By Adadareporters
A senior lawyer has called for constitutional reforms to make nebulous aspects of Nigeria’s constitution clearer and streamlined.
This followed the divide between the judgements of the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court in the 2023 Plateau State governorship election.
Recall that the Appeal Court sacked Governor Caleb Mutfwang of the Peoples Democratic Party, and the Supreme Court later reversed it, asserting that the Appeal Court erred by delving into pre-election matters.
Adadareporters reports that the Appeal Court had ruled that there was a court order to conduct a PDP congress, which was not obeyed, hence nullified the election of the governor, including 16 members of the State Assembly, five House of Representatives members and two senators, all of PDP.
A constitutional lawyer, Barr Godwin Onwusi, said the Electoral Law makes some cases susceptible to multiple interpretations, noting that the only solution would be to amend Nigeria’s constitution to streamline election matters.
He said, “It is unfortunate because the electoral jurisprudence is not crystal clear. You may not blame the Court of Appeals entirely. It is nebulous. There are instances where the constitution states that qualifications to contest in an election are both pre-election and election matters.
“In the case of Plateau, there was a court order to conduct PDP primaries, which was not obeyed. The order remains portent, and anything contrary is nullity. The Supreme Court ruled that it is a pre-election matter. But there are instances where the apex court also ruled such matters as election matters. Section 77 of the Electoral Law mandates political parties to submit their party membership registers 30 days before the election. The registers then become a public document which can be challenged as an election matter.
“There is therefore the need to streamline our laws. One way of achieving this is to constitute some legal minds to streamline these unclear sections of the constitution. Election matters are different from land matters in terms clarity. Election matters are also compounded by corruptive influences of politicians.”
On whether PDP could resort to the National Judicial Council, Onwusi said, “The law is as held by the Supreme Court. The roles of the NJC are to appoint and discipline judges. They are not courts. The governor is lucky because his case was constitutionally stipulated to end at the Supreme Court. But for the sacked lawmakers, their cases can’t go beyond the Appeal Court. This underscores why amendments are necessary. If all the cases are made to terminate at the Supreme Court, the judges would be inundated. And there is nothing the Appeal Court can do again because the matter is statute barred. It has a time limit.”
He said the speaker of the State Assembly has no rights not by to swear in the concerned lawmakers, adding that, “Speakers do not have the powers not to swear them in. The affected lawmakers-designate can go to court to mandate the speaker to swear them in.”
