Daily Trust
1 March 2011
It goes without saying that democracy has rekindled public's confidence in the judiciary. This can be gleaned from the growing number of aggrieved Nigerians who take recourse to the courts to seek redress. Perhaps the biggest beneficiary of the magnanimity of this expanding space has been the political class. The courts have upturned several electoral mandates on appeal, thereby sprucing the Nigerian judiciary's image in the eyes of the people as the last hope of the so-called common man.
We are beginning to see the downsides, however. Politicians appear to take advantage of this space to rush to the court at the slightest whim to secure, as often the case, frivolous ex-parte orders, ostensibly to obtain justice but the motive usually is to frustrate the electoral process. This disturbing trend in attempts to choke the judiciary with frivolous demands for injunctions compelled the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to complain directly to the Chief Justice of Nigeria to intervene. INEC's dismay is understandable, given the preponderance of court cases arising from the recently concluded primary elections of the political parties. So far, INEC has over 60 court injunctions pending against it, many of them in the form of restraining orders in respect of the list of candidates standing for the April general elections. They also include ex-parte orders to compel the commission to recognize the name of one candidate or another. Misplaced or not, the general apprehensions that the April elections may be truncated is not helped by this development.
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