By Mallam Jimoh Saliu Esq.
Amidst of crunching economic and political woes, the Supreme Court of Nigeria handed down a decision in a matter between Senator Ahmed Lawan (the current senate President of the 9th National Assembly) and his political rivalry Mr. Machina over the actual winner of the primary election of the party in the Yobe North Senatorial District in Yobe State.
Being the apex court, its decision is final. However, its finality does not connote that its decision is utterly free from flaws. In the words of Hon Justice C. Oputa JSC of Blessed memory ‘we are final not because we are infallible, we are infallible because we are final’. The pyramid of the Supreme Court does not make it explainable to any authority within our jurisprudence. The opinion of the public commands no baton within jurisdical norms but it shapes.
Getting to brass task, the Supreme Court dismissed the two decisions of the trial court and the lower court. Beyond the cacophony, there has been myriads of reactions and counter reactions that has compellingly foregrounded the posture of Artemis in justice system.
The dismissal of the effort of your noble Lords at the previous courts with a wave of hand on the ground that the mode of filing the action at the court of first instance was not in compliance with the law.
Everybody’s mouth is agape. To put it starkly, the people of Nigeria bemoaned our judiciary system. For this, it cannot be our intention to join bandwagon but to beam the search light to some legal precepts and examine its core value in the light of prevailing principles and in one breadth pointing out its demerit.
As system of our law has its ancestry within the common law purview, every matter has its mode of commencement. In respect of the matter under the consideration, the matter was initiated by way of originating summon. It was done like that as a result of command whistle blew by the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court of Nigeria reduced into a practice direction that all the pre-election matters must be initiated by the originating summons.
Though apt as concisely stated, the directive is an order that enjoys the command. Failure to comply, such matter might be taken the umbrage of the law. Both the matter that had been filed and the one prepared to be filed are commanded to comply.
The Supreme Court sparked up bewilderment with its decision that because of mode of initiating the action under the spotlight, the suit was bludgeoned with the legal hammer. By virtue of stare decisis, the decision has become “black stone” of Kabah mosque that deserves it to be rounded. Thus, the successive decisions must stick out or observe it religiously while taking decision.
In order not to be overwhelmed by flotsam and jetsam of array of opinions of the critics of the decision of the Supreme Court. I must point it out explicitly, the mode of the commencement of the suit is a jurisdictional issue. But it is categorized within a procedural jurisdiction which, in law, can be waived by beneficiary of that right. The law recognizes that an individual may renounce or waive a law made for his special benefit or protection. This is encapsulated in the maxim: “quilibet potest renunciate juris prose introducio”.
In actual sense, people scoffed at the pronouncement of the Supreme Court. The decision has laid to rest the controversy whether technicality is part of the law or not. It is affirmative response that it is part. By this era, the question that might naturally flow, is to what extent could that aid the movement of vehicular wheel of justice? This is “one and many” problem that formed that foundation of controversy among philosophers from the inception of the subject.
It is a notable fact that cannot be down played that Nigeria judicial system straddles the two frontiers – technical justice or substantive justice. The system is at crossroads; the vested responsibility on judges particularly at every strata of any court is to determine every case on its merit. Notwithstanding the legalism that might have been used to embellish the technical justice, it is backward swing of the pendulum.
Mallam Jimoh Saliu is a Constitutional Lawyer, Human Rights Activist and a Public Analyst writes in from Akure, Ondo State, Nigeria.
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