(SINL NIGERIA) The chairman of the Zenith Labour Party (ZLP), Dan Nwanyanwu has called on the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun to put necessary machinery in place to reassure Nigerians that indeed the court is the last hope of the common man.
According to Nwanyanwu the lower courts have become an enterprise where the highest bidder gets judgement or any injunction at will.
He said the call became necessary because of the disturbing issue of injunctions and counter-injunctions on the Rivers State local government election.
Speaking at a press conference held Wednesday in Abuja, Nwanyanwu said
it is settled that no court can stop INEC and by extension state independent electoral commissions from conducting an election. “It is a settled law and even the man on the street knows it”.
Consequently, he emphasised that the Independent Electoral Commission in Rivers should go ahead without fear or blinking their eyes to go ahead and conduct council election on Saturday, saying they will be on the side of the law.
The ZLP chairman noted that the name of the CJN will be written in gold if she is credited with cleaning and cleansing the judiciary.
He added that some group went to court to stop the conduct of the Rivers council election. “And another group of political parties also went to court in Rivers state to compel the state Independent Electoral Commission to conduct the election”.
“I don’t know why we want to make trouble and I think the Chief Justice of Nigeria should call them to order. This is an institution that is acting based on the recent supreme court decision on local government autonomy. But some people want to stop it, but the political parties will not agree because we know how much we have expended.
“As I speak to you now, our people are still in the field campaigning from one local government to another. Apart from the law which states you can’t stop INEC from conducting elections in Nigeria, ‘mutatis mutandis’, it is also applicable to Rivers state independent electoral commission.
“And what is worrisome is that even where the supreme court has taken a position on an issue you will see the lower courts deviating from it. After attention has been drawn to it. There is something we call ‘stare decisis’ in law, whereby when a supreme court has taken a position, the lower courts must abide by it. Courts of appeal, federal high court, magistrate court, grand khadi and any other court must abide by it. But we have a situation where lawyers like me and even senior lawyers older than me at the bar have become instruments of making the judiciary not to be the hope of the common man. Even when the law is clear on the matter” he said.
He continued “I think the Chief Justice of Nigeria, we know her pedigree, we know her trajectory, she is a no nonsense judge, should put her feet down and clean the augean stable. Those bad eggs in the judiciary should be flushed out. If democracy is democracy which we fought for, which we started fighting for while I was in my twenties, if it crumbles, the judiciary will be the greatest part of the problem”.
