Two court rulings on May 26 seemed to have dampened people’s enthusiasm and optimism that the people’s mandate will be retrieved by the same Judiciary. First, the Supreme Court dismissed the double nomination suit by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP against the vice presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Kashim Shettima, which would have subsequently affected the “president-elect”. And the Abuja High Court followed with dismissing the perjury suit filed by concerned Nigerians to void Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s inauguration today.

On the surface, it seems the Judiciary are not only reluctant to administer justice at this very critical time of our dilemma as a democratic nation, but also seemingly very eager to dance to the tune of the ruling party judging from the heavy fines slapped on litigants of both parties for daring.

However, a critical appraisal of both scenarios will make it clear that, apart from the outrageous fines imposed, both rulings may not have been out of tune with electoral technicalities. Pre-election matters remain pre-election matters, no matter who is involved. Significantly, neither levels of courts dismissed the suits based on lack of merit. The rulings of both courts do not bar the Tribunal from testing both serious matters ably captured in the petition submitted to the Tribunal by HE Peter Obi and the Labour Party, LP.

The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC set deadlines for all its processes of the electoral conduct and the ruling party should not be allowed to operate with a different guideline, no matter how desperately President Muhammadu Buhari wanted to hand over to Tinubu. On same vein, perjury remains perjury in the Nigerian Constitution and Tinubu should not be exempted no matter how complicit INEC became in declaring him ‘president-elect’.

The two suits were indeed pre-election matters but PO and LP petition was submitted post-election and no court will have any basis to dismiss such weighty issues based on lack of locus standi. Both PO and LP participated in same election, which Tinubu and APC flouted rules of the Electoral Act and the Constitution. The two rulings have instead strengthened the petition by very evidently giving enticing nourishment to those weighty grounds of disagreement. Interesting times ahead as we wait for the Tribunal.

We also wait to see how any justice worth his or her wig will interprete at least ⅔ of 36 states AND the FCT to mean the FCT can be excluded from the list.

After which, we get to the other real issues of rigging and shortchanging the people. Already, INEC are running scared because their figures, after over three months of declaring someone ‘president-elect’, have not yet added up. The Dr Livy Uzoukwu-led legal team of PO and LP have stated from the onset that they meant business. And now that they have smelt blood, it is going to be real fireworks from tomorrow.

Whether Tinubu is already sworn in as you read, it is very far from being over, very very very far!

POEM Concludes this Editorial with this quote from the vice presidential candidate of LP, Senator Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed, “Peter Obi and I won this election, and if justice prevails in Nigeria, by God’s will, we will lead Nigeria and fix the country.”

#MayJusticePrevail

This is POEM.