— January 6, 2014

In its latest spate of political offensive
against the Peoples’ Democratic Party
(PDP), the All People’s Congress (APC)
added a curious but stern
admonishment to the judges across
Nigeria not to be pliant to the
influences of the PDP. To follow up on
their threat, they promised the mother
of all mass movements if the PDP and
such ‘pliant’ judges go ahead to
conspire to declare the seats of five
defecting PDP governors vacant.
Perhaps, seeing the folly of
Progressives being perceived as
threatening parties to a dispute from
taking legal steps, the aforementioned
threat from the party’s spokesperson,
Alhaji Lai Mohammed was modified by
the party’s chairman, Chief Bisi
Akande, who later declared that the
party will take legal steps to protect
the defecting governors. But this is all
bombast, and the APC knows it.
The reasons the APC’s claims are
bombastic are twofold. Firstly, the
party argues albeit erroneously that
the only acceptable process for
removing a state governor is by the
provisions of section 180 of the extant
Nigerian constitution. This is a ‘big fat’
lie. Two of the states currently
controlled by the APC; Osun and Ekiti
states, were burgeoned in court.
Perhaps by the grace of ‘pliant’ judges;
the APC should know about ‘pliant’
judges. Justice Salami allegedly became
a judicial and political flotsam courtesy
of such pliancy. We may never know
the full story now that the main
litigant in the aforesaid case, Chief
Oyinlola, has become part of the
jetsam in the political whirlpool
created by the defecting governors.
Secondly, they argue that previously,
other governors from other parties
had defected to the PDP without
consequences. This is the most
ridiculous legal premise for obviating
a legal recourse. It is an argument that
may be presented in the following
syllogism: A stole a goat from B but B
said nothing and did not litigate, so
why should A take C to court for
stealing A’s goat. That the parties from
which governors defected previously
chose to be passive is not a proof that
their actions were not unconstitutional
or unlawful. If the APC and the
defecting governors felt safe enough
to test it as a mores, the PDP though
with a huge moral burden, having been
a beneficiary of such defections in the
past, may feel safe enough to test it as
a law. Unfortunately, the difference
between a law and a mores is that,
whereas mores are generally accepted
practices, moral norms or custom of
what a society or group considers
acceptable and which they may deviate
from without consequences from
society on the one hand. Laws on the
other hand, are written, gazetted and
codified body of rules and standards
issued by governing authorities for
which negation of expected behaviour
attracts codified consequences. The
legality of defection with a party’s
mandate has not been adequately
tested by judicial interpretation in
Nigeria. But this does not mean that
there are no consequential laws
guiding such defections.
So it may quite be acceptable practice
between Nigerian politicians to defect
from one party to another, but is it the
accepted law to retain their mandate
from the parties from which they
defected? To find answers to this
question, the PDP has gone to court to
challenge the validity of the mandate
given to a PDP governor being
exercised by an APC governor. To
support their prayer in court they cited
the following body of laws: Section
177c which states that; “A person shall
be qualified for election to the office of
Governor of a state if (c ) he is a
member of a political party and is
sponsored by that political party” ;
Section 221 of the extant constitution
which states that “no association,
other than a political party, shall
canvass for votes for any candidate at
any election or contribute to the funds
of any political party or to the election
expenses of any candidate at an
election”. As well as Section 222 (a-e)
which starts by indicating that; “No
association by whatsoever name called
shall function as a party, unless (a) the
names and addresses of its national
officers are registered with the
Independent National Electoral
Commission.”
From the foregoing, without further
adumbrating the provisions of
subsections (b) to (e), it can be seen
that the nPDP does not qualify to
function as a party, or go into a merger
as a political group with an extant
party, as it does not have a
registration with the INEC, moreover
the APC was not an existing entity at
the time the mandates of these
governors where won by their parties.
But to complicate matters further, the
Electoral Act which guides the verdict
of electoral mandates, had the
following provisions on mergers of
political parties and how the mandate
of a party may be carried forward in
the absence of the party. In section 84
of the extant Electoral Act, it is
provided that for parties to merge, the
existing entities of the merging parties
must not only dissolve but must notify
the electoral Commission INEC of its
willingness to do so and must
thereafter conduct a congress of the
merging parties to formalise the
process.
After these are conducted, a formal
dissolution will be certified by INEC.
These ensure that mergers are not an
issue that is arbitrary or conducted at
the spur of the moment in disdain of
party members. Thus, assumedly from
these laws, nPDP has no powers to
dissolve PDP or a hypothetical faction
of it, nor is there any record of party
conventions or notices to INEC in that
regard, whether in whole or factional
part to precede such merger.
Furthermore, on what happens to the
apriori political mandates of the
dissolved parties, the Electoral Act at
section 97 provides that where a party
ceases to exist, the members may carry
such mandates until the end of the
mandate. The fact however is that, the
PDP -like the other parties from which
former PDP governors defected but
which did not bother to challenge the
PDP for their mandates- did not cease
to exist and hence there was no legal
plank to defend their action.

— Akinola is a Lagos-based
development analyst



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