By Franklin Oseya

At a close glance, it would appear that the last set of our lawmakers surreptitiously smuggled in the section in order to deal a fatal blow on the Supreme Court’s decision in Ameachi vs INEC? For starters, the phrase “under any circumstance” in the above provision is too sweeping as to constitute an ouster on the court’s jurisdiction, in contravention of Section 6 (6) of the 1999 Constitution which confers the Judicial powers of the federation on the courts.

The history of elections in Nigeria reveals that there are a plethora of probable circumstances that could foist on a court the necessity to declare any person a winner at any election, who did not fully participate in all the stages of the said election. The phrase “In all the stages of the election” presupposes that an election does not begin and end on voting day; an election has many stages which may well begin at the party primaries.

What happens when a party and/or its candidate violates Section 87 of the Electoral Act, should the court not intervene to remedy the situation? How then can the court intervene if it cannot make a restorative declaration?

So, what Section 141 of the Electoral Act says in essence is that in an event where a candidate is deliberately prevented from taking part in any of the stages of an election as was demonstrated in Rotimi Amaechi’s case, the court must not intervene to remedy the wrong. This of course does unimaginable violence to the Supreme Court’s decision in Amaechi vs INEC (2008) 5 NWLR (Pt 1080) wherein per Oguntade, J.S.C at page 259 noted that:

“In the interest of justice and fair play, the… court cannot shy away from doing substantial justice without undue regard to technicalities… Even where a person has not specifically asked for a relief from a court, the court has the power to grant such a relief as a consequential relief”.

In other words, if the granting of a consequential relief means the declaration of a person, a winner, who did not (was unlawfully prevented) take part in a stage of the election, so be it.

In any case, Section 141 of the Electoral Act 2010 is void and inoperative to the extent of its inconsistency with Section 6 (6) of the 1999 Constitution. See A.G. Aba State vs. A.G. Federation (2002) 6 NWLR, pt. 763 at 264 wherein the Supreme Court held that:

“Where the National Assembly has the power under the constitution to legislate on a matter it can only do so within the provisions of the constitution, any legislation which is inconsistent with those provisions is null and void and inoperative”.

The Court further held that: “The National Assembly has no power to dictate to the Judiciary how to conduct its affairs, just as the judiciary cannot fix – a time limit for the proceeding in the National Assembly.” See also Unongo vs. Aku (1983) 2 SCNLR.”

Conclusion.

Lastly, the large number of political parties (62), is just ludicrous and wasteful of our national resources. INEC is mandated to fund political parties – including the redundant ones – under Section 228 (c) of the 1999 Constitution. INEC must employ its powers under Section 78 (7) of the Electoral Act 2010 to cut-down the number of political parties most of which are only there to further wrought nuisance on the polity and render the entire political process, including ballot papers clumsy.