A new wave of happenings is currently seizing the country’s judicial-political interaction. Since the gaining of independence by Nigeria in 1960 from her erstwhile British imperial rulers, the current intervention in the near collapse of relevance and legitimacy in election conduct is about the most messianic from the judiciary to the political process, and the most sweeping too.

As stolen mandates are retrieved from political robbers who upturned the wishes of the people on election days, it becomes yet another opportunity, perhaps more significant in the history of judicial pronouncements, to give a very high thumb-up to My Lords who have become the heroes of the salvation of the common man.

In April 2007, one of the most uncanny, yet destructive, blows was landed on the face of elections in Nigeria through the dubious, even porous electioneering process of the past government, in cahoots with the electoral body. What could pass for blatant rigging and in most cases, non-elections, were given credence by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), which brought men who were not people’s choices into State Houses and legislatures, all over the country. One of such places was Enugu State where incumbent governor, Sullivan Chime, was foisted on the good people of Enugu State.

However, on January 18, 2008, there came a revolutionary reversal of the wishes of the cabal that foisted the hitherto little-known epicurean governor on the Coal City State. In one of the most well-researched, yet detailed and academic judgments ever delivered in election petitions in the country, the tribunal justices, which comprised Honourable Justices S. K. Otta as Chairman, W. A. Omar, B. G. Sanga, M. A. A. Adumein and N. Musa, dealt a blow on the feeble spinal cord of the quick-sand government. Scholars of jurisprudence and indeed the people of Enugu State, who were aware that no election was held in the state in April last year, could not but marvel at this apt judicial representation of their resentment of the theft of their electoral mandate of 2007. Perhaps even more unprecedented was that, three of the petitions brought against the election of the governor by three different political parties, won their petitions against him. Nowhere in the country, to the knowledge of this writer, is this sweeping gubernatorial upturn ever achieved.

For example, one of the petitioners, highly respected Reverend (Dr.) Oscar Egwuonwu, had sought that Mr. Chime’s purported election be upturned because he was not duly elected or returned and a fresh governorship election be ordered by the tribunal. His grounds for these prayers were that, first, the election did not hold in the state within the prescribed period of 8.00am to 3.00pm or 10.00am to 5.00pm as recognised by INEC statutes. Second, the revered clergy also argued, through his counsel, that Mr. Chime was not elected by a majority of lawful votes cast at the elections; that the elections were invalid by reason of corrupt practices and/or non-compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act, 2006; that there was falsification and inflation of figures allegedly scored by Chime and that there were gross irregularities in the polling booths and results were not announced thereat as there was no collation of results in the wards by INEC.

Reverend Ogwuenwu’s witnesses, seventeen in all, testified that hijack of electoral materials by thugs was rife during the period of the elections and that in virtually all the seventeen local governments of the state, complete materials for the elections were not delivered on the eve of elections and that there were no result sheets which are germane to the collation of election results, nor did elections, in scant areas where they attempted to hold at all, commence at the stipulated time. In fact, the tribunal was told by the witnesses, at the high point of the evidences called by the man of God’s counsel, that they stayed till 7pm in the evening at the polling booths but election materials did not arrive most of the 17 local government areas that day.

After months of sitting, it is instructive that the tribunal members, in their ruling, averred that there indeed was substantial non-compliance with the process of voting, as enshrined in the books and that, in wards where there was a modicum of elections, there were no collation of results and most significantly, there were no result sheets delivered at the polling units! The tribunal also held that "the mother of all the acts of non-compliance is that there was no voting at most of the polling booths."

In psychologically assessing the witnesses called by the revered man of God, the tribunal held that "the Petitioner’s witnesses were consistent and were not shaken during cross-examination. There was no contradiction." To further underscore the tribunal’s belief in the veracity of the evidences given, which every legal practitioner knows is an unassailable submission, the tribunal further held that it had psychologically assessed the witnesses and found out that they were witnesses of truth. In its words, "We have watched them and they appear to us as witnesses of truth."

In contradiction, while submitting on the witnesses called by Chime’s counsel, the tribunal held that the Electoral Officers, who were called as witnesses, gave evidences, which appeared "stereotyped one way." The brilliance of the judges could also be gleaned from the fact that, in their ruling, they said that the testimonies offered by the spruced up Chime witnesses "gave the impression that the distances from the State headquarters to the various Local Government Area headquarters are the same," submitting that "(This casts doubt on their credibility)." More importantly, the judges, who were apparently highly schooled in examination of witnesses’ fidgety and lies-embossed evidences, also added that, having watched the witnesses’ demeanours and acts at their submissions at cross-examination, "most of them hedged and hesitated in answering questions." They thus concluded that Chime and his witnesses "have not impressed us as witnesses of truth. We do not believe them."

What made the tribunal’s judgment further unassailable are the strong words of convictions that the judgment gives which can only be given by a panel that had witnessed the psychological acts of witnesses. When taken against the backdrop of the fact that an Appeal Court is not in a position to see the Egwuonwu "witnesses of truth" and the Chime witnesses of deceit, it becomes glaring and apposite that the governor would soon dissolve into the nothingness where he emerged in the first instance.

While submitting that the petitioner had proved a substantial case of non-compliance with the Electoral Act, the tribunal also held that "the electorate cannot be said to have exercised their constitutional right of franchise" and that the non-voting by a majority of the people of the state on the said date of election made the people to be "denied the right to choose who their Governor should be" and thus voided Mr. Sullivan Iheanacho’s said election.

The petition by highly rated shipping magnate, Barrister Okey Ezea, of the Labour Party, while arguing that, like Reverend Egwuonwu, there were no elections in the state and in scant places where they held, they were suffused with irregularities, also submitted that Mr. Chime was not qualified for the election, having failed to comply with electoral act guidelines on the fielding of a deputy governor. All in all, he called 25 witnesses, one of which was a former governor of the state.

As in the case of Reverend Egwuonwu, the tribunal members disbelieved all the witnesses called in by the governor’s counsel. They said that, having studied their misdemeanour, they hedged and hesitated and stated, "We do not believe that the witnesses were saying the truth. We do not believe them."
Among others, the tribunal annulled the election of Chime as canvassed by Ezea on the grounds that, there were no elections in most parts of the state, there was a late arrival of election materials even in places where the elections ever held, there was a non-availability of result sheets and there were widespread irregularities which resulted in allocation of votes to Mr. Chime, on the basis of which he preens himself as the governor of Enugu State, as well as non-collation of results in areas where a modicum of election took place. The petition of the Action Congress candidate, Dubem Onyia, also followed the same pattern, which the tribunal upheld.

Indeed, the tribunal members were merely echoing the widespread views by respected members of the Enugu public. The former Senate President, Chief Ken Nnamani, led the pack in condemning the elections as a fraud. Even on a recent television programme on the NTA, in an interview with Mr. Tony Iredia, on Point Blank, Nnamani said that the governor was on the seat fraudulently as there was no single election in the state. He himself could not vote, he said. Senescent C.C. Onoh also told the whole world that no election took place; that was, however, before the reversible phoenix began to eat from the beneficiary of the fraud’s table. Election observers, both foreign and local, particularly fingered Enugu as the worst scenario in Nigeria’s widespread story of fraudulent elections.

The Appeal Court is said to have been constituted. It is only expected that it would put a permanent seal on the brilliant judgment of the tribunal. This will finally confirm that indeed, the judiciary is the last hope of the common man, giving voice to the oppressed and granting justice to the aggrieved. At the end of the day, the expected judgment would scare future riggers of votes and those who believe that they could come to public office by electoral theft and rape of the will of the people.

•Okezie is a secondary school teacher in Enugu.