 The Supreme Court has affirmed Senate President Ahmed Lawan as the all-progressive Congress APC Senatorial Candidate for Yoube North. In a majority judgment delivered on Monday, the APEX Court allowed the appeal filed by the APC against Bashir Machina's candidature. Now delivering the judgment, three out of a five-member panel agreed with the position of the APC that the suit at the trial court ought not to have commenced via an originating summons since it contained allegations of fraud. The Justice also noted that INEC was absent and did not monitor the June 9 election. Machina won on a post during the Senatorial primary organised by the party in May of 2022, but the Senate president was said to have participated in another primary organised by the APC after he contested for the presidential ticket unsuccessfully in June. Lawan in Abuja today commended the judiciary for strengthening democracy, stating that the ruling showed that democracy is still at work. Well, joining us to break this down is Opponabor Inkel Taira. He is a public affairs analyst. It's so good to have you join us, Mr. Taira. Thank you. I'll be back later. I think we have had a conversation when Machina was finally accepted as the preferred candidate for that ticket sometime last year. But here we are again and now the Supreme Court is saying that the Senate president is good to go and will be running for that ticket on the platform of the all-progressive Congress. Let's walk back to what happened. And this is almost the same for the case of former Governor Goswilo Budakwabi, who is now holding the Senate ticket for a crime home state and most of them in fact had attended these primaries in absentia using placeholders. And now with this judgment, where does this point the average Nigerian to especially with our elections just down the road? Yes. Let me start by saying it's a bad day in the history of Nigeria and the pollution of our political performance. I was really dazed by the judgment, I must tell you, but it was just this Robert Jackson who said, is it Jackson Jackson who said the Supreme Court is final, not final because it is infallible. It is infallible because it is final. In other words, once the Supreme Court decides for the matter, especially the captain, unless you are good to God, at most times you get judgment from God on the day of judgment, judgment day, not even while you're still alive. What I can tell you now that what happened is miscarriage of justice. It is not about the law far in Korea, it is judgment far in Korea. The electoral act is losing, such a 115, especially this 115 B, is losing. It says you cannot, you are interdicted, you cannot participate, assign a nomination for two different nominations for a particular election. In fact, it goes to, it goes ahead to prescribe the penalty for doing that and imprisonment, three years imprisonment and fine, if you slouch that search. Now you have the Senate president who signed the nomination form for the presidency, a bit for the presidential primaries. The primaries, the APC had its national assembly primaries in May, was not an aspirant as of that time. It was also supervised by INEC. Now the presidential primaries, they were in June, except for 115 of the electoral and 115 B. It is a crime now known for in June for the Senate president to have signed the nomination form for, even if it is in June. Let us assume without considering that that of May was canceled, but it was not canceled. At no point did they say it was canceled. Let us even assume that the party went ahead to conduct another one in June. The Senate president cannot go in by that 115 B, cannot participate in any other election in 2023. He cannot. He has been indicted from struggling for participating in the presidential primaries. Now go back to the Supreme Court judgment, the racial decidement, the reason for the primaries, for which they get that judgment, the primaries are with the get that judgment. Then with the dissenting to justices of the Supreme Court, the other ones went into the issue of which was technical, the issue of jurisdiction, not doubt. Jurisdiction is key. In fact, it is a pre-condition in any trial because it is, on that stress, it is adjudicating computers on which the right of the court rests. It is that jurisdiction that gives the court the right to try a case. So it is not about no doubt about that. And what is the reason? It came by originating summons, which means you could have been rich of summons and not originating summons. That is the argument of the 3 Supreme Court justices. I dissent. Why do I dissent? It's simple. You have said so 115 B of the electoral act, but clearly states that you cannot sign through nomination forms. What is an issue is not whether Lawan won the primaries or not. What is an issue is not whether there was voting during the primaries or not, where you have to bring people so that you can get oral evidence. That is not what is an issue. What is an issue is an individual of Lawan to contest that election. It is not eligible. Which means for what the Supreme Court is saying is the judgment of the Supreme Court today, it has invalidated that section 115. Because you cannot sign through nomination forms that you have a president. You can sign the judgment of today. And the electoral act says no. So what is an issue is not whether he won at the primaries or not. What is an issue is that it is not eligible. That is what is an issue. And that is why we understood the sentence and said no. And what is that issue? Then it should come by originating summons. Let's talk about INEC. That is what it means by the judgment somewhat. Let's talk about INEC. Point noted. Let's talk about INEC. Many have dragged INEC into this conversation. In fact, it's now part of the blame game. Could INEC also be sanctioned all? Because this judgment is already what it is. But many have said that INEC, being that, they had known prior to now that the Senate president had picked a form for the presidency, for the presidential primaries. And also picked a form for the Senate. It should have used one way or the other to disqualify either of and given him an option. This is what some pundits are saying. But again, can we really blame INEC for lack of enforcement? INEC is just an umpire. But then we have law enforcement. People who are supposed to interpret what is in the electoral act and make sure that people are prosecuted one way or the other. Should we be leaving this particular issue at the feet of INEC? Yes, to some extent. To some extent. In fact, the blame should start with INEC. Because it is INEC that sells the form. Now, you have, you did not buy the form. You bought the presidential, the presidential of national form. You lost. You are going back to buy a nomination form for the Senate. INEC has already supervised the main primaries. So it is within the confidence of INEC that the National Assembly primaries for ATC are the conductors. I don't see any reason why under any guidance, INEC should allow even when the party or should the party conduct another primary because of the gravitas of the city president, this crowd. Even if the party should conduct another primary in view and send the name to INEC. INEC should so much say, no, we already have a name from this and apart from that, this man contested the electoral act of state. This man contested in the presidential primaries. Therefore, after the release of the process of 2005, he can no longer contest for the Senate. It is simple. And so we will not recognize it. Then it almost will not be on the Senate president to take INEC to courts and not to recognize it. Because this has gone beyond what you said party for politics, that it is intra-party. We are talking of the electoral act here. So if INEC cannot hide under the guise of intra-party, it cannot. So INEC is also competitive. I see some level of conspiracy against Maxina, probably because he doesn't have the power and we expected the tendency to prevail from the courts. Unfortunately, unfortunately, unfortunately, they caught the Supreme Court justices. Those three justices of the Supreme Court have failed Nigerians because this is a transcript of Hanaki. Tomorrow, somebody will buy a government uniform and only in who this will buy house or bread form or Senate form. And you have president. It is a case of state assistance. There is president. But then we've also had three known cases. This raises another question as to how do we trust INEC enough to have free, fair, credible elections? I mean, I know it's too late in the day for us to ask that question because elections are about 19 days away. But this is a case for the governor of Cross River State, Benedict Ayade, who also did the same thing. He ran for the presidential primaries in APC, also came back and picked a senatorial ticket and won. We've seen that for Goswilakpabi. We've seen that for the Senate president. We've seen that INEC has allowed this place hoarder thing to hold sway, whether it's debatable or not. This is the situation of things. Who's to say, just as you said, that there's not going to continuously be this same kind of president because, of course, people will now make reference if they're arguing in court to this Supreme Court judgment for the Senate president. And finally, because we're going out of time. Quickly, the situation of the judiciary, a lot of people have asked that is it that we're losing it because the average person would say the judiciary is the last hope of the common person. But that seems to be fading away. So again, what does this say about our judiciary going forward? Many people have also said that our judiciary might be responsible for our electoral walls and hence the problems that we've had with harmonizing our electoral calendar. Are we going to see more of this happening after 2023 or is something going to change? Yes, it is also negating at my mind because the judiciary, ordinarily which have less cases in court when it comes to electoral matters, because we are actually divesting what we are doing is giving the court our right to vote who wants. Just like the law has case now. APC members will get voted for somebody else and the court is imposing somebody else on the party and by a sense on the people. And I pray that he loses the judiciary election so it will dish people a lesson. But you see the truth is the courts, it all depends. Of course, there are judges of gratitude, upright judges, not doubt about them, but you also have the corrupt ones in the system. And that is the conundrum that we have to address. It has to do with the appointment of judges. Right now that is not what you can do. If you have a corrupt judge on the bench, what do you do? Especially when it is the justice of the Supreme Court. High court you can tolerate even though it is wrong because you know you have an happening court. You have the Supreme Court. But when you get to the Supreme Court, that is what Justice Robert Johnson said. When you get to the Supreme Court, whatever it is, it is fine now. So what do you do? And that can be a prescription for humanity. Because you are to say justice must not only be done, but must be seen to have been done. In other words, it is not all about this. Both the litigants and the public must be convinced that sagacity prevailed. In this case it was the miscarriage of justice. A machine that can get as useful as it can get and there might be a revolution. There might be a crisis all over as a result of this judgment. Because the electoral act is fair. It is lucid. And that is why they went by the dirty summons. So the issue of judicial does not even arise. Because judicial is a full-grown one with the depicting competence of the court rest. What is the legitimacy of the summons? They start putting the law. The way it is so constructed, with the summons simply means you are coming to discuss its contentious. There are certain contentious here. You did not participate in the national primaries. You went ahead and obtained the nomination form for the presidential primaries. You failed. The electoral act says you cannot. You are addicted. You cannot participate in two nomination forms in the same election. What is there? What is wrong with that? Because we are running out of time. We no longer have time. I don't know if you can hear me. Quickly, we don't have time. In a few words, how optimistic are you about the 2023 general elections? We are 19 days away. INEC, of course, as we would all say, has its job cut out for it. But then, looking at all of the things that have happened building up to this election, how optimistic are you? Right now, I'm a little bit worried. If we talk about INEC preparedness, yes, I think we will give INEC good news. It has done its best. Of course, there is room for improvement. No doubt about that. But a situation where losers start running to courts and people start to convince the electoral act, because you know that's the case. There are other prohibitions in the electoral act. And somebody would just be putting the prohibit and run to court and the court would come up with one stupid grounds to either endorse that that's an attitude. So that is my worry, the courts. Because from what you have seen right now, why INEC is striving, working hard to ensure that it resolves a true reflection of the people. What is now doing is no. The result should not be a reflection of the masses. The will of the masses. It should be a reflection of the will of the microscopy. Because there are judges of the Supreme Court, I don't want to use certain languages. But I am highly disappointed in them. Highly disappointed. And I commend the two dissenting justice. On the issue of INEC in summary, I can assure you that INEC is working hard to ensure that this election will be our judicial our judicial. Well, we'll keep our fingers crossed until then. When I want to say thank you, Uppanabongin Contara is a former advisor to the governor of the River State Governor, Yesen Wike, and he is also a public affairs analyst. Always a pleasure to have you join us. Thank you. All right. And that's the show tonight. We want to thank you for being part of the conversation. But don't forget, February 25 is the day before I know that you have your PVCs. Make sure that you vote and make the right choice. I am Mary Anna Cohn. Have a good evening.