Rethinking our electoral justice: The court of appeal innovation

On a number of occasions, I have had cause to interrogate the country’s electoral justice system in terms of both efficiency and result. In all the autopsy, not really diagnosis, done by me, I have found shortfalls/drawbacks in the electoral justice system. I recall that in some of my prior interventions, I have derided the use of technicality to defeat the cause of justice in electoral disputes.

Since that time and date, no remarkable progress has been made in eliminating this bottleneck. In fact, rather than the situation being alleviated, it is degenerating. As the Yorubas will say, kaka ki o san lara omo iya aje, lile lo n le si which literally translates to mean that rather than the situation improving, it is getting worse. My quarrel that time in respect of this anomaly was grounded on the utilization of the strict provisions of the Evidence Act in the dispensation of justice in electoral disputes. In my humble view, that adoption of the evidential rules has perpetrated more of injustice than justice.
The development was part of the reason then that a lot of petitioners, that is, the aggrieved candidates in an electoral contest, justifiably deprecated the electoral justice process. Unfortunately, because the petitioners could not understand the way and manner the process works, they tend to visit this inadequacy of the process on the personalities involved in the adjudicatory process. This, I suspect, was the commencement of the insinuation, real in some few instances, that judges compromise their positions. A petitioner typically will find it difficult to digest why he complained of manipulation of results and there was need to ascertain the number of ballot papers in the box but for some strange rules to him, it was resolved that a certain rule renders it impossible to effect any counting of ballot papers.
Hence, it is hoped at a point that this conceptual confusion will be clarified convincingly and conclusively. With this background, I now progress to my destination which is essentially the evaluation of the administrative innovations of the Court of Appeal in the dispensation of electoral justice in the country. It is not in my character to unduly heap fulsome praise on people as this is stock-in-trade of sycophants, hence I avoid discussion of personalities, good or bad. However, in recent times, it is becoming inevitable for me not to make exception to this position of mine as I realize that it is important not only to appreciate some personalities struggling to make a difference in this our beleaguered system but to spur them on. It was in this context that I had discussed the contributions of the one-time chief executive officer of the Nigerian Ports Authority and current Special Adviser to the President on Policy Coordination, Hadiza Bala Usman as well as the current Commissioner for the Environment in Lagos State, Tokunbo Wahab. This time, I am acknowledging and appreciating the leadership of the Court of Appeal as typified by the duo of the President, Hon. Justice Monica Dongba-Mensem and the Chief Registrar of the Court, Mr. Umar M. Bangari.
Since the assumption of office of these leaders, I have observed their genuine efforts at responding to the challenges of the court both in terms of the administration of justice and its efficiency. Let me state clearly that one might not agree with all the reforms that have been initiated by the leadership of the courts; and it might not even have achieved the ultimate objective or desire, but the reality is that anyone can note the impressive efforts being made towards responding to the challenges of the court. In Nigeria, this is exceptional as most times, what one discovers is a situation where most leaders turn deaf ears to the agitations and cries of the stakeholders, and often times regard such as undue criticism bordering on condemnation. Suddenly, if you now discover some exceptions to the business-as-usual approach, one cannot but shout ‘halleluiah’.
This is more important in the area of the administration of justice in which the court is perceived as the last hope of the common man. As recently opined in my last intervention, the practice around the adjudicatory process is beginning to assume the semblance of a truly lost hope of the common man, apologies to Chidi Odinkalu. As I remarked in that piece, beyond the allegation of corruption, the rules of court in themselves are self-defeating of justice, coupled with other issues of infrastructural deficit and incompetence of some of the adjudicators and administrators.
The seeming failure of the justice system is inevitably converting the country into a jungle, and little or no wonder that self-help is already trumping the rule of law. This drift certainly is not sustainable and urgent interventions, I dare say is desirable and compelling. It is in this regard that I commend the latest move of the President of the Court of Appeal in reconfiguring the process of selection of the adjudicatory panels of the appeals thereby insulating the justices from political influence and pressure. I am sure that the act of the displacement of the traditional or conventional venue for the determination of appeals in the areas where they emanated from, through the relocation and restriction of the seats of hearing to only the capital and the commercial capital of the country, Abuja and Lagos, is unsettling to a lot of politicians and other stakeholders. This is a development that is radical and shocking to the political class.