Foremost Constitutional lawyer, Professor Yusuf Ali, has asked the National Assembly to amend Section 136 of the Electoral Act that empowers courts or tribunals to declare anybody as the winner of any election petition in the country.
According to him, it is an aberration that five or ten million votes of the electorate should be surrendered at the mercy of three people to overturn, saying that it is undemocratic.
He posited that such amendments would also drastically reduce the rates at which politicians challenge election results after elections.
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Ali spoke in Ilorin on Tuesday on the sidelines of the National Assembly’s call for a public hearing on the Amendment of the Electoral Act.
According to him:, “We should not give the franchise of five million or 10 million votes to just three people to just upturn and make the declaration, and I think this is the first thing the National assembly must do to protect the democratic governance and sanctity of the nation’s electoral act”.
The legal luminary explained that, “In the aspect of the election debacle, people should go back to the electorate instead of the court or tribunal to declare such a candidate as the winner of that poll”.
According to him, “Most people have negative perceptions about our courts and these perceptions in Nigeria today arose as a result of the courts’ decisions on electoral matters in the country”.
He said, “Most of the adverse comments were also about the involvement of the court in the electoral disputes in Nigeria. So it is quite necessary not only to treat the symptoms but also to treat the disease.
“The most problematic to my mind is about the involvement of the courts in electoral dispute resolutions, which gives the power to the courts, tribunals and the courts generally.
“If anyone challenges elections under Section 136 of the Electoral Act and finds that the person is not qualified or didn’t score the required number of votes or didn’t score the required lawful votes at the elections, then you declare the person who came second in the elections as duly elected. I think that is problematic.
“That is the reason that some people believe that there is a lot of arithmetic at work before the court so that the politicians can achieve their main purpose, especially for those politicians who came second in that poll.
“And let me say that we have a lot of instances of those that came second or third that have been declared as governor of a state in Nigeria”.
Ali added, “To me, the solution to that now is that let’s remove the power of the court from declaring anybody as a winner. If you bring an election petition and you succeed, people should go back to the electorate.
“We should not give the franchise of five million, 10million votes to just three people to overturn and make the declaration, and I think that is the first thing we must hold on to, to protect the democratic governance and sanctity of the nation’s electoral act.
“Hence, there should be an amendment to section 136 of the Electoral Act to remove the power of the court or the tribunals from declaring anybody as the winner of the elections”.
The senior lawyer noted further that, “Once you succeed in your election petitions, you should go back to the electorate because you start to questions it actually whether there is actually a democracy when 25m people will vote and three persons would sit, not alone set aside the votes and declared the person that have been rejected at the poll as the sole winner of that poll.
“And my own sense of democracy and justice is a bit affected. I want to appeal to the NA to have the courage to do it. The power of the court or tribunal to declare anybody a winner should be removed. You will be surprised at the magical thing that will happen. The challenges of election petitions would reduce dramatically.”
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Ali also urged the national assembly to amend the section of the electoral act that allows the court to interfere in the internal crisis of the political parties in the country, saying that, “If you join a political party and it starts to maltreat you, then you can leave that party and join another one without any court interference”.
Ali also defended the cost of candidates going back to the electorates and INEC for another round of election saying no amount is too much to put the country’s democracy on a strong foundation.
