By Dele Sobowale

“It follows that having found that the purported nomination of the 1st Respondent never took place, he was therefore in law not sponsored by the 2nd Respondent, he never participated in the Taraba state Governorship election held on the 11th and 25th day(sic) of April 2015. Accordingly, all the votes purportedly cast for the 1st Respondent on the 11th and 25 day of April 2015 are wasted votes. [underlining mine]. Judgment of the Taraba State Election Tribunal, November 7, 2015, in Abuja.

NOTE. Underlining the location of the judgment is deliberate because it represents a vital part of this case which amounts to denying the votes of about seventy-five per cent of Tarabans in order to impose by judicial sleight of hand a rejected candidate on the people. End.

I traveled at my own expense to Abuja to obtain a certified true copy of the Taraba State Tribunal’s judgment for two reasons. First, the disjointed reports in various newspapers failed to convey a clear picture of the grounds for the verdict. It was vital to get to the source. Now I have a copy signed by Titi Garbas. PWUL, Mrs, Tribunal Secretary. Second, despite being a Lagos State indigene, I have a vital and personal interest in Taraba State. Three of my grandchildren, two girls and a boy, can rightly claim Taraba as their state of origin. One of my daughters is married to a nice family from Taraba State. I am obligated to serve the interests of Taraba state at all times. So, let nobody ask me: what is your business with Taraba; I am fighting for my kids.

That said; let me quickly set out the principles on which I operate on matters like this. One, democracy remains defined as “government of the people by the people and for the people in all electoral districts (federal, state, senate, house of representatives, local government etc). Two, elections to office are decided by voting and allowing the wishes of the majority to prevail. Three, government includes three branches – the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary; none acts  or should act alone. Four, power belongs to the people and they alone can dispose of it as they wish and nobody else in the three arms of government can or should impose his will on the people by any means however elegantly disguised. Five, elections should be free and fair and only eligible voters should participate. Six, like Alfred North Whitehead, 1861-1947, I also believe that “Governments [including the judiciary] are best classified by considering who are the “somebodies”  they are, in fact, endeavouring to satisfy.” (ADVENTTURES IN IDEAS 1933).

Let us now turn to examine the Taraba State Election Tribunal judgment which was delivered in Abuja and not Jalingo by Honourable Justices Musa D Abubakar (Chairman), V.I. Ofesi (Member) and W.I Kpochi (member). One of the grounds for finding against the PDP candidate was stated on page 46, namely, “Primaries must be held in state capital”. Now everybody in Nigeria and the world could remember that at the material time Jalingo and the rest of Taraba State was under siege by the dreaded Boko Haram insurgents and nobody’s safety could be guaranteed It is doubtful if the framers of any constitution expect people to go and vote when the danger to lives is so palpable. Would English people have gone out to vote when German bombers were dropping explosives every minute? Commonsense would dictate that the best thing to do under the circumstances is to move the primaries elsewhere in order to comply with the INEC time table. That was exactly what happened; the party hearkened to the voice of necessity and went ahead with its primaries elsewhere. Would the honourable justices have preferred to see several thousand dead people on account of a blind adherence to the law? If the law says an individual must appear on a particular date and there is an earthquake where he is expected, will it amount to a “flagrant disregard for law” if he does go and get killed? The law might be an ass but it does not need to be operated as if we are all donkeys.

Furthermore, by what stretch of the imagination can anyone assume that the people of Wukari, Mutum Biu, Jalingo, Gembu etc were swayed to vote overwhelmingly against the All Progressive Congress’ candidate because the PDP primaries were held in Abuja?

Finally, on this issue, one must ask the justices who ran to Abuja to tell the whole world why they think other citizens of Nigeria must face the dangers from which they fled. Is it a case of “all human blood is precious; but justices’ blood is more precious than ours?” By their action they have proved the point that it was inadvisable, if not insane, for anybody to have staged any major event in Jalingo at the time.

We now turn to Whitehead’s exquisitely wise observation and ask the question with regard to Taraba state: who is the Tribunal’s decision supposed to satisfy? The winner polled 369,318 votes and the loser 275,984; the total for the two was 645,302. So, the majority casting fifty-seven (57) per cent were in favour of the PDP candidate and a minority casting forty-three (43) per cent of the votes supported the APC candidate. Together, the 645,302 voters represented the people of Taraba state on those days. It is therefore their wish as expressed that should be paramount in all considerations because that is the solid foundation of democracy. A Tribunal, which engages in legal acrobatics to tell the people of Taraba state that they have elected an individual rejected by the majority is unjust and its verdict ethically defective – especially when it had other options. Who are they trying to satisfy?

DON’T SHOOT OR PROSECUTE MASSOB

MASSOB promotes an idea which can not be defeated by prosecution or arms If those instruments can eliminate ideas neither Christianity nor Islam would be around today. Let’s think out of the box on this.