IT may not be wrong to describe the sacking of those Plateau State lawmakers who gallantly won their elections on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) by the Court of Appeal, as a miscarriage of justice, denial of right, abuse of the franchise of the electorates and an insult to the integrity of the judiciary laced with suspicious bribe taking.
It was a judgment from wishful thinking and a delivered plan to scuttle the democracy on the Plateau intended to cause chaos and brimstone. It was a judgment master minded by enemies of democracy and shamefully delivered from the bottom pit of hell by agents of doom in the temple of justice for a bowl of porridge.
The hatchet plan was beautifully delivered according to the agreement brokered until the Supreme Court rubbished it on the altar of real justice.
Despite that, the Supreme Court’s judgment was delivered at a wrong time for the already robbed lawmakers. If only the judgment had been delivered before the macabre dance of the Court Appeal, the lawmakers would today still be in their respected hallow chambers at state and national levels.
Today as the matter stands, they were robbed of being addressed as Honorable Members or Distinguished Senator because of what the apex court called ‘perverse’ judgment in the case of Governor Caleb Mutfwang of the PDP and Nentawe Goshwe of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
The cases of Mutfwang and the mischievously sacked lawmakers, who are of the PDP extraction were ‘on all fours’, as lawyers will say. But, the lawmakers’ cases, as similar as they were with Mutfwang’s, did not get to the Supreme Court, where the governor got objective judgment which reinstated him against the Kangaroo judgment of the Court of Appeal earlier delivered.
Usually, appeals in the lawmakers’ cases ended at the Court of Appeal, where their fates were sealed following the court’s decision that they won elections on the platform of a party without structures.
According to the imagination of the Court of Appeal, the PDP in Plateau State had disobeyed the order of a Plateau State High Court to hold fresh ward, local government and state congresses to fill vacant executive positions. The apex court found otherwise. That was what saved Governor Caleb from kissing the ground.
The Supreme Court’s hands were, however, tied in respect of the sacked lawmakers’ gross injustice as the matter was before the Court of Appeal and could never have reached the Supreme Court as per the provisions of the law on disputes over legislative elections.
The disputes usually end at the Court of Appeal. This was also the case with governorship election disputes until the relevant portion of the law was amended to allow the cases reach the apex court.
In deciding the Mutfwang case, the Supreme Court nevertheless noted the harm the Court of Appeal did in respect of cases similar to the matter that never came before it. It was a mere observation, which could not and should not be taken as a pronouncement on the lawmakers’ cases. As members of the society who see what goes on around them too, judges are free to express their personal opinions on vexed issues, which though not officially before them they cannot pretend not to be aware of.
There was no way their Lordships could have dispensed with Mutfwang’s appeal, without making a passing remark on the lawmakers’ cases. The import of their remarks was in the in the message for their constituency to be more thorough in the adjudication of cases to avoid becoming “irrelevant” to society. The import was not in not making a pronouncement on a case not before them. The Supreme Court will never do that. Give an order in a case in which it has no jurisdiction.
The Supreme Court will not be Supreme Court if it does that. The lawmakers’ agitation to benefit from the verdict is understandable. Of course, grave injustice was meted to them by the Court of Appeal that is shrouded in secrecy which the Supreme Court in Mutfwang’s appeal described as “perverse”. From the reading of that, it means justice was also perverted in the lawmakers’ cases which stand ‘on all fours’ with Mutfwang’s. But can they at the long run benefit from the judgment when their cases ended long before the Supreme Court verdict came?
Can the verdict be, so to say, retroactively enforced to accommodate their cases? As it were, it is unfortunate that they cannot rely on the verdict in order to regain their seats. On what basis can they do that when their rights of appeal do not extend to the Supreme Court? If only the verdict had come before the disposal of their cases, the Court of Appeal would have had no choice than to abide by it as a binding precedent.
The coming of the Supreme Court’s verdict after their own cases, was a major blow to the unfortunate lawmakers who won their elections but robbed the victories, and this is perhaps why Justice John Okoro, who presided over the Mutfwang’s case, said in his concurring opinion: “A lot of people have suffered because of the judgments of the Court of Appeal” the comedy does not lie in the lawmakers and their supporters laying siege to the State House of Assembly as they attempted penultimate Tuesday in Jos.
That attempt couldn’t have served any useful purpose other than chaos and it could have only exacerbated matters. The lawmakers should silently return to court and see what the court can do with the glaring injustice.
From my layman’s perspective, it is a long shot though. But it is better than resorting to self-help by attempting to take law into their hands. They should remember that they are lawmakers not lawbreakers that are role models to others.
Finally, if they so wish, they can reach out to those electorates who mandated them to the hallow chambers but scuttled by the Court of Appeal to initiate a recall of beneficiaries of the judicial robbery now enjoying the mandate of others without laboring for.
That is a simple, safer and shorter way than blaming those beneficiaries or their party or overheating the polity in a fragile security situation!
Muhammad is a commentator on national issues
