By Ahmad Sajoh
- Accepting to be served in court processes is part of commitment to the rule of law. Evading it is sowing seeds of doubt in the tenets of rule of law…
- I understand that some people have taken a court process to Cameroun for some Marabouts to use incantations on them. Good luck to them. But spiritual interventions cannot displace facts. Facts are facts and they are scared. No Marabouts can manipulate them. Likewise the corrupt electoral officials who manipulated the electoral process have no role in distorting the facts this time around…
- Anyone who agrees to go through the nomination process, the campaigns and the elections must be prepared for the Tribunal and Court processes that follow. The electoral law provides a window for judicial intervention where the electoral process is manipulated by unscrupulous individuals acting as custodians of the process…
- One lawyer told me the purpose of evasion of service could sometimes be just a trick to buy time. For people who have very big question marks on their victories the best thing they need is time to extract maximum benefit from their positions before the situation is reversed through the judicial process…
- So, those who in the heat of electoral confusion compromised some insincere electoral officials to falsify records and reconfigure documents should know that such ignominious acts cannot stand knowledge based scrutiny under the watchful eyes of the law. I guess that is the source of their fear…
- The fearful will continue to live in fear from the day the case is mentioned until it ends. That fear may not end even when a verdict is pronounced and undeserved winners are replaced by rightful winners…
- Any victory that comes after a long struggle and after crossing countless hurdles is indeed a sweet victory. That’s why the anxious should calm down, the impatient should learn to be patient, but the fearful must be afraid because change is coming…
Yesterday I visited the PDP National Secretariat also called Wadata Plaza. The purpose of my visit was to confirm if actually the order of substituted service granted by the Adamawa State gubernatorial election Tribunal had been implemented. I was curious because I felt it was needless.
The Tribunal having considered the deliberate evasion of service by the Governor of Adamawa State had granted an order of substituted service on the Governor via the National Secretariat of his party, the PDP; that to me was surprising. I wanted confirmation before making any comments about it. The substituted service was effected and the process will definitely go on. What a situation. Someone evading court service? Why?
Ordinarily anyone with a leadership position should be the first to show an example of how society should operate within the confines of law and legality. Accepting to be served in court processes is part of commitment to the rule of law. Evading it is sowing seeds of doubt in the tenets of rule of law. But our governance template is configured around the rule of law. Leaders are expected to respect the law, promote law and legality rather than undermine it. Evading service is definitely not the way to uphold the sanctity of the law or the letter and spirit of the oath taken.
Like I have always observed in the past, an election circle is a process and definitely not a single event. It starts within a certain legal framework and ends within that same framework. And it is a full package. You cannot cherry pick what to uphold by accepting one aspect while avoiding another. So, anyone who agrees to go through the nomination process, the campaigns and the elections must be prepared for the Tribunal and Court processes that follow. The electoral law provides a window for judicial intervention where the electoral process is manipulated by unscrupulous individuals acting as custodians of the process. It therefore smirks of legal illiteracy to evade service of a process in a situation like this. Sometimes it sounds funny when we say the election has not ended until the Supreme Court has voted. It may sound odd but it is the stark reality. And no matter how a person avoids facing such bitter fact, it still stands as the reality of the situation.
Any democrat who evades service from the Tribunal is actually doing a disservice to the entire democratic process. In any case the Court system has alternative pathways to deliver documents to litigants whether it suits them or not. Any form of evasion can only be temporary. Service must be effected. That is why there is a provision for substituted service. Give and take, service must be effected. And in this case it was effected. Whether it is in Yola or Abuja, service has been effected. It might be necessary to remind us all that nothing we do can stall a legal process. The court system has been insulated from the shenanigans of political manipulation.
When the situation reaches the level we are in where the service is effected through substituted means in far away Abuja at the National Secretariat of the PDP my concern is the negative image it brings to our State. I remember someone making a snide comment at the PDP Secretariat about it yesterday. His remarks were damn right uncomplimentary for both my state of Adamawa and the political class as a whole. That was avoidable.
It’s time we avoided ridiculing ourselves by our conduct. As leaders we are like Caesar’s wife, our conduct before our hapless citizens counts a lot. Our society is largely lawless because we undermine the law as their leaders. One lawyer told me the purpose of evasion of service could sometimes be just a trick to buy time. For people who have very big question marks on their victories the best thing they need is time to extract maximum benefit from their positions before the situation is reversed through the judicial process.
First they know that the law is fair to all. So, after service their legal team has 21 days to respond to the averment of the petitioners. Then there is the hearing process and the closing arguments, the reservation of judgment before the actual judgment. Within all of this time the undeserved victor can still enjoy the fruits of the office. After that will come the appellate process, in this case up to the Supreme Court. In all of these times interested parties have to be availed platforms for fair hearing and ample time to appropriately respond to submissions. For the anxious this is indeed valuable time wasted.
The anxiety is on all sides. But our anxieties cannot substitute the legalities involved. We need to learn to be patient with the whole process. We have waited for years to get to this position. A few more months should not hurt. The fact that we have off-season elections in a number of states signifies that others had also waited this long.
However, I know that the impatient wants it quick. Some even feel those whose declaration is challenged should not be allowed to enjoy the fruits of questionable victories until the cases are disposed off. But such a scenario does not exist under our laws. We must be patient with the Legal process believing that whenever the case is disposed of, the ensuing victory will be sweet.
It is not out of place for the impatient to expect that the wrongful winners do not reap dividends as beneficiaries of a flawed process. While we are waiting for the judiciary to play its role as the final arbiter, let us be consoled by the fact that a good case is a good case no matter how long it is delayed. After all one can only delay the inevitable but never stop it.
In this era of digital technology and explosion of knowledge, even our electoral process can be broken down to verifiable components. Statisticians can analyze the entire data available to a point of minute accuracy.
Forensic experts can distinguish multiple handling of same records absolutely accurately and in the process isolate wrongful ones. There is no hiding place for wrongly configured documentation or falsely collated data. This is the age of accuracy.
So, those who in the heat of electoral confusion compromised some insincere electoral officials to falsify records and reconfigure documents should know that such ignominious acts cannot stand knowledge based scrutiny under the watchful eyes of the law. I guess that is the source of their fear.
Perhaps that could be the reason why the fearful are running Helter skelter to see what can be salvaged under the circumstances. When the facts become domiciled within the precincts of technology and knowledge, those whose only strategies are manipulations and distortions of records will surely be fearful.
The cases before the Tribunal require just proof, which only facts can represent. I understand that some people have taken a court process to Cameroun for some Marabouts to use incantations on them. Good luck to them. But spiritual interventions cannot displace facts. Facts are facts and they are scared. No Marabouts can manipulate them. Likewise the corrupt electoral officials who manipulated the electoral process have no role in distorting the facts this time around. We look forward to robust presentations. The fearful will continue to live in fear from the day the case is mentioned until it ends. That fear may not end even when a verdict is pronounced and undeserved winners are replaced by rightful winners.
Any victory that comes after a long struggle and after crossing countless hurdles is indeed a sweet victory. That’s why the anxious should calm down, the impatient should learn to be patient, but the fearful must be afraid because change is coming.
As always I come in peace