The Judiciary and the Nigeria Police Force played ignoble roles in the just concluded Local Government Areas (LGA) elections in Rivers State.
Designed to provide security and defend the country’s democracy, the Judiciary and the police deliberately attempted to frustrate the elections, as part of the political intrigue to further vested interests in the Rivers State’s year-long political crisis and stoke anarchy in the oil-producing state.
To set in motion the sequence of events meant to destabilise the election was an order by Justice Peter Lifu of the Federal High Court in Abuja, instructing the Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, not to provide security during the LGA elections held on October 5, 2024. The judge also ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) not to provide the Rivers State Independent Election Commission (RSIEC) with the state’s voters’ register.
It is a clear aberration for a justice of the High Court to instruct the Nigeria Police Force against discharging its constitutional duty of providing security for a state. Section 214(1) of the 1999 Constitution establishes the Nigeria Police for “the prevention and detection of crime, the apprehension of offenders, the preservation of the law and order, the protection of property and the enforcement of all laws and regulations….” Justice Lifu’s order was, therefore, an abuse of his judicial powers and an affront on the Constitution. Also, to issue a court order preventing INEC from releasing the voters’ register to the RSIEC, was not to further the course of democracy but to abridge it. Voters’ register is critical for the conduct of any election in Nigeria.
Clearly, Justice Lifu’s court orders were not in good faith, as we call on the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, to live to her promise at inauguration, by probing the Justice’s actions and mete out necessary penalty in accordance with the rules and ethics of the legal profession. During her inauguration, the CJN had vowed that: “Under my leadership, the Judiciary will adhere to the principles of honesty, transparency, and integrity.”
In probing Justice Lifu’s orders, we also call for a probe of the orders by Justice I. Igwe of the Rivers State High Court who issued counter orders to the IGP and INEC to provide security and release the voters’ register to RSIEC respectively. The contradictory and conflicting orders by the justices are strange; they are a source of mockery to our Judiciary. As Lord Bryce, an astute thinker on Judiciary, says, “If the law be dishonestly administered, the salt has lost its flavour; if it be weakly and fitfully enforced, the guarantees of order fail…. If the lamp of justice goes out in darkness, how great is the darkness.” In the current political dispensation, Nigerians are witnesses to how judges of various courts deliberately put out the lamp of justice and thrust Nigerians into darkness.
On the same plane, we call on the Presidency to call IGP Egbetokun to order for obeying a so-called court order that was not in tune with the Constitution. Claiming to obey the orders of the Federal High Court, the IGP withdrew policemen from providing security during the elections. The police specifically said in a statement on October 4 that, “the Nigeria Police Force has been advised by the Force Legal Department to comply with the judgment of the Federal High Court dated September 30, 2024, which bars the Nigeria Police from allowing, participating in, providing security for, or taking part in the Rivers State Local Government Election on October 5, 2024. All other security agencies are also implored to comply with the Federal High Court judgment.” Clearly, the sentences in the statement are distasteful, and for not providing security during the elections, the police violated the Constitution.
The President of the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), Mazi Afam Osigwe, SAN, echoed this aptly when he said in a statement that “The Nigeria Police Force is constitutionally mandated to protect lives and property, and this duty extends to providing security during elections. Any failure to perform this obligation is unacceptable. The security of elections and indeed all other activities are not matters for negotiation.” The Bola Tinubu administration must not allow this violation of the Constitution to go unpunished. The mayhem that accompanied this disobedience was said to have caused the death of five persons and the destruction of three local government secretariats.
We support the decision of the Rivers State government to set up a judicial panel of inquiry on the violence in order to identify and punish offenders.
We condemn everyone in the electoral value chain who played ignoble and dangerous roles in the LGA elections. The Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) National Working Committee set the ball of confusion rolling by contravening its own rules. Against the understanding that state governors are the leaders of political parties in the states, the NWC declared the former governor and now Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike as the PDP leader in Rivers State, instead of the sitting governor, Siminalayi Fubara.
Democracy is about the people, not powerful individuals. It should, by now, be clear to all political parties, as well as the compromised personnel in the Judiciary, the police and the national electoral body, that Nigerians are tired and fed up with their mercantile attitude towards elections. They must operate in line with the law and the will of the people; they cannot continue to mortgage the country to moneybags. Enough is enough.
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