(SINL NIGERIA) The Rivers state local government council election has been slated for Saturday 5th October, 2024, but there are controversy over the poll, occasioned by injunctions and counter injunctions by the courts.
In an interview with newsmen recently, the National chairman of the Zenith Labour Party (ZLP), Dan Nwanyanwu berated the judiciary, saying judges and lawyers have become an embarrassment.
He said the panacea is for the new Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun to deal with any erring lawyer or judge decisively.
SINL Nigeria Online, political editor, Saminu Ibrahim report.
EXCERPT:
Q: What will your party do if they postpone Saturday’s local government council election in Rivers state?
We will go to court because we have spent a lot of money.
Somebody asked me what is our locus in Rivers and I answered him we have been on the streets campaigning in Rivers for months and now somebody from somewhere due to his own selfish ambition and interest will sponsor people to stop election that the law says you can’t stop, judges who are issuing these judgements are they not aware of the position of the law?
SIEC in Rivers should not give us any excuse or else they will face litigations compelling them to pay us back all the money and all the inconveniences. So, no law is stopping them, they should go on and conduct the election and heaven will not fall.
Q: What do you think are the intentions of those doing everything to ensure the elections don’t hold?
They will lose the election because they are looking for structure and the structure has failed. Don’t you see the campaign going on in Rivers, people are united in this matter. It is like me at the Zenith Labour Party, thinking that if I leave tomorrow everybody working here will leave with me. No, they will be loyal to the new person. There is a proverb in my place that anybody carrying a palm front will be followed by goats because you are with their food.
Q: From report, the headquarters of Rivers SIEC has been sealed by security operatives, what is your reaction?
From the report I got from my party in Rivers that is not correct, the state government got security report that they are planning to go and bomb the place as they bombed one of the political parties, I think it is the state government that alerted the security. Security cannot do that because they have no power to do that. And should they do that they would have held themselves out as being part and parcel of the problem in Rivers state. You can’t go to the Rivers SIEC office and seal it up, their role is protective to ensure those who want to go there and bomb it can’t carry out their act.
Q: What are the facts before the courts that led to the conflicting injunctions in Rivers state?
Those who don’t want the election to hold said enough notice was not given. But our party received notice around July, August and the ninety days provided by the law is there. All other processes were published, if they were not published how did the political parties start campaigning. The people who should complain are the political parties not bystanders who are looking for structure. We are the ones that should be complaining, those who are complaining are those who can’t win. The law is clear no one can stop an election from holding, if you have a case the election will go on pending the determination of the case and if the court finds out you are right, they can reverse the election like the case of Peter Obi and Amaechi.
Q: You have put all the remedial action of the judiciary on the bench, what is the role of the NBA and other institutions saddled with ensuring professional ethical compliance on the bench?
We are authoring a letter to the new president of NBA. Most lawyers have become ‘jankara’ lawyers – they fix things and we don’t have to be calling names and that is how they have been feeding, most lawyers today. I was trained under a lawyer that believes in the law. In all the cases decided if you mention Chief Rotimi, in the supreme court and other courts I will be one of the juniors. that followed him and that training has not left me. So when I see how lawyers behave today, I ask myself, is it not the same profession. This new CJN will show them, that she does not only have teeth, she can bite with it. You will see what she will do to them. It is now becoming embarrassing, Nigerians no longer have hope in the judiciary.
If you go to other cases that have nothing to do with politics, they are doing well, they follow it but when it comes to politics, it is cash and carry. Why is it so? The way you have treated company issues, matrimonial cases and others why not treat politics also?
Most of our lawyers have become an embarrassment to the profession. Most of them would have been brought to court, ask them to back the court and be derobed. That is how lawyers are derobbed in England but we need to make Scape goat out of some of them. If nothing is done very soon Nigerians will start calling out names of judges. A judge should not mingle with civilians or litigants because of the high office they occupy but I hope it never gets to that point.
The way forward is for the new CJN to deal with any erring lawyer or judge decisively.
