•Insists 2023 elections worst ever in nation’s history
Alex Enumah in Abuja
Constitutional lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Prof Mike Ozekhome, yesterday, said the reason Nigerian politicians were in the habit of asking losers in any election “to go to court” was borne out of the belief that the Nigerian courts could hardly do justice to election matters.
Ozekhome, who spoke against the background of the outcome of the recently concluded general election, which he described as the worst in the history of Nigeria, maintained that based on this confidence, politicians had been very successful in messing up the country’s hard-earned democracy.
“They carry out unspeakable acts – bizarre acts drained of logic, legality, constitutionality and morality – and then tell you to your face: ‘go to court’. This is a sad sarcasm of their obvious derisive, pejorative and derogatory euphemism for our beleaguered justice delivery systems.
“What the politricians are saying cheek-in-tongue, in effect, shorn of all pretences, affectation and braggadocio, is that they believe you cannot get justice in the courts. So, they taunt you to ‘go to court’.
“Before, during and after elections, they kill, maim, burn, thumbprint, steal and allocate ballot boxes and paper, steal BVAs machines, propel their candidates to ‘win at all costs’, select their winners, and collude with INEC to announce their preferred victors. Then, they humour you with, ‘go to court’. For you, my readers, if you do not like this my introductory part, please, do me a favour – go to court,” Ozekhome said, jokingly.
He, however, insisted that the 2023 elections “were the worst I have ever witnessed in this contraption called Nigeria since the amalgamation of the Northern and Southern Protectorates by Lord Frederick Lugard.
He said he guffawed when President Muhammadu Buhari, in congratulating Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, on his presumed victory at the February 25, 2023 presidential election, said, “None of the issues registered represents a challenge to the freeness and fairness of the elections.
“No sir, Mr. President. I humbly disagree, sir. The last elections were neither free, fair, transparent, honest, respectable, nor imbued with any iota of integrity and dignity. They represented an abysmal retrogression into Australopithecus stone-age election farce. The elections were clearly shambolic, unsystematic, mismanaged, violent, vicious, highly compromised, and drained of any local or international respect and recognition.
“The outright rejection of, or at best, very lukewarm tolerance of (not wholesome acceptance or embrace) by the international community, speaks volumes of the elections’ lack of rectitude and honour. Any final emergent product of the fundamentally flawed presidential election will have a moral burden to contend with – even if court judgements were to favour him.
“The moral burden will hang like an albatross, on his neck throughout his entire tenure of office. It will be more like an ignoble trophy or diadem. I shudder to conjecture the ricocheting effect and dire consequences this forebodes for Nigeria. I am not a seer or clairvoyant, but I can tell Nigerians categorically to brace up for harder times ahead. If you are not comfortable with these humble views of mine, then go to court.”
