By Suyi Ayodele

Pray, how does a man tell his friends that his wife beat him the other day? How do men who suffer serious beatings in the hands of their wives in the day raise the wives’ skirts later at night to demand conjugal benevolence? Do such men get aroused anymore? Do they beg their wives to do what husbands and wives do? How do such men, for instance, come out of the house to go about their normal daily chores after the bashing from their women, knowing that their neighbours knew what happened? What about their children?

Do those innocent souls witness such abnormality? What about their psychological makeup after witnessing their mothers descending on their fathers? While wife beating is bestial and condemnable, what do we call husband battering? Husbands get beaten up by their wives the same way wives are battered by their husbands. Domestic violence is not gender sensitive. As a matter of fact, where the victims are the men, the situation gets more vicious and brutal. The problem is that since our society is patriarchal in nature, attention is focused more on the women. Men are also endangered species in some instances!

Life couldn’t be better imagined than the quietude of a village setting. Nothing can surely be more interesting! It was fun for us then running around almost half naked and ‘prying’ into the affairs of your neighbours. The village is a place where everything about everybody is in the open. For instance, then, if a goat was stolen, the owner might not raise any alarm. Goats would not get lost until the eve of the market day. All the owner needed to do was to wake up early in the morning and lay ambush by the market road. The chances that he or she would come back home with the ‘lost’ goat was very high.

We knew the man who would likely go and dig up another man’s yam. We could equally recognise those who would steal kola nuts pods and commit all sorts of little crimes. We waited for them during the annual festivals and used them to practice our guttural mock songs. One or two families ‘relocated’ permanently out of the village because of the shame their family members brought upon them. I recall here a particular man who almost attacked us when we took our derisive songs to his doorstep. The fine he paid for the sacrilege of attacking festival boys almost ran him bankrupt. I was at home this last weekend and relived those old tales with my folks at home.

There was one couple I will never forget. They were not members of our community; they came to sojourn in our place. The wife was a giant. Tall, with heavy hands and she traversed the village like a colossus. On the farm, she would outwork her husband in making heaps of yam. In contrast, the husband was just fortunate to be bigger than a midget. How he talked the woman into marrying him remains a mystery. And they had five lovely children. How did he do it? There was no doubt about the paternity of the children. Resemblance shows ancestry (abijo laa mo iran). Once you sighted any of the children, you could tell who the father was! But the family had a problem. The giant woman beat the husband at the slightest provocation. On many occasions, she needed no provocation before she would descend on the husband. As much as we found their frequent fights interesting, especially when the woman ‘landed’ the husband, I knew, even at that tender age, that something was wrong. My cradle mind told me that it was an abnormal situation. One day, the table turned. The husband regained his manliness and ‘manhood’. This is what happened.

They were at their usual argument. The giant wife was in the backyard attending to something on the fire. The husband was in the passage of their face-me-I-face-you apartment. They were both shouting at each other. The door was closed. As the argument got hotter, the woman, in their Aramoko/Efon Alaaye variety of the Ekiti Dialect, issued the signature warning: “erun re ri a kan bee”, which when interpreted means: “I am coming over to deal with you”. In her madness, she rushed towards the house. From the passage, the man was also trying to make his escape. Thinking that her husband had bolted the door, the wife threw her entire weight to force the door open. It was at that time that the husband opened the door too. So, the woman had herself flying and landing on the floor just by her husband’s feet. She must have been badly injured as she could not get up immediately. The husband simply sat on her wide frame and started dealing blows on her. For the first time, it was the wife who raised the “haa pa mi o” (he will kill me) alarm. Of course, neighbours rushed in to see the ‘strange’ sight. Not a few encouraged the husband to continue to pummel her.

The oldest of the men around also ordered some of our elderly men to join in the beating. Every blow on her was accompanied with the warning: “Han hi lu oko honi” (No woman beats her husband). Satisfied, the old man asked the assailants to stop. The woman was left on the floor weeping. Women gathered around her telling her unprintable things! It was a communal condemnation; she had no single atom of sympathy from the participants. I believed she must have wept more for the shame than the effects of the beatings. Then a pronouncement was made to the effect that anytime she was found assaulting the husband, the entire neighbourhood would teach her a lesson she would never forget. Needless to record it here that till they moved out of our village; we never heard any commotion in that family. The husband himself regained his gait. He could go to play the Ayo game without any sense of shame of being at his wife’s mercy.

Whatever doubts we might have had before now about what some husbands go through in the hands of their wives were cleared by Lagos State, a few days ago. On Saturday, September 9, 2023, PM News had this headline on its online platform: “Lagos women now beat their husbands to submission, 340 cases reported.” According to the report, the Executive Secretary, Lagos Domestic and Sexual Violence Agency (DSVA), Titilayo Vivour-Adeniyi, was quoted to have said that more cases of husband-battering were reported in the last one year.

The Lagos DSVA boss gave a figure of 340 husbands coming forward to report that their wives beat them between September 2021 and July 2022. “This is an indication that the culture of silence amongst the male gender concerning issues of Sexual and Gender Based Violence is also gradually being broken”, Vivour-Adeniyi was quoted. She could not be faulted. The silent implication is that if all men who go through hell in the hands of their wives should speak out, the number will be scary. Cases of males suffering abuses in the hands of their women are likely to be higher in the Western world and its women liberation agenda. We read almost daily, cases of African men who live in the West killing their wives because they could no longer tolerate the abuses coming from those women.

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), on March 1, 2019, did a report on “Male domestic abuse victims ‘suffering in silence’”. In the report, Dr Sarah Wallace, from the University of South-Wales (USW), gave reasons why many Domestic Violence and Abuse (DVA) was not reported, by both men and women. She listed “fear of retaliation or a lack of trust or confidence in the police”, as one of the reasons. “However, the issue of under-reporting is even more pronounced amongst men. They fear appearing unmanly, shame, embarrassment, and a failure to live up to masculine ideals. This was the experience of the men we interviewed, who felt that they needed help to get to the root of these feelings., she added.

The report added that counselling sessions for male victims of domestic violence “are shorter, but also include a focus on the role of masculinity and gender stereotypes, and help validate their experience, recognising that they too can be victims of abuse. We know that DVA against men is a seriously under-reported crime, and we know that 713,000 men were reported to have been victims of one or more types of DVA. It begs the question how many more men are actually out there that are suffering in silence.”

The international medium, in an earlier report on September 16, 2018, titled: “Male domestic abuse: Not enough support for victims, using the case of one David Edwards, who was killed by his wife weeks after their wedding, said that “Male domestic abuse victims are suffering a lack of support despite a sharp rise in attacks. Police in England and Wales recorded 149,248 incidents in 2017 – more than double the number reported in 2012. A charity organisation, the ManKind Initiative, said while a third of domestic abuse victims were men, only 0.8% of refuge beds were reserved for them. While one in six men will experience domestic abuse at some point in their lives, only one in 20 will ever seek any help, the ManKind Initiative said.”

Many of the survivors interviewed, the BBC reported, said that they were too ashamed to admit that they were serially abused by their female spouses. The report concluded that husbands (men) in abusive relationships with their wives (women) need help. A lot of states in Nigeria are stepping up the fight against Gender Based Violence (GBA). All they need to do is to make the advocacy neutral. The era of women being the victims alone is gone. The new religion, especially the Pentecostal, makes the matter worse. Most pastors get beaten up before putting on their cassocks. Some hide the shame of their wives battering them behind their pastoral collars. Men also need help, even more help! The big question still is: how does a man tell his friends and relations that his wife beats him? How?

By Sonnie Ekwowusi

We all foresaw the vexatious verdict of the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) delivered on 6th September 2023 (6/9 verdict). Sensing that the PEPC would thwart substantial justice, the people began erecting billboards, signboards, and posters in Abuja with the inscription: “All eyes on the judiciary.” Disturbed that the inscription was pricking their consciences and passing judgment on them, they went about pulling down the billboards and yanking off the posters. However, the more they did that, the more billboards and posters sprang up in town and on social media with the said inscription.

A few days before the unveiling of the 6/9 verdict, they engaged in blackmailing the citizens and warning them not to let the heavens fall simply because the outcome of the judgment was not in their favor. An undertaker publicly showered encomium on two lawyers representing President Bola Tinubu at the PEPC – Wole Olanipekun (SAN) and Lateef Fagbemi SAN, describing the duo as experts in election petition matters. The authorities announced beefing up tight security in Abuja to avert possible violent protests against the looming dangerous verdict. The PEPC, which had earlier rejected people’s application to televise the proceedings of the PEPC, suddenly announced that it would televise the delivery of the verdict, ostensibly to give a false impression that it subscribes to integrity and transparency.

Since the iniquitous 6/9 verdict was delivered, the country has been steeped in deep mourning. The unjust verdict continues to draw the ire of the people, especially the Nigerian youth. These are times that try men’s souls in Nigeria. We live in the most perilous times. Anyone who has not yet come to terms with this truth may be living in a fool’s paradise. Although the bullets may not be crisscrossing the airspace, the pre-existing legal order may not have been violently uprooted, and the heavenly firmament may not have evaporated, but the 6/9 verdict has murdered the remnant of the empty carcass called Nigeria.

Augustine minced no words about it. When justice is taken away, all that is left in a kingdom are great robberies. Say whatever you like, but no man or woman of good conscience in Nigeria can be at ease with the vulcanized 6/9 verdict. Equally, no street, no Broadway, no village path in Nigeria can remain silent amid the stillness of death occasioned by the 6/9 judgment. Peace is not the absence of external war. With torn and bleeding hearts, we may be smiling, but we may not know peace until Nigeria goes the way she had been fated to go. I repeat: Nigeria must go the way she had been fated before the dawn of human flourishing in Nigeria.

Perhaps what is more perplexing about the riveting 6/9 verdict is that the five-member PEPC, with the greatest respect, wrongly descended into the arena of conflict. Inherent in our adversarial court system is the principle that a court must not descend into the area of conflict in favor of any of the parties in a case before the court. See, among other cases, Ayoade Vs. Spring Bank Plc. (2014); Nwafor vs. Nigeria Custom Service & ORS. (2018), where the courts held that a judge should not descend into the arena of conflict to make a case for a party. Why? Because it is against the run of the game and tenet of adjudication. Unfortunately, the PEPC, with the greatest respect, grievously erred in this aspect of our law. The PEPC constituted itself as counsel to the respondents and was arguing the respondents’ case.

In descending into the arena in favor of the respondents, the PEPC treated with levity the overwhelming evidence tendered by the petitioners establishing that President Tinubu was illegally and unconstitutionally pronounced the winner of the February 25 Presidential election by Prof Mahmoud Yakubu, chair of the electoral body INEC amid complaints that the election was rigged by INEC. Like a hired assassin, the PEPC proceeded to decapitate the petitioners’ petition, including the cloud of petitioners’ witnesses. The PEPC struck out all the vital paragraphs of the petitioners’ petition on flimsy and illogical grounds. It rejected all the laws and legal authorities cited by the petitioners on pseudo-rationalization. One cannot help but feel a moral whiplash.

You will recall that during the hearing, the respondent’s counsel did not impugn or discredit the overwhelming evidence adduced by the petitioners. They promised to do so in their final address. Unfortunately, the respondents failed to do so during the final address. Yet the Tribunal entered judgment in their favor. It is trite and in consonance with the principle of natural justice that a court of law must remain an unbiased umpire in a case before it. The court cannot manufacture legal arguments or evidence for any of the parties. The court must rely on the defense of the party as it is put forward by the party. The court must not manufacture a defense for a defendant. For a defendant in a suit to succeed, he or she must succeed on the strength of his own defense, not on the strength of the “defense” manufactured for him or her by the court.

It is sad that Nigerian judges handling high-profile election cases are now accountable to the politicians in those cases rather than to the rule of law. This is why the jurisprudence of these judges is so disconnected from the Constitution and the Electoral Act that it sometimes seems to defy explanation. In terms of their overall performance and in meeting the justice and needs of the people, our judges should remember that they are accountable to the rule of law and the Nigerian people, not to the Peter Obis, Bola Tinubus, or Abubakar Atikus of this world. Mind you, the Peter Obis, Bola Tinubus, and Abubakar Atikus will come and go, but the rule of law remains unaltered, serving the succeeding generations of mankind. Consequently, our judges, with the greatest respect, are advised to interpret the law in a way that meets substantial justice of a particular case or in a way that fulfills the needs and aspirations of the Nigerian people, as envisioned in sections 13, 14 (1)(2)(a)(b)(c) of the 1999 Constitution. Dismissing an important electoral petition concerning the character of President Bola Tinubu to hold an exalted public office on mere whimsical and capricious technicalities, in my humble view, is a disservice to what is reasonably justifiable in a democratic society.

The paradox of it all is that during the inauguration of the PEPC in Abuja, the most excellent Justice Haruna Tsammani asked lawyers representing all petitioners to avoid unnecessary technicalities and address the substance of their cases, yet the same PEPC used technicalities in dismissing the cases of the petitioners. Judges should adorn the breastplate of integrity, discipline, and impartiality in the discharge of their duty. Like Caesar’s wife, they should be seen to live above board. Many English judges are still honored and revered today because of their impeccable character. For example, the Master of Rolls, Rt. Hon. A. T. Denning was distinguished by both his exceptional lucidity of thought and character. During their stint at the Supreme Court, Justices Kayode Eso, Chukwudifu Akunne Oputa, Samson Odemwingie Uwaifo, Andrews Otutu Obaseki, Augustine Nnamani, and Anthony Nnaemezie Aniagolu, Ephraim Ibukun Akpata, Phillip Nnaemeka-Agu, Anthony Chukwunweike Idigbe, Adolphus Godwin Karibi Whyte, and others were distinguished by their intellectual versatility and enviable character. That is why their era at the Supreme Court is ascribed as the golden era of the Supreme Court. Our current Supreme Court Justices should emulate the sterling qualities of the aforementioned Justices in reviewing the unjust 6/9 verdict.

One of the main grounds that petitioners need to establish to prove that the election was invalid is corrupt practices and non-compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act. Corrupt practices include electoral offenses like election fraud, bribery, and falsification of election results. Non-compliance refers to outright violations of the Electoral Act, 2022, and INEC Guidelines, which confer an undue advantage to the respondents. During the trial, the petitioners in the 6/9 verdict established that election results were not uploaded through the BVAS and IREv as stipulated by the Electoral Act. Yet, the PEPC, with the greatest respect, ruled that the electoral body INEC rightly uploaded results through other means. Section 60(5) of the Electoral Act, 2022 states: “On the conclusion of voting, the presiding officer shall transfer the results, including the total number of accredited voters and the results of the ballot, in a manner prescribed by the Commission.” What is the prescribed manner by the Commission? The prescribed manner is the BVAS, which INEC introduced to ensure that the electoral process is credible. The BVAS was introduced by INEC in line with Section 148 of the Electoral Act, which gives INEC the power to make guidelines and regulations to ensure the full effect of the law.

By virtue of Section 148 of the Electoral Act, INEC has been empowered to make Electoral Regulations and Guidelines for the 2023 Election. Paragraph 38 of the Regulation states: “On completion of all Polling unit voting and results procedures, the presiding officer shall: (i) Electronically transmit or transfer the result of the polling unit directly to the collation system as prescribed by the Commission (ii) Use the BVAS to upload a scanned copy of the EC8A to the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IREv), as prescribed by the Commission (iii) Take the BVAS and the original copy of each of the forms in a tamper-evident envelope to the registration area/ward collation officer, in the company of security agents. The polling agents may accompany the presiding officer to the RA/Ward Collation Centre.” With this extant law, it is baffling that the PEPC failed to nullify the February 25th Presidential election due to INEC’s failure to comply with the aforementioned provisions of the Electoral Act.

In their eagerness to dismiss the petitioners’ petition on flimsy grounds, the PEPC, with the greatest respect, failed to abide by the decisions of the Supreme Court in the cases of Mohammed Abacha V Federal Republic of Nigeria and Obasanjo V Buhari, among others. As argued by senior advocate Emeka Okwuosa Esquire, and I concur with him, “According to section 137 (i) (d) of our 1999 Federal Republic of Nigeria constitution as amended, anyone fined for any offense involving dishonesty or fraud, either civil or criminal, is not qualified to be president of Nigeria. The current CJN (Justice Kayode Ariwoola), while serving as a justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria, declared in a case between Mohammed Abacha vs Federal Republic of Nigeria that ‘there can’t be forfeiture without a crime.’ In a majority decision, he defined forfeiture as the loss of a right, privilege, or property because of a crime, breach of obligation, or neglect of duty, while also declaring the word ‘forfeiture’ to mean the divestiture of property without any form of compensation. He inclusively noted that any person(s) who has forfeited property(ies) on the basis of a crime cannot be entitled to indemnity because it is a form of punishment, and there is no indemnity in Nigeria’s criminal procedure.

Even in America, where this crime of narcotics peddling was committed with its consequent forfeiture, Mr. Bola Ahmed Tinubu would have lost his right to vote and be voted for as a ‘felon’. Where then does his electoral qualification lie when even the highly revered distinguished Senator Opeyemi Bamidele, who happens to be Mr. Tinubu’s only witness at the tribunal, openly declared at the same tribunal that this petition was actually true and factual? There is no hiding place for a golden fish. In 2003, in the case between Obasanjo vs. Buhari, the Supreme Court ruled that all that was required of Obasanjo was to score 25% only of all cast votes in Abuja and not an outright win. The Supreme Court adjudicated that a presidential candidate needs to score 25% in 2/3 of the states of the Federation and must still score 25% in Abuja. Equally in 2008, in the case between Buhari and Yar’Adua, the earlier precedent of the Supreme Court was upheld, and hence, Buhari’s petition was struck out. The Supreme Court judgments had laid the facts concerning this section of our constitution inta-allia: Abuja represents all Nigerians, and as such, any presidential candidate must show equal 25% popularity in Abuja as in 25% of all states of the federation. All past presidents, including late MKO Abiola, scored 25% in Abuja, and there shouldn’t be an exemption now as that section has not been amended.”

It is baffling that we are afraid of justice in Nigeria, but justice remains that vital thread that can knit Nigerian society together. Small wonder Aristotle praises justice to high heavens by stating that “neither the morning star nor the evening star is as glorious as justice.” To Cicero, “the brightest of virtues shines above all in justice.” Unfortunately, the five-member PEPC was focused on giving judgment to President Tinubu and the APC, neglecting the most important part of doing justice to Nigerian society. In Josiah V State, the late Justice Chukwudifu Akunne Oputa stated that justice is not a one-way traffic; justice is not even only a two-way traffic. Justice is really a three-way traffic – justice for the parties in the case and finally justice for the society at large whose norms and values cannot be desecrated.

In other words, Justice Oputa was simply stating that a judge cannot deliver a judgment that goes against public policy or a judgment that destroys the fabric of society or a judgment that legalizes or institutionalizes thievery or a judgment that renders what is reasonably justifiable in a democratic society as inutile. Let there be no mistake about it: the 6/9 judgment is antithetical to judicial norms and values. Apart from being a big threat to the independence of the judiciary, the narcissistic 6/9 verdict is a big threat to Nigeria’s corporate existence and national unity. It is a toxic verdict which, if left unturned, will serve as a dangerous judicial precedent that legalizes all manner of election impropriety, drug addiction, thievery, election rigging, and gerrymandering in Nigeria. If the callous 6/9 verdict is left unturned by the Supreme Court, it would render certain provisions of the Nigerian Constitution, especially section 137 and key provisions of the Electoral Act, inutile in future Presidential elections in Nigeria.

With the 6/9 bad precedent, future presidential elections in Nigeria are doomed. Criminal records of presidential candidates would no longer matter; electronic voting and transmission would be non sequitur; electoral irregularities and manipulations would no longer matter. If you accuse any future presidential candidate of not possessing the minimum educational qualification or being a criminal convict, he or she can cite the 6/9 verdict as a defense. With the horrific 6/9 verdict as a judicial precedent, it means that idiots, imbeciles, thieves, drug barons, and stark illiterates running for President in the future can point at 6/9 and feel justified and qualified for being in the presidential race. 6/9 is a complete break with Nigerian cultural heritage. There is no known Nigerian culture that endorses stealing, cheating, lying, election manipulation, bribery and corruption, drug addiction, imbecility, and nuisance. Therefore, the Supreme Court must overturn 6/9 to save not just our democracy from peril but our cultural heritage from peril too.

It is painful that the Bench in Nigeria has been constituted into an object of derision by the very judges who should labor to maintain its prestige. I tell friends that what is at stake in the ignominious 6/9 verdict is neither President Tinubu nor Peter Obi nor Abubakar Atiku. After all, death is the common destiny of mankind. Like all mortals, Tinubu, Atiku, and Obi will someday answer the call of God and bow out of the stage, leaving the younger politicians to continue the political experiment. What is really at stake in the unjust 6/9 verdict is the soul of the Nigerian judiciary. If the judiciary, a veritable third arm of government, is aborted, our democratic experiment will equally be aborted to the detriment of the governed. Before now, the judgments of the Supreme Court, especially in the high-profile political cases of Ihedioha V Hope Uzodinma, Lawan V Machina, and Godswill Akpabio V Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and others, had been attracting strong, passionate, and scathing public criticisms. Members of the public had been holding their heads in shame and shouting that justice has eluded Nigeria. The international community had been disappointed that the Nigerian courts are slavishly adhering to technical legalisms at the expense of substantial justice. Now, with the atrocious 6/9 verdict, hope of the common man in the judiciary as the bulwark of justice and an unbiased arbiter in the causes of the citizenry, amid the balkanizing influence of corrupt politicians and public figures, is completely shattered.

Consequently, the Supreme Court is respectfully invited to overturn the unjust 6/9 verdict. It is evident that justice was not manifestly seen to be done in the 6/9 verdict. This is why the 6/9 decision provokes public outrage. The public believes that the five-member PEPC was biased against the petitioners in the 6/9 case. As the Lord Chief Justice of England, Lord Hewart, laid down the dictum in the case of Rex v. Sussex Justices when he stated: “It is not merely of some importance but is of fundamental importance that justice should not only be done but should manifestly and undoubtedly be seen to be done.” The essence of the need for justice to be manifestly seen to be done was emphasized by the Master of the Rolls, Lord Denning, in Metropolitan Properties Co (FGC) Ltd v Lennon when he stated: “Justice must be rooted in confidence, and confidence is destroyed when right-minded people go away thinking, ‘The judge was biased.'”

Nkereuwem Udofia Akpan

Yesterday I watched with dismay as a whole swarth of population, communities, and geo-political zones reacted in diverse ways over the judgement of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal that threw out the various petitions filed by a slew of political parties, notable the People’s Democratic Party and the Labour Party and others against the election and inauguration of President Bola Tinubu and Vice President Kashim Shettima of the All Progressive Congress.

Firstly I was shocked to the marrow when I realized that a chunk of those I spoke to on the streets and in public spaces, including some highly placed political gladiators, actually believed that one or two of the Petitions would succeed and they expected that the Tribunal will not only sack the President but declare one of the other political party’s candidates as duly elected. I must say that I was not that optimistic.

I was more worried about such a high level of optimism in a cross-section of the population in a matter that was doomed to fail from the get-go due to a combination of factors 

I have said this before elsewhere in my works that Nigeria is the only country left in the world when we swear a president into office and then battle in court to remove him. My argument has always been that the election cases should be concluded before inauguration. When a man is sworn into office such as the imperial Nigeria Presidency such a man will not sit idly by and allow himself to be embarrassed out of office. With the sheer glut of humans and resources at his disposal, the incumbent can hire the best legal team who can conduct fantastic research as well as mobilize the media, men, and materials given the power of incumbency to his ultimate advantage. Self-preservation like they say, is the first law of nature, and let’s face it, this President is not a pushover.

So once the alleged winner of an election by whatever means, whether by hook or crook is declared duly elected and sworn into office, it’s a mountain to climb to dislodge the purported winner.

The Electoral Act itself was scripted to favour the alleged winner. The entire electoral process is structured in such a way that it’s practically impossible to prove the negative – an evidential albatross ordinarily. The odds against a petitioner become tripled or even quadrupled, when INEC, the electoral umpire tactically supports the alleged winner by doing everything possible to frustrate the alleged losers from the get-go. INEC claimed there were ‘, technical glitches” when the server was simply turned off. INEC had no plausible explanation for why the national assembly elections held on the same day were not affected by the alleged  phantom technical glitches

The 2023 elections would have not been so controversial or disputed had someone in the server room at INEC HQ, probably a mole, specifically planted for that same purpose, not deliberately switched off the servers to truncate the process of electrical transmission of results in real-time all calculated to frustrate the process

While the evidence ought to have been preserved by the BVAS, the same INEC approached the courts for an order to reformat the BVAS and essentially destroy the records that would have been relied upon to prove that there were widespread irregularities

In the absence of the BVAS the mass of badly mutilated and heavily doctored Result sheets used at the polls which were manually transmitted from the voting units to the collation centers and from there to INEC HQ were deliberately supplied so blurry and unreadable as to be practically worthless to tender in the PEPT and refer a Witness to it. What was the excuse for submitting CTC of deliberately blurred documents to the Petitioners? How was a witness able to identify and comment on a blurry and unreadable piece of evidence? Of what evidential value will such a piece of evidence be to the parties, the trial, or at all

When you remember that the loser is expected to prove that there was substantial non-compliance with the aid of documents made available by the same INEC then you’ll understand the scale of the problem. It’s like seeking the support of an accused person to provide information that might lead to his conviction. You are asking INEC to essentially come to court and confess.  

The Report of the European Union Observers was thrown out because it wasn’t tendered by the maker  and there was no evidence of irregularities because as already mentioned the Result sheets were blurry and unreadable for “lack of ink” in INEC photocopiers – the same INEC that spent billions preparing for the election and paid out billions to lawyers after the election couldn’t get clean photocopies out for CTCs

Now with regards to the issue of the alleged conviction of the 2nd Respondent in the USA for drug-related crimes and forfeiture of $US480,000, the Tribunal agreed there was indeed a forfeiture of drug-related funds of the president but it was a “civil trial”. This is very worrisome and damaging to us as a country. I say so because the fact that half a million in cash of drug money was seized from my president is a lot of stigma in itself and should be a big problem for his handlers. I do not know how such a stigma can be whitewashed or swept under the rug.If I were on the President’s legal team, I would do everything legally possible to upturn this embarrassing decision on the drug money issue at the Supreme Court but what do I know about stigma, shame, and embarrassment?

In all my years as an active litigation lawyer, I’ve never seen a judgment so confusing. In fact the more I try to understand the rationale for each of the legal principles therein, the more confused I get.

Take, for instance, it’s an elementary principle of law that subpoenaed witnesses do not depose to Witness Statement on Oath. Certified True Copies of Public Documents can be tendered from the bar.  To insist that only the maker can tender Public Documents cannot fly because it then means that only judges or Registrars of Court can tender Judgments and Orders- a logistically impossible nightmare

To say that Shettima did not “knowingly” engage in double nomination is laughable because the man was going for Senate before he abandoned that race and became VP candidate. Most shocking of all to hold that a presidential candidate who forfeited half a million dollars in drug money has no problem because it was ‘his account and not himself ” that forfeited the money not only defies logic but doesn’t accord with common sense

Every page I turned everything kept making a mockery of my intellect. I wonder if I’ve suddenly gone stupid or if the principles of law as we knew it were changed overnight. Sincerely I’m not able to navigate through this confusion and I must say that this is embarrassing.

Of particular concern is the fact that the judgment seems to have by implication made the introduction of innovation such as the electronic transmission of results and the billions of taxpayer’s money spent on BVAS a complete waste. In fact, the sole purpose of the 2022 amendment of the Electoral Act and the entire process of implementing it is an exercise in futility. It is elementary law that the court cannot interpret an Act in such a way as to defeat the purpose for which the act was enacted in the first place. I really don’t care about Party politics but I’m deeply worried that this judgment had done violence to the Electoral Act so much that it seems to give to INEC the impetus to exercise discretion over mandatory provisions of the Electoral Act and that’s a real albatross for future elections. Those rejoicing today will be crying and gnashing their teeth soon.

Ultimately democracy succeeds where there’s confidence in the system otherwise it is a recipe for bad governance and totalitarian regimes or even full-blown dictatorships

I find it rather sad, unfortunate, and truly disturbing that the petitioners and their counsel did little or nothing to lower the expectations of their clients and followers with all the red flags and bumps along the way that manifested during the trial.

On the proper interpretation to be accorded the provisions of the Constitution with regards to the vexed issue of the 25% of votes to be garnered in the FCT by a candidate, I think it will be upturned at the Supreme Court unless the Supreme Court decides to overrule it’s former decisions on the point.

INEC had a great opportunity with adequate resources to get it right on February 25th, 2023 but blew it. Let me conclude this piece by stating and quite frankly that it would have been a miracle if the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal had upheld any of those petitions not because the lawyers performed below par as the findings and conclusions of their lordships seems to suggest but simply because the cases were designed to fail from the get-go. I say so because the electoral Act and the whole election process and system are structured to favour the alleged winner.

Secondly having regard to the cardinal principles of our adversarial system of adjudication with particular reference to the burden of proof resting on he who asserts and same hanging on the neck of the Petitioners like the proverbial sword of Damocles, there was nothing spectacular the lawyers could have done differently. Well maybe they would have called an official from the European Union to tender their Report but nothing else. So I think the petitioners’ legal ten did well and I accordingly shall respectfully disagree with their lordships that the lawyers performed poorly.

Rather than these heated debates on TV, on the pages of Newspapers, on street corners, and beer parlours, I strongly believe an appeal should be lodged at the Supreme Court so that these issues, a chunk of which are recondite, can be decided once and for all and reported in our ubiquitous journals and Law Reports for future reference.

While we are at liberty to disagree with the decision or part thereof, I share the view that there is no need for any call for and or threat of violence,  casting aspersions,  pouring invectives and vituperations, or making unguarded utterances, whether directed at opponents or the learned justices on the panel. I say so because recent events over  disputed polls across the continent have triggered Military coups in Niger Republic and Gabon

One thing is certain, the Electoral Act 2022 has been substantially repealed, electronic innovations are worthless, INEC is all-knowing and is under no law. Election petitions will be impossible to file and the only option open will be to win at all costs and let the losers GO TO COURT.

Nkereuwem Udofia Akpan, a Constitutional Lawyer /Human Rights Activist writes from Abuja.

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