The people versus their last hope

If you want to kill the people, take away their hope. Hope is the fuel that drives the life of the poor. In fact, strike that; it is the very blood that runs in their veins. People literally die when their balloon of hope is deflated. Without subjecting the process of seeking redress to any serious thought, it is often said that the judiciary is the last hope of the common man. This is why the oppressor class have coined the phrase – if you’re dissatisfied, go to court!

Unlike the myth around police stations always being open, courts have official business hours. The guys who have keys to vaults of justice are like the police, they wear gaudy garbs and silky hats when they appear in courts. They are called lawyers and Prof. Farooq Kperogi might deny it all he wants; these say that they are the learned ones, the rest of us (including Kperogi) are merely educated.  

Lawyers can’t wear dreadlocks because they spend much of their study time with heads buried in fat books and suffer from trichotillomania. Yet to get the best out of the courts, a litigant must hire a lawyer. Not just any lawyer but a good one learned in law. Lawyers don’t come cheap and, in an economy where most litigants are preoccupied with feeding selves and dependants with the rising cost of living, most common men simply resolve their cases with – Allah ya isa or let God be the judge. Unfortunately, God’s judgment very often is not on this planet. The poor would prefer to see their enemy suffer the consequences of their actions here on earth and swiftly too.

Politricians are unlike the poor, their deep pockets fetch them the best lawyers. They have unlimited supply of the gas of optimism to drive their quest for justice. Some even argue that they seem to have disproportionate access to justice and that they sometimes buy it. In their quest for political power, they retain the best lawyers and often recruit the poor as thugs. The thug is dispensable and often stupidly gives his life for the uncaring employer.  

When security agents and electoral bodies warn that thugs are liable to die young, it is because they know that the thug is dispensable. As a casualty politricians are breaking news and subjects of analysis. Their deaths open the dams of lamentation.

Since the 2023 election cycle, people are beginning to wonder if indeed the bench is the last hope of the common man. It appears to be the place where those who fail at digital rigging rush to for judicial acclamation. A panel of judges is more powerful than a million voters. Their word is law, the voter’s wish is often not considered. Experience has shown that judges do not like applying the FIFA-rule of drafting only team members. In the premier league of politics, tribunals have been known to pick winners from the spectator stand.

There are fears that their ruling might exacerbate the tempo of the poor man’s frustration to the point of self-destruction. In spite of the contradictory messages from the inspector general and the president, over special security for VIPs, in a crisis situation; innocent bystanders might become casualties of the poor man’s misplaced aggression.

When the poor seek justice from the bench, they could only go when the courts are in traditional session – usually Monday through Friday during official working hours. When the politrician seeks judicial endorsement, the courts or tribunals could suspend sitting rules to satisfy their whims. Since the days of late Bassey Ikpeme’s midnight injunctions, courts have shown that, depending on who is asking, they could suspend working rules.  

Last Sunday, Caleb Mutfwang, had his Sunday worship interrupted when a tribunal nullified his declaration as the elected Governor of Plateau State. They ordered the electoral umpire to withdraw his certificate of return. Abba Kabir Yusuf had his reversed on Friday just when he was supposed to be reviewing Juma’a service. He was the sole governor of the newly formed New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP). A day earlier, Dauda Lawal, his Zamfara State counterpart elected on the platform of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was sacked by the appeal court.  

In legal terms, each annulment was premised on a pedestal. For instance, Governor Mutfwang was told that his party did not properly nominate him because it failed to abide by a provision that to be validly nominated, all his party structures in the 17 local governments of the state must affirm through their congresses. Only five did.  

In the case of Lawal, the courts held that elections did not hold in certain local government areas of Zamfara State. In Kano, the courts declared that nearly 170,000 votes counted for Yusuf were not stamped rendering them null and void. It therefore deducted those votes from him leaving Nasir Gawuna, his APC rival as the man with the highest votes and subsequently declared him the validly elected governor.

All three governors retain their seats until they have exhausted their appeal processes to the highest court in the land. Appeals don’t come cheap. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, one of the lucky ones affirmed by the courts have just been recently found to have financed his case with public funds. The three new losers are expectedly hoping, like the common man, that the judiciary would grant their prayers as the last hope.

However, these rulings are sometimes confusing to the common man. In earlier rulings, for instance, one of the tribunals described the process of choosing candidates as the exclusive preserve of the parties, arguing that the courts could not make pronouncements. In Kogi, Usman Ododo was declared governor even when elections did not hold in certain areas and were concluded before they were held in others.  

The ultimate victor in these rulings, controversial as they seem, is the ruling APC and its chairman, former Kano State Governor, Abdullahi Ganduje. From licking his wounds after serving two terms and facing political Siberia, he is now the man to envy. Not only was he handpicked as his party’s chairman, he seems set to redeem his image from the showdown between him and his former benefactor, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso; a breakdown that led to the founding of the NNPP.

Some of the physical structures he left as Kano governor did not outlast him as Yusuf put bulldozers to work. Yusuf accused him of building on green areas and allocating the lands to cronies, his friends and family members. Except he wins at the apex court, Ganduje is having his last laugh with his candidate, Gawuna set to take over.

In spite of the legal footing of the rulings, opposition members are crying that the rulings usurped the notion of the judiciary as the last hope of the common man. On the other hand, the gainers say the rulings are fair and that only bad losers complain because things did not go in their favour. They cite precedents in Osun and Bayelsa states where the opposition won their appeals. For now, the jury is out on whether the judiciary is the last hope of the people or their dashed hope.