
any primary election not<br />
monitored by it, a report of<br />
which must be sent to its<br />
national headquarters, would<br />
not be accepted. The<br />
Commission encouraged its<br />
Resident Electoral<br />
Commissioners, RECs, to do<br />
the needful in this regard<br />
diligently. The Commission<br />
also sent<br />
staff from<br />
i t s<br />
headquarters<br />
t o<br />
support<br />
the state<br />
offices in<br />
t h i s<br />
monitoring<br />
endeavour.<br />
In fact,<br />
in a<br />
Saturday,<br />
July 9,<br />
2022,<br />
Press<br />
Release,<br />
titled,<br />
CLARIFICATION<br />
O N<br />
ISSUES<br />
RELATING<br />
T O<br />
CANDIDATE<br />
NOMINATION<br />
A N D<br />
RELEASE<br />
O F<br />
CERTIFIED TRUE COPIES<br />
OF DOCUMENTS, and<br />
signed by Festus Okoye Esq.,<br />
National Commissioner and<br />
Chairman, Information and<br />
Voter Education Committee,<br />
INEC reassured Nigerians<br />
that it would abide by the<br />
spirit and letters of the law.<br />
According to Okoye, ”the<br />
attention of the Commission<br />
has been drawn to<br />
speculations circulating<br />
online on the outcome of some<br />
of the recent primaries<br />
conducted by political parties<br />
and related issues. In<br />
particular, allegations<br />
intended to impugn the<br />
integrity of the Commission<br />
have been made in respect of<br />
Akwa Ibom North West and<br />
Yobe North Senatorial<br />
Districts.<br />
“To set the record straight”,<br />
Okoye continued, ”the<br />
Constitution of the Federal<br />
Republic of Nigeria mandates<br />
the<br />
Commission<br />
to monitor the organization<br />
and operation of political<br />
parties, including their<br />
finances, conventions,<br />
congresses and party<br />
primaries. In line with its<br />
constitutional and legal<br />
obligations, the Commission<br />
deployed monitors to the<br />
Continues on page 15