By Tochu Okorie
The involvement of the judiciary in deciding elections in Nigeria remains a sore thumb in our leadership recruitment process fuelling impunity in governance and associated socio-economic pains. That is not as radically destructive and embarrassing for a country in cryonically frozen development as politicians deploying huge amounts of public funds defending in court positions they took by stealth and brigandage.
Hardly ever have major elections been decided without the agony of protracted litigations which ultimately ends in upending the will of the people as expressed in the ballot. Many political office holders in Nigeria today occupy exalted offices by the magnanimity of the courts rather than by any popular mandate. This happens because they manage to force their way into office and then deploy huge amounts of public funds, now at their disposal, in defending the stolen election in court. This has to change if Nigeria hopes to develop its political system in the near future.
Practically speaking, the economic and socio-cultural crises that continue to hunt Nigeria redounds from the absence of moral fibre in our political framework. Reasons are not far-fetched. Political office holders do not feel any indebtedness, not to speak of allegiance, to the people. This owes to the fact that they were chosen for that office not by the popular mandate of the people but by the whims of a convoluted judicial process, procured with public funds which they usually would deploy with reckless abandon.
As a result, they conduct their affairs in thoughtless disregard of the interest of the people and the common good. They carry on with unbridled impunity knowing they will never have any recourse to the people at any other time. They will always get by through the courts as long as they have unrestricted access to the public tills.
Can anyone blame the judiciary for doing their legitimate duty of adjudicating cases brought before them? Of course, no. What is unfortunate is that the judiciary has allegedly turned the opportunity into a bazaar of sorts making brisk business out the whole shenanigan. Would the litigants have been spending from their respective pockets on both sides and not one from the common purse and another from his personal funds, one would not have been so badly furious.
It is unjust, corrupt and immoral to allow the deployment of public funds in pursuit of personal electoral victory in the courts. No country in the world ever develops that way. We will continue to be mired in the murky waters of underdevelopment for as long as we continue to tolerate a confused leadership recruitment pattern that is clearly damaging to our cherished ethos and undermines our glib tiny developmental efforts.
Thankfully, electoral reform is a continuous process and can still accommodate fundamental changes in order to bring the electoral process to a desired equilibrium. This means there is the urgent need to evolve a system that allows the entire gamut of the post-election legal process to be concluded before anyone is sworn into office. That way the practice of capturing the public purse and deploying same in defence of often manipulated victory will be brought to a permanent halt.
It is awful enough that our elections have taken the backburner giving way for the courts to exult as the ultimate determiners but no more should gladiators in the arena of politics be allowed to force themselves into office and then turn around to spend billions of public funds in the pursuit of that legal process.
It therefore becomes imperative that the National Assembly must rise with courage in the approach to the next amendment to the Electoral Act and even the Constitution, and make adequate provision of time. In this regard, I take the view that elections could be conducted in October the year preceding handover allowing seven clear months within which all legal matters attendant to the election must be concluded. Early election poses no threat to anyone save riggers whose market will no longer sell.
Tochu Okorie, a Public Affairs analyst, writes from Abuja and can be reached via toksokorie@gmail.com
