By Dayo Benson & Bartholomew Madukwe

WHY was PDP joined in the court case against General Buhari?
The case against Buhari, as you know, was filed by the concerned Nigerians acting under Section 31 of the Electoral act, which gives any Nigerian right to file an action, to challenge any declarations that are made by a candidate of a political party in the INEC forms, if they believe that those declarations are not correct. So PDP as a political party has not joined in the case. It is a case by concern Nigerians, who have the view that the candidate for APC had made statements in the INEC forms that were not true.

How many cases has the PDP won so far?
Generally, you find that it’s not usual for PDP as a party to file any suit in court, but in many cases what happens is that PDP is joined as a defendant, may be suits relating to the nomination process of the party or suits relating to the general elections.

Party’s nomination

So if you say suits that PDP has won, if you have a case involving the party by which two members of the party tussle over the party’s ticket, is an intra-party matter. However it goes, it is still victory for the party because the tussle is for the party’s nomination and all the parties are members of the PDP.

As the National Legal Adviser of the PDP, are you not bothered that the party is having too many cases in court?
No, you see the matter of litigation is part and parcel of the political process and the electoral process. Because, you see it is only natural that people who loose nominations will be aggrieved. You know it is natural and we do expect that they express or ventilate their grievances within the party. By and large, the electoral act gives all aspirants the right to challenge the nomination process, if the nomination was done in breach of the party guidelines or the electoral act or the party constitution. So its part and parcel of the political process, we’ll sort them out.

Is the PDP not worried about the large number of its members decamping to other parties?
Well you see, PDP is a large party and it is also natural following every nomination process, the unfortunate thing is that we have members who are aggrieved, who would want to try and get nomination from other party they the loose in PDP.

A few people have left the party but you’ve also gain the few people too, so it’s like more or less a give and take situation. But yes, we would rather keep our members all intact but some of these things are inevitable because they will try to seek alternative platforms to realize their political ambitions. It happens to every large party not just PDP.

Some aggrieved PDP aspirant claimed that there was no party primaries and threatened to sue the party claiming N15 billion, being fees paid for their nomination forms. What is your reaction?

The claim that there were no primaries in the PDP is not only baseless but also uncharitable. The PDP conducted primaries before nominating candidates for all positions in the forthcoming general elections. INEC monitored the primaries upon being notified as required by the Electoral Act and the monitoring reports are available to the public. More than this, the Nigerian Police and other Security Agencies, who also were present at the Primaries, have their reports available for public scrutiny.

The various Electoral Committees and Electoral Appeal Committees sent by the National Secretariat who considered complaints arising from the exercise have also submitted reports which are available to the public. The PDP remains the best vehicle for the realization of the political aspirations of all Nigerians and the epitome of democracy in the country.

Can you say precisely how many cases PDP has in courts?
It is a difficult thing to say. There are quite a few cases as you know that the PDP is no doubt the largest political party in the country and in Africa in terms of membership. Even within the party there will always be competition.

Dispute resolutions

Such competitions sometimes result into conflicts and we try as a political party to apply internal remedies of dispute resolutions. But unfortunately, sometime some aggrieved members fail to take advantage of those internal remedies and go to court. Some members take advantage of the internal remedies. Inevitably, there would be litigation, either by reason of the aggrieved members not satisfied with the outcome of the internal remedy mechanisms or members totally disregard those internal remedy mechanisms and go to court.
There are quite a number of cases and the Electoral Acts (EA) in Section 87 (10) also confers on any aspirant who participated in the primaries or political party to go to court, if he or she feels that the EA was not complied with or the guidelines of the political parties have been breached in the conduct of the election.

As a practicing lawyer do you support the abolition of the rank of SAN?
I do not think that the rank of SAN should be scrapped it is important because every profession recognizes distinction. A lawyer that has distinguished himself deserves to be conferred with the rank of SAN. Such a privilege should be conferred; I know that some people have called for the abolition of the rank of SAN because of their perception that the rules are not properly applied. For me, that is advocating for throwing away the baby with the bathwater rather let us throw the bathwater and keep the baby. It is better to sanitize the process if there is any imperfection rather than abolish the rank.

What is your reaction to the recent judgment of the Supreme Court, in the appeal filed by Dr. Ardo Umar challenging the eligibility of President Jonathan to contest in the Presidential Elecation?

Dr. Umar Ardo had brought an application for leave to appeal as an interested party against the decision of Justice Mudashiru Oniyangi of the FCT High court in the suit brought by Cyracus Njoku against Mr. President, PDP and INEC. That application he brought before the Court of Appeal , the Court saw that the application was incompetent and without merit hence it was struck out. Dr. Ardo did not have any interest in the matter. The judgment of the high court did not affect any of his rights, he did not show what he suffered so the Court of Appeal dismissed his application and he brought an appeal to the Supreme Court and the apex court also saw that the Court of Appeal was right and that his first prayer in his application at the Appeal Court was not the prayer that he should have asked for.

Leave to appeal

That therefore made his application incompetent. Again on the merit he did not have an interest in the matter and therefore not necessary to be made a party and to be granted leave to appeal.

I salute the decision of the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court in that matter. Yes, in the light that he didn’t have any interest in the appeal at the Appeal Court. He was appropriately described as a busybody.

What do you think are some of the defects in the Electoral Acts 2010 that need to be amended?
The area of challenge to me is the time limit prescribed for determination of election petitions. I am quiet conscious of the fact that we all want the petitions to be heard and determined quickly but unfortunately in practice it seems everybody who loses election want to go to the Tribunal. The Tribunal is manned by human beings and in a bid to rush to get to a decision before the end of the time fixed to determine those petitions, justice can be hastily be carried out and that is not good justice.