The Nation Newspaper

Tag: deregistration

  • Parties deregistration, threat to 2015 elections

    As if he was referring to the pretext of the multiple judgment dilemma which the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) raised in refusing to honour the Chris Okotie-led Fresh Democratic Party’s verdict, Justice Mahmud Mohammed, subsequent to his confirmation by the Senate as the Chief Justice of Nigeria, said; “… the personal interest of judges and lawyers in certain political cases had been behind the incidences of conflicting judgments… these conflicting judgments are mostly common in political cases involving election tribunals where there are a lot of interests…”

    It will be recalled that FRESH proceeded to Justice G. O. Kolawole’s Federal High Court 5, Abuja Division, where it secured a victory in July 2013. FRESH, which upturned its de-registration, has strenuously claimed that INEC was deliberately frustrating its incursion into mainstream politicking. The catalogue of events since the December 2012 de-registration shows this to be true.

    INEC filed a notice of appeal but failed to perfect the process at the Appeal Court within the stipulated 90 days. But in response to FRESH’s sustained calls on the commission to make good the verdict, it instructed the party to re-register. There was then hurried re-amendment of Section 78 (7) (ii) of the Electoral Act by the National Assembly, which stipulates that political parties must win seats during state and National Assembly elections, to include councillorship elections, though this section of the Act has been set aside by the FRESH ruling.

    But after months of silence and subsequent re-filing of another notice of appeal in July 2013, nine months clear of the 90 days window, INEC chairman, Prof Attahiru Jega, declared unequivocally that the law is the law and until it is changed, the commission will maintain status quo. Invariably, FRESH should not expect to see its name on the ballot papers come 2015, irrespective of the ruling. Now, Hope Democratic Party (HDP) has also secured another verdict akin to FRESH’s at Justice Ademola Adeniyi’s Federal High Court, Abuja, who referred to FRESH’s verdict and questioned why the agency had not complied with it.

    INEC is out of touch with voter sentiments, and in making such a statement must expect a riposte, especially while touting a misleading notice of appeal which is now gathering dust, since they don’t regard the judiciary’s right of interpretation or even the verdict as worthy of the paper it was written on. The electoral agency is acting like an autocratic boss who doesn’t care about contradictions. INEC is 30 years behind the world’s current affairs, as a bird’s eye view of global politics shows that the paradigm of elective political participation has changed, and cunning play of political hands is obsolete.

    Political representation is not a question of winning over ideology, but that the dismal state of leading parties’ style of politicking and crony governance, a staple of Nigerian politics, needs to be put under with an integrity-focused and vibrant opposition. If there is a sector of Nigeria which needs a boom in un-curtailed representation, it is freedom of participatory politics. The prejudice of thinking that the new parties are not proper political organisms because they are not run by the old breed politicians is unfounded: INEC must be neutral, and not put the nascent parties under pressure to perform in a lopsided race.

    The internal manipulations and bureaucratic certification imposed by stalwarts of the ruling class is at the root of the emergence of smaller parties, and it can so easily asphyxiate the emphasis on innovation which the nation needs now. The yearning for a truly deregulated political space is being stymied by the daunting obstacle of animosity evidenced by INEC and the increased regulation by the Senate’s latest re-amendment of the voided electoral act. FRESH should be allowed to pursue its mandate without the fanged oversight of INEC. When it is asked to surrender itself to an abstract process which has consistently proven faulty, then it is stifled.

    The last few years has been filled with incredible upheavals inflicted by PDP’s super-stratum of politicians who have been moldering in politics with an inflated opinion of their own relevance and abilities. The irony of this cabal’s self-exultation is that the nation has been stuck in the doldrums, so growth is bound to stagnate and slow down to a halt, especially with unforeseen circumstance like the fall in global oil prices; Nigeria’s economic mainstay. To parry the threat posed by FRESH, the leading party, which is not on the side of the masses, faces humiliation at the hands of this nationalist rival they once dismissed as non-starters and closet politicians.

    Okotie’s paradigm shift is all about challenging the status-quo and putting things in a different and more productive light with a global mindset. His party’s strategic perception means it is alert to the need for change, creative about how to accomplish that change, and alive to the strengths and weaknesses which may influence, enhance or frustrate the right atmosphere to accomplish that change, like INEC is engendering.

    In today’s highly evolved and networked world, a robust political and governmental structure is vital in every nation, one that is reliable, providing innovative solutions to challenges, not one that bamboozles the polity by the amount of noise which government’s peddle through their media machinery. But they cannot dispose of the fact that the populace consults with each other about current issues, rather than depend on the rehearsed media façade of spin doctors. But to put deception lower down the pecking order, Nigerians need to take a stand. We can’t continue to be fobbed off with generic excuses- we must begin to assert our rights.

    So 2015 presents another chance to address arguably the two largest issues facing Nigeria: corruption and transparency, by voting out the ruling cabal, whose philosophy is best expressed as ‘to the greater glory of us’ (Ad Manus Gloriam). The present rumblings in the political atmosphere are indicative of the need for change, and CJN, Justice Mohammed must save the judiciary from this political attrition by politicians, by making cases like this FRESH/HDP tango a matter of urgency.

    Days after INEC’s lifting on the ban on campaigns, and the continued denial of these two parties the right to participate, despite an extant verdict, the possibility of a legal recourse already flies a red flag and jeopardizes the conduct and outcome of 2015 general elections. Now is the time for the CJN to alter the course of INEC’s highhandedness.

     

    • Godswill wrote from Delta State

  • FRESH’s deregistration battle

    The rule of law is not something to be taken for granted in any functional democracy, but not so for Nigeria. Here, the line that demarcates separation of powers is broken by government functionaries with astonishing impunity; so much so that this disregard for the rule of law constantly challenges the autonomy of the judiciary. Much unlike Oliver Twist, they don’t just ask for more, they take it by force or tacit manoeuvrings as evident in the Senate’s re-amendment of the Electoral Act.

    Ojeikpon Imoukhuede wrote an article in The Nation on July 12, titled ‘Who is afraid of Chris Okotie?’ In the said piece, the writer attempted to put down executive lawlessness to xenophobic opposition of our sit-tight leaders to the tide of change engendered by forceful personages like Rev. Chris Okotie. This, he said, may be because his paradigm shift philosophy offers an alternative to the status quo.

    Imoukhuede wrote: “… No excuse is tenable in law for the blatant disobedience of a court order. We cannot accept the argument that because the legislative authorities decided that only big or ‘money bag’ parties with effective capacities to appropriate enough votes to win some elections are dominant today, other parties should ‘fall down and die’. Democracy is about a level playing field. The absence of this has blighted our processes and actions. This INEC and lawmakers’ impunity in the FRESH case is unpalatable.

    Some people are even asking: ‘Who is afraid of Chris Okotie? Is all these attempts to shut out his party a sign of genuine phobia for the man and his paradigm shift ideals? If FRESH claims to be the only serious alternative to the present political shenanigans, we should allow the electorate to decide.”

    In my humble opinion, it goes beyond that. True, Rev. Okotie and FRESH’s entry into Nigeria’s political fray marked a ‘paradigm shift’ in the calibre of contestants, as he emerged on the scene with an unsullied record, having never joined the crony corridor-of-power politics. Above and beyond that, the party’s ideological input and Okotie’s grasp of Nigeria’s socio-economic complexities and his proffered solutions put him steps ahead of his political peers. He has both challenged and upturned the status quo with his can-do pragmatism, and has over the last decade maintained an unflinching belief in the paradigm shift philosophy which led to Fresh Party seizing the initiative by challenging its de-registration in court, leading to the landmark judgment, and subsequently, the series of sporadic and uncoordinated responses by INEC and now the Senate re-amendment of the Electoral Act.

    The behaviour of the ruling class does not embrace institutional democracy, jurisprudence and the rule of law. Therefore, any hint of a challenge which will offer the populace a glimmer of hope automatically becomes a threat to their ‘rulership’. In essence, the modest step which the Fresh Party took by way of the court victory has been turned into a hard slog by INEC’s backdoor politics occasioned by the Senate’s re-amendment of the Electoral Act. These key pointers in understanding the backstage politics of this de-registration stalemate is further strengthened when we realise that this new lease of life which the electoral agency’s de-registration campaign is enjoying is reminiscent of some of the world’s political history’s darkest moments.

    In an internet website, History Today, Russel Tarr, in his article of 15 July, titled Lenin in Power wrote: “In Russia, the Bolshevik Party faced massive opposition following its seizure of power in 1917. The Social Revolutionaries (party of the peasants) had more support in the countryside, whilst the Bolsheviks (party of the proletariat) did not command the overwhelming support of the Soviets. Lenin contemptuously dissolved the Assembly, calling his action ‘true democracy’.

    “By the end of May 1918 Lenin expelled opposition parties from the Central Executive Committee. His close associate Leon Trotsky justified this by saying that, ‘We have trampled underfoot the principles of democracy for the sake of the loftier principles of a social revolution’. By the time of Lenin’s death, political opposition parties had been formally banned and the Bolshevik Party (renamed the Communist Party in 1919) reigned supreme.”

    Also in www.historylearningsite.com, when Hitler was appointed Chancellor at the head of Germany’s coalition government in January 1933, the nation was a democracy. The death of President Hindenburg in August 1934, allowed him to combine both Chancellor’s and President’s positions into one (Fuehrer and Reich Chancellor), and Germany soon became a dictatorship. Germany’s largest non-Nazi political resistance, the Social Democratic Party (SPD), was declared illegal in May 1933, robbed of its funds and forced to disband. On July 14, 1933, a law was passed making it illegal to form a new political party. It also made the Nazi Party the only legal political party in Germany.

    Rana Muhammad Taha said in an article in www.dailynewsegypt.com titled Parties Call for Inclusion in Amending Laws to Govern Parliamentary Elections: “… The Egyptian Social Democratic Party (ESDP) and the Free Egyptians Party (FEP) called on the committee tasked with amending the Political Participation Law to be more inclusive in its activities. The parties noted that in order to avoid ‘exclusion’, representatives from political parties should meet with the committee to put forward their proposals regarding the amendment to the laws. Five parties met to discuss (and) later released a statement condemning the draft. The legislation was also criticised by the Egyptian Social Democratic Party (ESDP) and Misr Al-Qawia (Strong Egypt) Party in two separate statements.

    The statement said: “… ignoring political movements’ demands could push citizens to find ‘other channels of expressing their needs’. They criticised an Article 3 of the constitution, stating that this formation would deprive the ‘underprivileged’ of their chance of winning the elections, given that the costs of running for the elections individually would be “no less than EGP 1m.”

    This is the path of political discontent which INEC is treading upon by depriving smaller political parties their right of participation. It is spurious, and the potential for harm by the Senate’s re-amendment of the Electoral law that empowers INEC to ban parties far outweights the imaginary gains of eliminating them. The notion of a big party dominating the political space belongs to a by-gone age, and that attempt is only doomed to failure if embarked on in this era. I wholesomely agree with the path Okotie has chosen: to tackle this new political menace head-on. He is fighting for our future.

      

    • Oke wrote in from Lagos
  • Deregistration: Senate president wades into Fresh – inec crisis

    Deregistration: Senate president wades into Fresh – inec crisis

    Senate President, Dr. David B. Mark, has waded into the dispute between the Fresh Democratic Party, FRESH and the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC over the latters’ deregistration of the party, founded by Rev. Chris Okotie, according to a press release issued in Lagos by Ladi Ayodeji, the party’s spokesman.

    It will be recalled that INEC delisted the party along with 27 others in December 2012, for alleged failure to win at least, one seat at either the State, or National Assembly; as well as the Governorship or Presidency. The Electoral umpire invoked the order based on the controversial Electoral Act 2010 (As Amended).

    FRESH, along with Rev. Okotie, and Adefela Binutu, contested the deregistration at the Federal High court 5, Abuja Division; with INEC, the Attorney General of the Federation, the National Assembly and the Inspector General of the Police, IG, as defendants. In a landmark judgment handed down by Justice Gabriel Kolawole, the deregistration was not only voided, the entire Electoral Act 2010 (As Amended) was ruled illegal, unconstitutional, null and void.

    However, since the judgment was delivered on July 29, 2013, INEC has refused to recertify the party as expected. Consequently, both the Commission and FRESH have been involved in intense media skirmishes over the matter for about a year now. Several newspapers editorials and commentators have made strong cases for INEC to obey the court judgement, to no avail.

  • Deregistration: Why the presidency must act now

    Deregistration: Why the presidency must act now

    THE political party deregistration saga involving the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, and the delisted parties, led by Fresh Democratic Party, FRESH has taken on a wider dimension. Based on the latest intervention of the National Assembly which recently passed a bill to empower the commission to ban parties that run foul of the contentious Electoral Act 2012(As Amended), the presidency must take a stand on the position of the executive to break the deadlock of the legal tango surrounding this dispute. Things could get messier if a fresh round of legal war ensues to the extent that the polity is further over-heated. This Act was invoked by INEC when it dropped the hammer on 28 parties, which as per the provision of section 78(7)(ii), of the this law, failed to win at least one legislative seat at either state or federal level. Of course, it is no longer news that FRESH went to court and got the Electoral Act invalidated entirely by the landmark ruling of Justice Gabriel Kolawole on June 29, 2013 at the Federal High Court 5, Abuja. Although, FRESH has continued to turn the heat on INEC for refusing to recertify it despite this court order, the National Assembly still went ahead last week to pass a bill to amend the Electoral Act and empower the Commission to deregister political parties. This is clearly in defiance of the court ruling which summarily dismissed the Act as unconstitutional, null and void. What is going on here? The lawmakers could not have feigned ignorance of the court ruling because, not only was it widely reported by the media; more than seven national newspapers had written editorial comments on the subject, in which INEC was seriously indicated for its disrespect for the rule of law. Now, the lawmakers have made a serious statement about their contempt for a ruling of a court of competent jurisdiction over a matter as sensitive as the Electoral law. For the record, the electoral agency’s response to the ruling obtained by FRESH is that, it should re-apply for registration. FRESH rejected this odd directive as expected of any reasonable organisation. Even the Nation newspaper, in its editorial of Thursday, May 8, 2014 was direct and unequivocal in its response. “Since the judgment appears so clear, it is inexplicable why rather than obey the court, top INEC officials, including its spokesman, Mr. Kayode Idowu, and one of its national commissioners, Professor Lai Olurode, insist that FDP will not be allowed to field candidates in the 2015 general election unless it applied for re-registration. “The implication of the court ruling is that FDP was not legally and constitutionally de-registered in the first place. There can thus be no question of applying for re-registration. “Until INEC gets a higher court to rule to the contrary, it must abide by the existing court judgment. An electoral umpire like the commission cannot afford to act in a lawless manner.” INEC is not the only one acting in a lawless manner. The National Assembly goofed by going ahead to pass an amendment on an Electoral Act which a court of law has deemed illegal. Most amazing is the fact that the presidency has surprisingly maintained a studied silence while this rape of the law is being perpetrated by an agency of government as vital and strategic as INEC. Should this brewing dispute be allowed to snowball into a full blown national controversy, we risk having a constitutional crisis on our hands in this election year. This is too dangerous to gamble with. If, as could happen, FRESH decides to return to court, it would be doing so on a firm ground. With a solid judgment already in its favour, it may not be difficult to convince any judge to stop the forthcoming state governorship elections, or even the more important Presidential election, unless the party is allowed to field candidates. We cannot risk any disruption of the political transition calendar because of an unnecessary crisis. Already, there’re well founded fears globally that this transition, effectively tainted by pockets of violence in Osun and Ekiti States where elections would hold shortly, could end with a controversial presidential elections. Prof. Richard Joseph, in an article he posted on AfricaPlus blog, wrote: “Assuming this troubled nation makes it through to the exercise, (elections in 2015) there is no certainty that a governable entity will emerge from the contentious party politics and the inevitable electoral mishaps. Creating a global coalition to support state-building, democracy-building, and inclusive development in Nigeria is therefore imperative.” But this ambitious goal may not be realizable if the transition suffers serious hiccups. The onus is on the presidency now to get INEC to respect the rule of law, not subvert it, as the agency is doing in the FRESH deregistration tussle. If the government thinks this is largely a local affair domesticated to the FRESH party, it is making a big mistake. For, the party is not seeking its own, but fighting to entrench a culture of the rule of law, which is being eroded by functionaries of this administration at different levels. We must not forget cases where operatives of government have ignored summons to appear before committees of the National Assembly and nothing happened. If we do not sanction impunity, it may come back to haunt us. That is why this writer thinks that the Presidency which superintends over other quangos like INEC, should make it clear to all Nigerians that it is not behind the game being played by the Commission or the National Assembly. There’s no better way for it to clear itself than to direct INEC to obey the rule of law by recertifying FRESH in the interest of justice and fairness.

  • Court overrules INEC on Fresh Party’s deregistration

    Court overrules INEC on Fresh Party’s deregistration

    A Federal High Court in Abuja yesterday voided the decision by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to deregister the Fresh Democratic Party (FDP).

    Justice Gabriel Kolawole held that INEC acted unconstitutionally as it exercised its powers to deregister the party without giving it fair hearing as provided by the Constitution.

    The judge also voided the provision of Section 78(7)(ii) of the Electoral Act 2011 for being inconsistent with the provision of the Constitution.

    That portion of the Electoral Act allows INEC to deregister any party that did not win either National Assembly or State Assembly seat.

    The judgment was on a suit by FDP challenging its last year deregistration by INEC. The party was among 28 others proscribed by the electoral body.

    Justice Kolawole held that the powers to deregister parties, granted to INEC in Section 78(7)(ii) of the Electoral Act assumes quasi-judicial nature when it comes to deregistering parties, and “must not be exercised without giving the party to be deregistered a fair hearing.

    “The first plaintiff (FDP) was entitled to be heard by the first defendant (INEC) before taking the decision to deregister it,” the judge held.

    Justice Kolawole criticised INEC’s defence, holding that it failed to provide any shred of evidence to prove that it accorded the party fair hearing before proceeding to deregister it.

    The judge, though upheld the National Assembly’s power to make laws as it relates to its enactment of the Electoral Act 2011, held that paragraph 2 subsection 7 of section 78 of the Electoral Act was inconsistent with the Constitution.

    Justice Kolawole described the provision, as enacted by the National Assembly, as “a legislative mischief that must be addressed.”

    He held that the country’s electoral process had not matured to the level where it could garanty free and fair election.

    The judge noted that the concern of all should be how to create acredible electoral process.

    He granted nine of the plaintiffs’ 10 prayers, which include that INEC breached Sections 14, 15(2) and (3) and 17 of the Constitution in excercising its powers to deregister parties.

    Justice Kolawole also held that INEC, as established under Section 153 of the Constitution, could not deregister parties without recourse to sections 221-229 of the Constitution.

    The judge refused to grant the plaintiffs’ prayer for N10millon cost. He asked them to see their effort as a contribution to the growth of the nation’s democratic process.

     

     

     

  • Jega: no going back on deregistration of 28 parties

    Jega: no going back on deregistration of 28 parties

    The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Attahiru Jega, yesterday foreclosed another chance for the deregistered 28 political parties.

    Besides, he said the commission did not act in subjudice of a pending case before a Lagos High Court.

    Jega insisted that the parties were deregistered in compliance with the provisions of the 1999 Constitution and the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended).

    He, however, said there is no plan to limit the nation to any fixed number of parties because new political parties would be registered as more cease to exist.

    Jega, who spoke during an interview in Abuja, promised that the 2015 elections will be “remarkably” better than the 2011 poll.

    He is optimistic that Nigeria would have overcome Boko Haram and other security challenges before the 2015 elections.

    He said the delimitation of constituencies, which was last conducted in 1996, will hold in 2013, but the final say on the number of senatorial districts and federal constituencies suitable for the nation will be determined by the National Assembly.

    Jega said: “As you are no doubt aware, we made a commitment to Nigerians to continue to improve upon the electoral process to continue to sanitise the electoral process and to continue to ensure that as we move from 2011 elections to the 2015 elections, there are remarkable improvements which can be measured.

    “The current deregistration of political parties should be viewed in this context of bringing sanity to the electoral process.

    The constitution also defines in Section 221-228 what the requirements of registration are.

    “Then the provision that grants INEC the powers to register political parties also gives the National Assembly the powers to enact laws to govern the electoral process. So, the National Assembly, in compliance with that constitutional provision, enacted the Electoral Act as amended in 2010. And that is the Electoral Act that has guided our action.

    “Section 78, sub-section 7 of that Electoral Act gives INEC the power to deregister political parties which are not in compliance with constitutional provisions for the registration of the parties in the first place.

    “And if you are aware, we also have the powers to monitor the activities of political parties. And from the information available to us, we have incontrovertible evidence that the parties that we deregistered have not complied with those provisions of the constitution, which defined, what is required for registration.

    “In particular, if you look at Sections 222 and 223, political parties are supposed to register with INEC and to have an office in Abuja ; they are supposed to hold periodic elections; they are supposed to have executives that represent in their composition the Federal Character in particular two-thirds of the state of the Federation. And also the Electoral Act, in particular, says that those who did not win any seat in any of the elections can be deregistered.

    “The first exercise we did when seven parties were deregistered, we deregistered them solely on the basis of the fact that they did not even field candidates for the elections.

    “But this particular deregistration of 28 political parties is not based solely on that reason alone; there are other reasons. And for each political party that INEC deregistered, we wrote a letter to them indicating the grounds upon which they were deregistered.

    “Many of them received the letters. About 17 out of the 28 parties received their letters before we went public, before we announced the deregistration.

    “The remaining ones, some of them we could not get them…They were supposed to have offices in Abuja but they did not.

    “I will give you one example. Our officer who took the letter went to a particular address of a political party. They went there, the sign board was there but there are new tenants in the building. It is a business centre.

    “So, because we also have the telephone numbers of the official, the official was telephoned and he was told that we are at your office to give you a letter and we found that there is a business centre there. He said, ‘please, take back the letter; I will come to your office and collect it’. The same parties are now saying that we did not inform them before they were deregistered. If you gave us an address and we did our best and went to that address and we cannot find you and we even called you and you said you were going to come to collect your letter, how can you accuse us of not informing you.”

    Asked why INEC deregistered parties in subjudice to the ongoing court process, Jega said the commission did not spite a Lagos High Court.

    He added: “We are aware of the case and we did not deregister the party that was in court. If you look at the list of the parties that were deregistered, since we know they took us to court, we did not deregister that party. We will await the outcome of that case.

    “In fact, we did our best and to the best of my knowledge, we did not deregister any party that has any case in court that can be misconstrued as a violation of the court process. Any party we know that there is a court case between us and it on this issue, we did not deregister it.’

    Responding to a question on whether INEC has penciled down 25 more parties for deregistration, Jega said: “It is not true that there is a figure to the parties that we are going to deregister, but as you are aware, registration and deregistration of parties are continuous processes.

    “As more applicants meet the requirements of registration, we will register them. As more parties violate the requirements of the constitution and the Electoral Act, if it warrants deregistration, we will deregister them. So, it is a continuous process.”

    Pressed to comment if INEC has predetermined number of parties which Nigeria should have, the INEC chairman said: “I do not have a benchmark and INEC does not have a benchmark . The legal regime that guides our action says any group that meets the requirements for registration as a party, we should register them. The same legal regime says that under some conditions, you can deregister. All we are doing is those who meet the registration we register, those who do not meet the registration, we deregister.

    “Our hope is that if we are consistently doing this, then with time, people will know that if you are registered as a political party, then you must be in full compliance with the requirements for the registration.”

    Regarding the delimitation of constituencies, Jega said: “We are determined to conclude it before the 2015 elections.

    “We will commence the delimitation by the first quarter of 2013 and we should be able to complete it by the end of 2013 or the first quarter of 2014. As you rightly pointed out. The last time the constituency delimitation was done was in 1996. And it is a constitutional requirement that it should be done every 10 years.”