WE had just concluded off-cycle governorship elections in Imo, Kogi, and Bayelsa states. If the reader recalls, the first state to go off-cycle was Anambra State. By off-cycle is meant a state whose governorship election will not hold when that of other states are holding, as a result of litigation that voided the election of the previously declared winner.

Since the constitution says a governor shall serve for a term of four years from the date of swearing-in, and the previously-declared winner had spent some time before verdict came, the new governor’s term would outstrip the terminal end previously envisaged. In the case of Anambra, the first state to go off-cycle, the election was held in April 2003, and Chris Ngige of the PDP was declared winner.

Peter Obi of APGA kicked, and took his case to court, and it was not until 2006 that the courts gave their verdict, unseating Ngige and Obi becoming governor. Since then, seven other states have joined the off-cycle train. These are Kogi, Bayelsa, Imo, Ekiti, Edo, Osun, and Ondo (not in that order).

As things stand, more states are set to join the off-cycle train. Kano is looking like one; a state where the NNPP candidate,  Abba Yusuf had been declared winner and sworn-in, but which the tribunal had sacked, and the Appeal Court affirmed, even if under controversy over the Certified True Copy (CTC) of the judgment. Plateau is another one that looks set to join the off-cycle train as the Appeal Court affirmed that Caleb Muftwang of the PDP was not rightful winner of the election, ruling that his opponent from the APC was actual winner. It looks as if litigation on these election matters have not ended, as indications are glaring that those sacked will take matters further up to the Supreme Court.

A few weeks ago, there was palpable apprehension that the presidential election itself might go off-cycle, given the ferocious litigation against the victory of the declared winner, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, who had since been sworn-in as president, until the Supreme Court justices dismissed the apprehension by upholding Tinubu’s victory.

From what is in the public domain about the election victories that are being upturned by the courts, a few matters demand attention. First, it is ridiculous that a governor can be declared as unrightful winner in an election because the courts found that he was not “validly nominated.” That triggers a lot of questions about the internal processes of the party concerned. Very often, parties are factionalised without being outrightly split, and candidates with eyes on the governorship ticket of the party resort to what I call sakamanje to clinch the ticket.

Sakamanje, in my personal dictionary, refers to one activity or a series of activities, mostly not in consonance with due process, geared towards actualisation of an outcome that can be presented as legal. Some did it and got away with it. Others were not so lucky, but it happens every election cycle. That an opponent in a rival political party can be seized of the facts of such sakamanje speaks volumes about the kind of individuals that populate political parties these days.

Secondly, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, should share responsibility for these because as an electoral umpire, the body has been remiss in the discharge of its duties. One aspect of INEC’s duties where it has been completely remiss is the regulatory aspect. I hold the view that INEC can regulate affairs of political parties without interfering in the politicking by ensuring that the rules of engagement, whose broad outlines are spelt out in the parties’ constitution and the Electoral Act are followed to the letter. But what we have seen in practice runs to the contrary.

As we speak, there are elected officials who sought nominations into more than one electoral office in the same election cycle in glaring violation of the Electoral Act and got away with it, with the active connivance of some of its functionaries, aided by rotten sections of the legal system. A case in point is that of Bashir Machina and Ahmad Lawan, both of the APC in Yobe State. It was a classical case of sakamanje in full technicolour.

Now that we have seen how the parties and INEC collude by acts of omission and commission to generate electoral issues that, ab initio, do not need judicial adjudication, the ball is now back in the court of the National Assembly. This is a clarion call on our law-makers to revisit the Electoral Act and make amendments that will ensure that all litigations on election matters are disposed of before anybody is sworn-in.

To this end, I suggest that they look in the direction of October 1, our National Day, as handover date, instead of May 29, which was a date I believe was whimsically foisted on us by the junta of General Abdulsalami Abubakar. The date has no significance in the history of our political development before 1999. I submit that if elections are held in February/March, as was done this year, the intervening period between then and October 1 should be enough for the judiciary to dispose of cases arising therefrom.

It is unseemly that somebody would have been sworn-in, and had gotten used to being addressed as His Excellency, only to be removed after a few months. Kenya was able to do it, as it concerns William Ruto and Raila Odinga. Odinga’s litigation was disposed of by the Kenyan courts before Ruto was sworn-in. We can do it here!