A Tribunal’s Intemperate Language -By Ike Willie-Nwobu

The verdict of the Kano State Election Petition Tribunal not only sacked Yusuf Kabir of the NNPP but showed that the conspicuous red-cap movement in the state sufficiently irked the tribunal to draw  a damning rebuke.

Abdullahi Ganduje may be the current  Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress, but his journey to the post, via the governorship of Kano State, was anything but smooth, particularly in the later part.

In 2019, having bitten the finger that fed him by publicly falling out with Rabiu Kwankwaso, his erstwhile boss and benefactor, Ganduje suddenly found himself in a titanic tussle to return for a second term.

His main challenger was Abba Yusuf Kabir. In no time, a titanic election went into supplementary polls. Even when Ganduje was declared winner of the polls by the election Petition Tribunal, many people in Kano felt that the power of incumbency had played an inordinate role in securing victory.

Fast forward to March 2023, with Ganduje winding up his tenure, and Kabir making another charge for Kano’s highest office, this time under the auspices of the New Nigeria Peoples Party.

The election was tight until Kabir buried the duo of the candidates of the PDP and the APC in a landslide.

The Kano State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal recently found out that the APC actually won the elections. The build-up to the verdict had been dramatic.

Having got wind of which way the tribunal was going to lean, some serving government officials had lashed out at the tribunal, serving up some chilling threats in the process.

If the overzealous government officials were acting as agents of the governor in threatening the tribunal, the swiftness, and severity of the actions of the governor who dismissed his Commissioner for Works did not show that.

The governor may have acted to discipline his officials, but by then, the message of hostility had got to the Tribunal which elected to give its judgment via zoom.

The measures did not, however, prevent Justice Benson Anya, a member of the tribunal, from delivering a stunning rebuke  in his judgment.

Detailing how the actions of some persons caused the members of the tribunal to fear for their lives while in the state, Justice Anya specifically and freely used the words “bandits” and “red-cap” to express his anger and alarm.

Unsurprisingly, Justice Anya’s hard-hitting judgment has not gone down well with the NNPP.

The party has expressed outrage at the judgment and threatened to write a petition against the judge to the appropriate authorities.

For neutrals, the searing words of the judgment which seemingly ignored the proactive actions of the Kano State Government on the issue betrayed bias.

The issues raised by the judgment, particularly the language of the judgment are immediately glaring in a country where the judiciary has become a soft and easy target for those disillusioned by national dysfunction.

Why didn’t the political actors in Kano State  resist the temptation to stoke heat up the polity and scare tribunal judges?

Has Nigeria’s judiciary now become so compromised that everyday Nigerians can no longer rely on the judges to do the right thing?

Why do a cross-section of Nigerians, which unfortunately includes some of Nigeria’s most powerful figures, feel it need to issue threats before a court of law can do its job in the interest of justice?

For the tribunal, it is imperative to remember that one of the law’s greatest virtues is restraint, which is best exemplified in the manner it demonstrates that discretion is the better part of valor. Not by veiled threats or innuendos thick with dangerous insinuations.

In the weighty background of Nigeria’s national security, to describe people who were not before him as “bandits” was a step taken too far, and in the wrong direction, for Justice Anya.

Most damaging was the fact that it has given  those who believed that the tribunal was on a hatchet job more ammunition to impugn the credibility of the judiciary.

The politics of power and the politics of justice in Nigeria have always found themselves at dangerous levels of confrontation.

Until those in positions of authority learn how to harness both for the ultimate benefit of Nigerians, it will continue to be an unnecessary problem.

Ike Willie-Nwobu,

Ikewilly9@gmail.com