“…It must be stated, by way of
emphasis, that the Armed Forces
have no role in the conduct of
election (and) must not be involved
except perhaps, in the area of
providing logistics services to the
agencies of government in the
preparation for the election. ”
—Justice Abdul Aboki of Court of
Appeal, Abuja, on Monday, February
16, 2015
The courts have spoken! The Nigerian judiciary has
ruled that the deployment of troops for election purposes
is an aberration, an infraction on the Nigerian
constitution and the Electoral Act. First, a Federal
High Court sitting in Sokoto on Thursday, January
29, 2015 had declared that the deployment of military for
election duties in the country is unconstitutional.
Justice Mohammed Rilwan, who gave the ruling while
delivering judgment in a suit challenging the deployment
of the military for election duties, said that apart from
protecting Nigeria’s territorial integrity, there is no
constitutional provision for the deployment of the military
for elections. In the case instituted by the Deputy
Speaker of the Sokoto State House of Assembly, Bello
Goronyo, the Judge said that for the Federal
Government to do so, it must have recourse to the
National Assembly which would enact such a law.
On Monday, February 16, 2015, the Justice Abdul
Aboki-led five-man Appeal Court sitting in Abuja upheld
the position of the Federal High Court, Sokoto, on the
matter. Justice Aboki gave the ruling in the Ekiti
governorship election appeal case which was resolved in
favour of the Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose.
Justice Aboki raised some fundamental questions in
coming to the conclusion reached which ousted the role of
the military in elections.
According to eminent justices of the Appeal Court,
Abuja, “The question is that who ordered deployment of
military or soldiers in the Ekiti governorship election?
Was there any act of insurrection to warrant the call on
the military to restore order? And was such deployment
in accordance with Sections 217 (2)(c) and 218(4) of
the constitution?” Their lordships submitted that,
“There is nothing before us in the records in answering
the posers positively.”
“With this, whoever unleashed soldiers on Ekiti State
disturbed the peace of the election on June 21, 2014,
acted in flagrant breach of the constitution, and flouted
the provisions of the Electoral Act which required an
enabling environment by civil authorities in the conduct of
elections.”
The appellate court therefore barred the use of the
Armed Forces in the conduct of future elections in the
country. The court further averred that “Even the
President of Nigeria has no powers to call on the
Nigerian Armed Forces to unleash them on peaceful
citizenry who are exercising their franchise to elect their
leaders.”
These two judgments cited above are heartwarming
particularly at this critical juncture where the role of the
military in politics is being viewed with distrust. It will
be recalled that a couple of weeks back, an audio tape
was allegedly released by one Captain Sagir Koli where
a purported rigging plan of the June 21, 2014
governorship election in Ekiti State was perfected.
The recording professedly captured some political actors
in a meeting discussing strategies for rigging the Ekiti
governorship election where they also allegedly gave
directives to the military to favour the PDP, claiming
they were working for the Presidency. Two of the
dramatis personae were reported to have owned up to
attending the meeting but disagreed with the context.
It will be recalled that on June 19, 2014, the same
military denied some All Progressives Congress stalwarts
entry into Ado-Ekiti on a spurious “order from above.”
It is this patent partisanship coupled with the fact that
recently the National Security Adviser wrote to the
Chairman of the Independent National Electoral
Commission saying that the security agencies would not be
able to provide security for the earlier scheduled elections
on February 14 and 28 thereby causing INEC to shift
the polls by six weeks that make these judicial
pronouncements laudable.
It will also be recalled that just last week, the national
leader of the APC and a former governor of Lagos
State, Bola Tinubu, raised the alarm about the siege
laid to his house in Lagos by some soldiers. It also did
happen that in Imo State last week, some soldiers
allegedly acting on the orders of a minister of state
blocked the entrance to the Imo State Government House
with Armoured Personnel Carriers. The APC had also
cried out that the telephone lines of its national chairman
and many of its chieftains may have been bugged. These
are ominous. No wonder former president Olusegun
Obasanjo also alleged partisanship on the part of the
military.
Now that the Federal High Court and the Court of
Appeal, which is a superior court, have both made legal
pronouncements on the role of the military in elections,
what is the implication of these judgments on our
elections?
To my own mind, it does not bode well. Nigerian Armed
Forces (Army, Navy and Air Force) as well as all
major security agencies (Police, Civil Defence,
Department of State Services, Federal Road Safety
Commission, etc), about 16 of them, are all members of
the Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on Election
Security established by INEC in 2011 to provide some
logistic support to the commission particularly in the
distribution of both sensitive and non-sensitive election
materials as well as provisioning of security for election
personnel and materials. It is good that the appeal court
had said the military can help out with the logistics.
However, exempting them from providing election security
needs to be revisited.
Just last Friday, February 13, the National Human
Rights Commission released a 80-page report where it
stated that 58 persons had died in election violence across
the country between December 3, 2014 and January 31,
2015. The Chairman, Governing Council of
the commission, Prof. Chidi Odinkalu, while highlighting
the contents of the report, noted that the 58 deaths had
resulted from 49 election-related violence across 22 states
in the country. If we had lost 58 lives within 60 days,
that shows how volatile the forthcoming elections has been
and will be. Can we then leave election security solely in
the hands of the Nigeria Police, DSS and NSCDC?
Will they be able to effectively police and secure the
North-East zone and other hotspots across the country?
It will be a suicidal gamble.
In order not to act ultra vires, I hereby enjoin President
Goodluck Jonathan to do the needful as prescribed by
Section 217 (2) (c) by writing to the National
Assembly on the need to approve the military deployment
in aid of INEC which is a civil authority. This can and
should be done now that the National Assembly is back
to work after their recess. In approving this however, a
well spelt-out code of conduct must be handed down to the
military about their limited role of providing logistic
support to INEC as well as complementing the police and
the DSS in providing election security. Any breach of
this code should be visited with stiff punishment.
Source: www.punchng.com/opinion/nigerian-military-and-illegal-election-duty/

In continuation..... And some pdp midgets would come here and start flaunting trashes that Jonathan is the first president to conduct free and fair election, how could an election be free and fair when the millitary is busy acting the script of the president. How could an election be free when the president is using the millitary to intimidate the electorates. The president has beaten the dignity of our millitary to the mud. The millitary that are meant to be fighting in the Terrorist are now being ridiculed to the extent of providing uncalled-for monitoring to the leaders of the opposition party.