When prejudice influences poetry, the truth suffers as a result. In the Nigerian legal system of limitless Maradona-dribbling, it is impossible for the Supreme Court in Nigeria to adjudicate and conclude proceedings in a Presidential election petition within a month after election result has been announced. Corruption and abuse of judicial power is 98% greater in Nigeria than in Kenya. In Nigeria, Presidential election petition must start from the election tribunal which will spend not less than ten months to auction judgment to the highest bidder and will proceed from there to the Appeal Court which will spend almost a year to sell judgment to the highest bidder before the appeal can land at the Supreme Court for final hearing and judgment in favour of the person who pays more. Let me clarify with examples.
In the Gubernatorial election of Anambra State, in 2003, Dr Chris Ngige of the PDP was declared a winner against Peter Obi of APGA. While the election petition dragged on, Dr. Ngige reneged on his agreement with his sponsor to the election victory, Chris Uba, (whose brother was special assistant to President Obasanjo) to give him a chunk of monthly revenue allocation to the state from the Federal government. Dr. Ngige wanted the entire allocation to be used for the development of Anambra State. When all means to intimidate Dr. Ngige to comply with Chris Uba failed, the latter went to the Appeal Court to witness in favour of Peter Obi of APGA. Chris Uba revealed how election sheets were toe and finger thumbed before the election date in Anambra in which Dr. Ngige was declared Governor elected. Although Chris Uba was not prosecuted for perpetrating electoral fraud, the Supreme Court dismissed Dr. Ngige from office in 2005 and declared Peter Obi as the winner of 2003 Gubernatorial election. In 2007, Dr. Andy Nnamdi Uba, as he titled himself then, contested for the Governorship of Anambra State on the platform of PDP and he was declared a winner with 1.9 million votes. Some days after the election result, Uba's opponents discovered that the total number of voters in the register was 1.7 million and Professor Maurice Iwu's INEC quickly adjusted Dr. Andy Nnamdi Uba's winning votes to one million. One Mr. Greg Ikemefuna filed a court suit alleging that Dr. Andy Nnamdi Uba was not qualified to contest the Gubernatorial election because he did not attend any of the three Universities, and did not obtain any doctorate degree in 1996, as he claimed, filled and signed in INEC Form 001. The Universities Dr(?) Andy Nnamdi Uba claimed he attended in INEC Form 001 were Concordia University, Montreal , Canada, California State University, Los Angeles, and Buxton University, London. Mr. Greg Ikemefuna secured a letter from the UK Department of Education and Skills revealing that Buxton University did not exist. When Andy Nnamdi Uba was eventually eased out of office, it was because the election that threw him up as Governor should not have taken place, in view of the fact that, constitutionally, the four years tenure of Peter Obi started in 2005 when he was first sworn in and the next Gubernatorial election should, therefore, be 2009. The case of Andy Nnamdi Uba's false academic claim, has since been swept under the carpet by the court and he is now a Senator making laws for Nigerians.
Still in Anambra, it was discovered that the election that threw up Willy Obiano as the Governor of the State in 2013 contained illegal voters. For instance, a bowl of rice was registered with, a given date of birth, profession as a civil servant, sex as a male and was permitted to vote in the election. The election result was, however, legalized by the Supreme Court of Nigeria.
In preparation for the March/April 2015 Federal and state Elections, INEC announced that the elections would be conducted with the aid of Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) and Card Readers. Devices that were intended to eliminate multiple voting, irregular voting i.e. registering in one unit and voting in another unit, and allocation of votes in which political agents and electoral officials simply connive to allocate agreed number of votes to political parties regardless of number of votes cast. Card Raders in particular would verify if the PVC belongs to the bearer or if it is cloned, thereby checking impersonation and counterfeiting during elections. The Supreme Court of Nigeria, however, declared the use of PVC and CR in the March/April 2015 election illegal when over-voting was discovered in the Southeast and South-south, excluding Edo State, where the conduct of elections were based on manually prepared voters' register. It took over a year after the election before the Supreme Court of Nigeria could decide that voters' register, even if it contained goats and chickens as eligible voters, was superior to Card Readers. That was why the Supreme Court of Nigeria reversed the 27 January 2016 ruling of the Appeal court which had nullified the Governorship and State Assembly election of Rivers State on the ground that number of votes counted and announced as results outrageously exceeded what were recorded by Card Readers. Therefore, comparing Kenya Supreme Court Judges with those in Nigeria is not only wrong but dishonest.
Concerning the DSS operations on Judges in Nigeria, their counterparts in Kenya would have acted in the same way if Kenya Judges openly sell judgments to the highest bidder as it has been in Nigeria. After the DSS raid, two affected Justices of the Supreme Court wrote to the Nigerian Judicial Council (NJC) to explain the sources of the huge amount of money, both in US dollars and naira, recovered from their homes by DSS. While Justice Inyang Ikoro wrote that the dollars were unexpended part of his estacode for medical treatments abroad that he had been saving, Justice Sylvester Nwali Ngwuta on his part claimed that the money found in his house was made from selling rice and palm oil. Before the admission of the Justices to the ownership of the huge amount of money found by DSS in their homes, some people on this forum alleged that the DSS had planted the money in the homes of the Justices to incriminate them. Yet, we all know that a successful Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) does not know law, but he knows Court Registrars and Judges. It is a mystery that those who are awed by the DSS's raid are not concerned about the eyes-popping wealth of Judicial Officers in Nigeria who collect huge bribes from national looters to adjourn cases indefinitely, dismiss cases and issue perpetual injunctions against the arrest, interrogation and prosecution of looters by the law enforcing agencies. One of the judges whose home was raided by the DSS in 2016 was Justice I.A. Umezulike, the Chief Judge of Enugu. Barrister Peter Eze had petitioned the DSS, EFCC, ICPC and NJC accusing Justice Umezulike of abuse of judicial power against two defendants in suits Nos. E/6/2013 and E/88/2016. The Chief Judge clung to the two suits to remain in his court, despite all genuine efforts by the defendants to get the suit transferred to another court. The plaintiff in the two cases was Prince Arthur Eze, one of the Southeast marginalized billionaire tycoon allocated with oil block OML 109, located just 12 miles off the shores of Nigeria, encompassing some 773 square kilometres with estimated 2.2 billion barrels of crude oil. While Justice Umezulikke was adjudicating on the two cases in which Prince Arthur Eze was a party, the Chief Judge had a book launch and Prince Arthur Eze attended and donated ten million naira (N10 million) for the book launch. With that donation, Prince Arthur Eze, indirectly, had purchased favourable judgements in the two cases pending before the honourable Judge, which was why he refused to transfer the cases to another court. So, when the DSS raided the home of the Chief Judge of Enugu State, Justice I. A. Umezulike, it was not because he had pronounced any judgment against the Federal Government, but because he was engaged in cash and carry judgments like most of the Nigerian judicial officers. He was subsequently recommended for dismissal by the Nigerian Judicial Council which is the only penalty for criminal judges in Nigeria.
In December 2015, the Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Mr. Ekpo Nta, revealed that the ICPC was prosecuting over 400 corruption-related cases in various courts in the country and he blamed the judiciary for impeding prosecution and judgments. In view of that, Ibrahim Magu, the Acting Chairman of EFCC, whose experience was similar to that of Mr. Nta, suggested a legislation that would fix a time frame within which corruption cases should be heard and determined by the judiciary. The Senate responded by declaring Ibrahim Magu unfit to be the Chairman of EFCC. Could that happen in Kenya?
S. Kadiri
Skickat: den 2 september 2017 00:16
Till: USA Africa Dialogue Series
Ämne: USA Africa Dialogue Series - FW: Kenya's Supreme Court has cancelled Kenya's election, orders new election within 60 days
CAO.
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