In the end, after intemperate political leaders and their equally peevish supporters fulminated against the judiciary, sparing their worst abuse for the Supreme Court, the highest court in the country has opted for conservatism and status quo. There was not one of the eight governors whose elections were challenged that was sacked by the Supreme Court. Despite the thunderous blather by the opposition and the foul-spoken cynics who took on the judiciary, no election in 2023 was decided by the courts.
They were all decided at the polling booths in Plateau, Kano, Zamfara, Lagos, Bauchi, Abia, Cross River, and Ebonyi States. In at least three of the states, the top court disagreed with the Court of Appeal and sustained the elections of their agitated governors. Do the cases reflect the Supreme Court as conservative? It is not clear. Do the cases indicate that the top court is generally mindful of the security implications of upturning an election that seems popular, even when the law was not strictly adhered to? Perhaps.
What is, however, obvious is that the country’s political temperature has been calmed considerably, and the Supreme Court has become the darling of the populace. It does not imply that on a hypothetical tomorrow, those who lose elections and their supporters would still not take on the judiciary with a lot of sloganeering, but it does mean that gradually and quietly, both the political system and the judiciary are maturing. Perhaps if the public can begin to understand the courts and decipher their jurisprudential patterns they will moderate their expectations and become less litigious. Meanwhile, the country can bask in the peace and tranquility which the decided cases have brought upon the country, at least until the next general election. The Bola Tinubu administration will be glad to have this cup pass over them, and the president in particular will have the confidence now and in the future to speak about and defend the judiciary in the face of traducers. Now, he has put the lie to all allegations of manipulating the courts in favour of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
It is significant that the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PD), particularly their governors’ forum, has lauded the Supreme Court for delivering justice and upholding democracy. They said it was reassuring that ultimately the votes of the people counted, insisting in a statement by the director general of the forum that they had always believed the apex court would do justice.
The judgements of last Friday, they chorused in ecstasy, “represented the triumph of democracy…and reaffirmed the sanctity of the ballot as the determining factor for democratic legitimacy.” On its own, the APC, too relieved by the juridical turn of events to be disappointed, said in a statement by its national publicity secretary, Felix Morka, that the Supreme Court judgements “provide a strong affirmation of the authority, vibrancy and independence of the judiciary.” Cynics may continue waiting for the other shoe to drop; but for now, despite the setback in Kano and Plateau States, which cases the APC thought were slam dunk, they are relieved to get the country back on an even keel. In any case, they have the presidency.
The PDP’s hands have been strengthened by its victories in the courts, and its position as the pre-eminent opposition party underscored. Peter Obi, the Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate in the last election – not the party itself which has not grown beyond its amorphous structure – attempted in his January 1, 2024 address to his supporters to claim that pre-eminent opposition position. His claim was anchored on nothing other than the name recognition he had conjured when he played a divisive but nevertheless impactful politics in the last polls. His challenge may have now been laid to rest, but he will of course still attempt to energise his base by instigating religious and ethnic fervor. Those factors will, however, not acquire any currency in the medium run nor play any significant role in the next election cycle. And with only one state in the LP kitty and a handful of national lawmakers who would be keen to look out for themselves especially in the absence of a unifying ideology for their party, the grand ambition to play the leading opposition party may be dead on arrival.
On the list of winners is the judiciary itself. The Supreme Court has sometimes been unadvisedly acerbic in denouncing judgements from the lower courts, in this instance the election tribunals and the Court of Appeal, but notwithstanding that inattentiveness to legal nicety, the judiciary emerges from the election cases in this election cycle a winner. It now has an opportunity to put its house in order once and for all. If the court of last resort genuinely thinks the tribunals and the Court of Appeal had been less than stellar in their judgements, then together with the authorities who appoint judges, they must get their act together and put the best thinkers and jurists on the bench. But who says the Supreme Court can’t be fallible?
By Adekunle Ade-Adeleye- The Nation
