Pre-election cases: curbing politicians' politricks

• Published date: 24 January 2023
• Publication title: Nigeria - The Nation

The idea of a pre-election litigation process was intended to help strengthen the electoral process by ensuring that, with the intervention of the court, misgivings about the emergence of a candidate or his/her suitability for the position sought are addressed before the main election.

However, the objective(s) for which the process was evolved seems to be currently threatened by an avalanche of pre-election cases that flooded the courts shortly after the last primary election season.

Unlike before when pre-election cases could be filed in any High Court where the issues being complained about occurred, the Electoral (Amendment) Act 2022, in sections 29 (5) and 84(14), now grants the Federal High Court the exclusive jurisdiction in the hearing and determination of pre-election cases.

According to the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, a total of 1,838 pre-election cases were filed in the court as of December last year, out of which 1,285 cases were disposed of, leaving a total of 556 cases pending.

While the Federal High Court has continued to dispose of such cases, the appellate courts are confronted with the task of dealing with the appeals emanating from these cases.

Incidentally, these cases range from the serious, where genuine grievances are taken before the court, to the highly ridiculous, where busy bodies, mostly lawyers, who hide behind opaque groups to file cases, directed at either distracting perceived popular candidates or take advantage of the situation.

Some pre-election cases

One of such worthy cases was the one determined on January 20 by the Supreme Court to determine the actual candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for the Akwa-Ibom North-West Senatorial District.

In the judgment rendered by a five-member panel, headed by Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, the court held in favour of the former governor of the state, Godswill Akpabio.

Cases that have been described by courts as frivolous and unmeritorious, formed the majority of pre-election matters in courts.

At the last count, over 15 cases were filed against the presidential candidate of the APC, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu alone, with the sole objective of having him disqualified.

The candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar; Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP), Rabiu Kwakwanso of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), among others, have cases filed against them, seeking their disqualification for one reason or the other.

One of such frivolous cases against Tinubu was filed by the PDP to challenge the validity of the Tinubu/Shettima ticket for the 2023 presidential election.

The PDP had argued, in the suit marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/1734/2022 that Shettima's nomination as Tinubu's running mate was in breach of the provisions of Sections 29(1), 33, 35 and 84{1)}(2)} of the Electoral Act, 2022 (as amended).

It claimed that Shettima had double nominations - as a vice-presidential candidate and as the candidate for the Borno Central Senatorial seat.

The...