By Chuks Nwachuku
I do not share in the optimism of an exciting judicial battle in the petitions challenging the recently staged deeply flawed presidential elections in Nigeria. Better go out and vote next Saturday. Nothing but a reading of a radical change of mood in the society not to tolerate any gaslighting from anybody, including the Supreme Court, could bring about a change of a result that is already predetermined. Somebody could not have snatched the ballot box in the full view of the whole world and could not have been urging the horrified opponents to go to court if he had not already made certain of what the court would say.
I wonder what we base your optimism of an exciting legal battle on. We should stop this infantilism. 200 million Nigerians could not have an exciting political battle with the whole world watching because the umpire was an interested party, and with the recent history of election petitions and political matters in this country, we still have the optimism that seven or nine people would do a better job of resisting the tide of evil that overwhelmed 200 million people? That Is an impossibility – except there is a fundamental change in the complexion of the political environment. That is where next Saturday’s polls become crucial. Nigerians must show that they are not prepared any longer to leave their fate in the hands of a few men in the institutions of State, including INEC and the Supreme Court. It must be made clear that the polity is more than sufficiently charged not to accept the usual gaslighting from the Supreme Court.
The theory of non-interference in the internal affairs of a country is that you cannot cry more than the bereaved. You will accept whatever it is, no matter how unjust, that the people are prepared to live with. Therefore, in a situation of potential conflict within a polity your effort should be directed at nudging the people to accept the status quo and live with it, except they show that they will not do so under any circumstances and for any reason. The international community therefore stood back to watch how Nigerians would react to the brazen electoral heist, while quietly nudging the people to accept to live with it with the false hope of fighting another day. The first indication that the people could accept to leave with it, is the expression of resolve of the major gladiators to go to another state institution with a history of legalizing such heists for redress rather than urging their aggrieved people on to the streets. That is the reason that you will see more countries, that have held aloft since the declaration of a winner, begin to congratulate him.
The Supreme Court has been acting in election petitions with this same mentality. Forget about law or facts. That is not what the process of election petition at the Supreme Court is about. It is about placing an offer backed with the authority of State before the litigants as the conditions for them and the generality of the people to live with or under until the next time round. Unless the people show early enough that the trick will not work this time around, the Supreme Court will give judicial approval to the horror that we have just witnessed. They will comfort themselves with the thinking that ensuring stability is the best justice that can be delivered. So, if the people could accept the heist, why be the one to nudge them not to?
This battle will therefore be fought and won outside of the Supreme Court. It will be won by the attitude of the people on the streets, starting with next Saturday elections. The Supreme Court must be shown practically on the streets the meaning of the principle that sovereignty belongs to the people that is enshrined in our Constitution. They must be given in advance a view of what would result if they should attempt to gaslight the people this time as they have done in previous times.
Election jurisprudence in this country is a forest of a thousand demons. There is neither fact nor law there. Neither can survive there. The lawyers who collect huge fees every four years in those theater stages are but skilled dramatists. You may say that Peter Obi recovered his mandate from the same system twice. Go and ask the reason and you will see that a reading of the no nonsense mood of the society accounted in essence for it. Go out and vote, like Peter Obi said. Go and show the world that you won the election on 25th February. You already know not to trust INEC and their thieving university professor collation officers and returning officers. You know not to trust that BVAS or any other written procedure of the election shall be observed. You are going to be your own police to police your vote up to final declaration and uploading of results. I am informing you that election petitions are charades from the point of real resolution of legal and factual issues. They serve the purpose of pacification of the people to accept and live with their conquest by a few elements. The only thing that could alter the predetermined result is if the people demonstrate that they have not been conquered in fact by the few elements that wish to use the court to pacify them. The Supreme Court will never set itself against the unshakable resolve of the people not to be conquered. In sum, my position is that election petitions, particularly at this level, are political rather than judicial processes.
Chuks Nwachuku can be reached at [email protected]
