The Coalition for United Political Parties and certain Senior Advocates of Nigeria have demanded that the Electoral Act be changed.
This occurred after the Supreme Court’s ruling on the appeals of the governorship elections in Zamfara, Kano, and the Plateau.
In Zamfara, the appeals court ruled that the election was inconclusive; in Kano, the governor was removed from office after votes cast on absentee ballots affected his score; and in Plateau, the court dismissed the governor and all lawmakers elected on the PDP platform for not holding a new congress.
The justices of the apex court upturned these judgments, describing them as perverse.
Specifically, Justice Emmanuel Agim asked the court to prepare in order to stay relevant in society during his verdict in the Plateau appeal.
He said, “The petition by the APC and its candidates is an abuse of court process. I wonder why the matter came to court at all. This appeal is allowed. The legal profession should wake up or render itself irrelevant. The judgment of the court of appeal is set aside. ”
He said, “My only worry is that a lot of people have suffered as a result of the Court of Appeal’s decision. It was wrong. The appeal is allowed.”
Other justices on the panel took turn to fault the decision of the court of appeal.
In an interview with Punch on Sunday, Chukwuma-Machukwu Ume, SAN said the 2023 general election was flawed by unfairness.
Ume said, “The whole gamut of elections in 2023 seems to have been fraught with a lot of injustice. I need you to feel the pulses of the Labour Party, PDP, and Allied Peoples Movement members in their election petitions. There is a need to consider another approach in our electoral litigation.
” I am thinking that while the National Assembly is moving us up there to refine our electoral system to make it more manageable, election petitioners should no longer be seen as busybodies instead of social crusaders. ”
He said, “This is not an indictment on the judiciary, neither is it an indictment on the court of appeal. There are several other cases decided by the court that have been upheld by the apex court. So when the court of appeal is found not to be correct. The warning by the justices is to ensure that the judiciary self-regulates itself.
“As regards people who have suffered a miscarriage of justice, in taking care of such in the future, we can call for a legislative intervention or change the judicial approach. ”
In a statement released on Sunday by Peter Ameh, the CUPP’s national secretary, the party demanded that the constitution be changed to let all appeals from the National Assembly to conclude at the highest court.
He said, “CUPP hereby calls on the National Assembly to commence without delay the amendment of Sections 233. (1)(e) and 246. (1)(3) of the 1999 Constitution as Amended to extend appellate jurisdiction for State and National Assembly election disputes to the Supreme Court to avert a repeat of the disaster of injustices meted to the validly elected National and State Assembly Members of PDP and Labour Party extraction from Plateau, Enugu, Abia, and other states.
“This call has become necessary due to the irreparable damage caused to the elected members who have been unjustly removed from their legitimate seats by the Court of Appeal despite the plethora of earlier decided and settled cases by the Supreme Court court, which by the doctrine of stare decisis binds the Court of Appeal.”
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