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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