Court of Appeal Suspends Lifu Judgment on ADC Deregistration, Calls Action Judicial Rascality

[00:00:00]The court of appeal in Abuja has unanimously suspended the judgement of the Federal High Court also in Abuja presided by Justice Peter Lifu of which ordered the registration of the African Democratic Congress the Accord party and other political parties pending the determination of the substantive appeal before it in a ruling delivered by a three member panel led by Justice A Muhammad the appellate court faulted the trial court for proceeding to deliver a judgement despite a subsisting order of the court of appeal directing that proceedings be stayed and describing the action as a brazen disregard for judicial authority which it termed judicial rascality. The court of appeal subsequently granted the applications before it and ordered the suspension of the execution of the judgement pending the determination of the appeal while adjourning the matter to June 25 2026 for continuation of hearing. Let's just take a look.

[00:01:04]>> The court looked at it and considering what they have what they ordered they have made on the 22nd directed that his judgement that was delivered yesterday be suspended pending final determination of all appeal arising from this matter due to the ionic timetable and considering the fact that the election is approaching the court has fixed the 25th of this month for all pending application to be determined on the final >> From the moment the appeal was entered at the court of appeal the court of appeal became seized of the jurisdiction in that matter to the exclusion of the Federal High Court. So the Federal High Court had no jurisdiction to have sat over the matter and delivered the judgement that it delivered.

[00:01:52]And the court of appeal in its own wisdom granted an order staying execution of that judgement. Election is not an event, it is a process. The day the timetable was rolled out by INEC, INEC already know who and who be part of the process of election. Parties have gone round the 36 states of Nigeria, uh conducted primary elections, spent money, wasted resources, and then some faceless people will come and say they are What What do they call them?

[00:02:21]They said former legislators who have failed this country that were trying to ruin this country. Democracy is about inclusion. It's about the people.

[00:02:30]>> You have the IPAC representative. He said a whole lot, a lot. But then again, joining us here live in the studio, and of course we have another guest joining us via video conferencing. We have Mr. Dotun Ojon, of course a public affairs analyst and one who has tested the waters in politics as well. Hopefully he's going to test it again come 2027.

[00:02:47]We do not know. But Mr. Dotun Ojon, when you see things like this Let me just ask.

[00:02:53]Why is it that the name, Justice Peter Lifu, whenever it comes up, Nigerians are always worried because What What's going on?

[00:03:06]What's really going on? The The appellate court says stay of execution while all of a sudden from nowhere, you know, we now see Federal High Court taking a decision on a subsisting case.

[00:03:22]>> Okay, so um the major challenge will not even be to political or to legally extra what has happened, but I think it's will now be um communicating the consequences of the actions that men take. And when men continue to take a certain actions without repercussion, you create an impression that anything can be done without any kind of punishment. And um again and again we continue to appeal to um the judicial commission that when a thing like this happens, I'm not the one that said the judicial rascality. It's not the first time that this thing is happening. I think that the commission should wake up to its responsibility because when you say a community does not have hope, it doesn't mean that the government is not executing project. It just means that they cannot run to court and get justice. So, it means that whatever the way we may look at it, the justice system in any community remains the the hope giver.

[00:04:25]>> Okay, so so the question is what will be the implication of this, you know, in the long run? The idea of opposition of having an opposition coalition, is it safe to say that that idea is is a is dead on arrival at this point? You have few months, less than few months to the general elections, the presidential and gubernatorial elections. The concept of the ADC for starters was to be able to have a formidable opposition force. PDP doesn't look like like it's that opposition. So, are we going to say that if this judgment is implemented, it's a smooth sail for the APC?

[00:04:56]>> Okay, so first is that we must make it very clear to the people in the community that all the parties that have been listed will make it to ballot. That assurance is necessary because there are appellate options and by the time you continue to explore all of these options, we'll have done election. If they like, after the election, they can deregister the party and people will move to whatever party they want to move to. And I think people are not careful about reputation.

[00:05:23]They just want to run a government and win election. This judgment today is not about the the judge that gave the judgment. It's about the party in power.

[00:05:30]I've I've I've been a member of IPAC for for for a while and I saw the national chairman speaking yesterday. He was very critical of the government of the day despite the fact that it was not the president that sat in court, but every finger points to the to the um government of the day because you can just go back home and reason. Where would somebody be that emboldened to the point of going against the decision of an appellate court? So, all of these conversations is that it's it's becoming extremely suspicious.

[00:06:00]You know, the conversation of one party system came up the other day, and politicians just said, "Oh, let us let us just uh gloss over that and let that ride and and and lie low." But, the truth is that political parties in Nigeria have major issues. And I keep saying it, if you've ever sat to run a political party in Nigeria, you will understand what I'm saying.

[00:06:22]In In 19 um um 2019, there were over 90, I think about 91 or 92 political parties in Nigeria. One of the reasons why INEC deregistered 74 of them was because of non-performance.

[00:06:35]What is the definition of non-performance? If you cannot get 25% um in presidential election in any of the 36 state, including the federal capital territory, if you cannot get any member in the National Assembly, you cannot get any member in the State House of Assembly, you cannot get any member in the council, you cannot get a um a chairman or a a vice chairman or a councilor, then it is non-performance.

[00:06:57]But, all of these political parties that are listed today have one or two people in power as we speak today. So, I don't know whether they just want to make this an academic exercise because at the end of the day, in 2027, I see a lot of these political parties winning election because of what they are doing presently. So, I am not afraid that anything might happen. I will In fact, they have options to exhaust up to the Supreme Court. But, the assurance I have is that these political parties today will make it to ballot in 2027, and there will not be basis for deregistration by INEC after the election.

[00:07:33]>> Now, when we look at the of course the set up of democracy, we know that judiciary plays a vital role in the whole set up. And of course, if you look at what happened last election, where you know, the case there there was a presidential election tribunal after elections. We're likely going to see that happen in 2027. With judgments like this that have been carried out by the likes of Justice Peter Afu, who I think should know better as to what he did.

[00:07:56]What does this say about judicial system of Nigeria right now?

[00:07:59]>> Everybody has talked about the judicial system and we are not just critical of the judicial system. We are only appealing that when you say the hope of a common man means that the other component of democracy can fail. But once judiciary fails, then you've put the community in crisis. So, what we're going to continue In fact, when people get to there's never been an election where people go to what's it called? Go to court and they come back happy. There's never been an election. There've always been accusation as to oh, they will tell you that they knock out a case on the basis of technicality. What's technicality when it is overwhelmingly clear that there were malpractices during election.

[00:08:43]So, again, our democracy may not be able to stand well if the issue that we have with our judicial system is not And it's not just about one person. People see, the conversations that I hear, they're conversations you cannot bring on television of people who talk about bribe, of people who talk about how they manipulate the process, of people who talk about all manner of things that they do because they want to retain a win or because they want to get a win through the court. As we have it now, as we are tidying up our process of electioneering, we must also lay a particular emphasis on the need for judiciary to also tidy up so that we will not come on television to make them a point of conversation every at every point in time.

[00:09:26]>> Very tough times we find ourselves. Uh we've heard the word judicial rascality.

[00:09:32]And it seems like it's raising its ugly head again. However, just um few days, a few hours ago, maybe 48 hours, um the Chief Justice of Nigeria did come out to say, "Listen, judges should learn how to have self-control. They should go ahead and ensure that they do not do things that the justice system would frown at." I mean, there's a lot that was said from that um meeting. But, it turns out that barely just 24 hours after that gathering, here we have someone who has come out. So, there are calls that, "Oh, okay, he should be sanctioned. He should be this." How can one person have so much power over a whole decision that's made by Nigeria's judiciary system?

[00:10:12]Where do you think we need to draw the line?

[00:10:14]It seems pretty much that the political space, I mean, you you you you you're a politician, I mean, whether you like it or not, political space is starting to have more power in controlling what the judiciary should actually be.

[00:10:28]How do we draw the line now?

[00:10:30]>> So, let me tell you the intention of the politician as we have it in Nigeria today. The intention of the politician is to corrupt our system so that they can benefit from it. They want to replace the people by all means because democracy is about the people.

[00:10:45]They know they will people will come out to cast their ballot to vote for them.

[00:10:49]So, what they are trying to do is to replace the people by corrupting the system. Once they corrupt the system, they don't no longer need the people. 10 people can line up here and the person who has two behind him will win election once they are able. And what are the targets? Number one is the police system.

[00:11:05]They want to corrupt the police system so that they have a say at every point in time at the direction that the police is going. Police is central to our democracy. And once the politician is able to corrupt the police, the the community people cannot do anything. The second one, which is perhaps more important, is the judicial system. They know that at the end of the day, if they are unable to do whatever it is that they want to do with the police, the other thing they have to corrupt is is judicial system. And they are doing this daily. And that's why you see um you will see a judgment in Abuja within 24 hours you will receive another one in Ibadan. Before you hear you will hear of who I hear, you hear of another city like that like that like that. So, it is the politician. And we must get to a point and I say I've said it before. I said the only power the politician has in Nigeria today is money. When they want to derail the system they throw money. When they want to frustrate any system they throw money. When they want to anything they want to do they throw money. And that's why when a case like this when a judgment like this comes everybody is smelling where's the money coming from? Because they they think the people have known that it cannot be ordinary. Now, it is very easy to throw money around in a system like this because majority of the people are living below the poverty line. Is it the civil servants you want to talk about?

[00:12:23]Even the people in the judicial system, they can no longer pay house rent because in Abuja for example now for you to get a a a good place you have to pay between 6 to 10 million naira. Likewise in Lagos. So, it makes poverty makes the system very vulnerable to the politician to manipulate. And that's the advantage they take. And that's why when you have conversation around oh salary everybody is cringing because they don't want anything to affect the money that comes to them.

[00:12:49]Because they know that without money they will not have control over the people. And they are trying to use money to replace the people with a corrupt system.

[00:12:59]>> What of the fact that the rule AGF the Attorney General of the Federation Lateef Fagbemi is saying is in support of these suits to deregister political parties?

[00:13:09]>> So, he's a plaintiff.

[00:13:10]>> Yeah, all of a sudden he's saying that you know that these non-performing political parties will inflate the ballots. He's giving several reasons why they should be deregistered and that it will cause a it will lead to a constitutional breach if INEC does not deregister them. I'm going to read out some of the things that he said. Okay, I can't find it now, but I know that he had said that it would lead to like yes, he said it would inflate ballots, it would burden public funds, it would complicate election administration and undermine the constitutional intention.

[00:13:42]He said he refers to them as non-performing political parties. I'm saying that, you know, there's an expectation for these political parties in terms of what the constitution provides and if they're not meeting what these expectations are, then they should be deregistered.

[00:13:54]>> Now, let's let's be very clear on the definition of non-performing. Nobody took I caught INEC to court in 2019 before they deregistered in 2020. When I came aboard, I have told you the definition of non-performing. It is when in any of the state, you cannot get 25% in a presidential election or you cannot produce a legislator at the national or the state level. You can't produce a governor, a deputy governor or even a chairman at the local government or even counselor. So, when you get to this point, nobody needs to beckon on INEC to deregister them. And when you talk about burden on public fund, I'm a bit worried about it. As a man who have actually run a political party, I can tell you that 2020 2009 was the last time that the government gave any kind of assistance in terms of subvention to political party. They stopped that since 2009. So, any political party you see in operation from 2011 to now means that these people are funding themselves. And let me tell you that before you register as a political party, that's why a lot of associations are taking their registration slip to INEC and INEC is turning it down. There must be a bit of standing that such association must have, a spread.

[00:15:08]And I tell you that in as much as we can argue that we don't know a lot of political party, any party that has the capacity to win one seat is no longer a small party. In at a point in in Kenya, they had up to 150 political parties.

[00:15:24]They brought it down now to I think about 90 90 something. I'm not saying we should copy that, but the truth is that to run a political party in Nigeria is extremely difficult because the system has made it very difficult. Have you ever asked yourself the question that why will a political party have the strength to register and we lack the strength to win election? Have you ever asked Let me tell you one of them. The party in power always makes winning election very difficult for political party. What do I mean?

[00:15:51]They have allocation for election.

[00:15:54]>> Mhm.

[00:15:54]>> And they have allocation for the day of election. So, they come out on the day of election apart from the normal trench hood that INEC allows. They've done their campaign. They've done all manner of things. Then on the day of election, they will come out. They will begin to ask people to vote for them. And when you voted for them, they have a particular budget. I told you here, a southwestern state in Nigeria budgeted 2.5 2.5 6 billion naira to distribute on the day of election to get 500 thousand vote. And that is an allocation of 5,000 per person.

[00:16:30]>> So, now when you don't have this kind of money, you have a political party. You don't have this kind of money. And the the people that line up daily to vote, they've tasted the blood of receiving money on the day of election. They are used to it already. New people are not coming to the political system. So, traditional voters who are market women organizers and all of them come on the day of the ballot and they are asking the new parties, "What what are you bringing?" And you are saying THERE'S NOTHING. SO, CREDIBLE people cannot win election. Have you asked yourself upon the way APC is treating its member, they screened out their former national secretary.

[00:17:06]They did all manner of things. They refused to give ticket to a sitting governor. Have you wondered why they stayed in the party?

[00:17:12]They cannot go. They stay there because that's the only party that can win election BECAUSE THEY KNOW HOW THEY WIN IT. SO, WHEN A GOVERNMENT NOW COMES OUT to say, "Oh, party is not performing."

[00:17:22]You ask yourself, has anybody asked why this political party is not performing?

[00:17:26]I went to my village to do some few political meetings. And immediately one of them knew that our meeting was about politics 2 weeks ago. He sent me a message that I should buy him what we call Keke. Keke are those mini buses.

[00:17:38]And I did a voice note to reply to him after about 1 week. I said, "If I can buy you Keke, then my father should be riding a Rolls-Royce by now."

[00:17:44]>> Oh.

[00:17:45]>> So, that's that's what the electorate expect. So, now because of the expectation of the electorate, and this conversation I'm having is not about APC. It's about every party that has been in power in Nigeria. They have pumped out money to pocket of electorate to the point that electorate cannot stand on integrity and say, "And apart from even giving money directly to people, they have made political process extremely expensive."

[00:18:11]I fought here and the head in my state.

[00:18:14]You know, I fought here the other day when a young guy came up and made a press statement and said, um, "Before you post anything on billboard, the billboard that you have paid for, that you have to come and pay 1.5 million naira." Some states are making it 30 million. It is over 20 million. And I branded the same thing. So, people in power has made the process very difficult to what we call smaller. And to be a small party is not is not an offense. In fact, can I shock you that there's no absolute number as to the number of political parties in the United States today?

[00:18:47]There's no specific number, but some of them made it to national prominence.

[00:18:51]Some of them will make it to, um, ballot. Some of them will just remain in their circle. But they're all registered. So, allow some of these states to, uh, some of these political parties to play in the places where they have strength. Accord Party will play in 2027 now because of the influence of the sitting governor. And they will make a lot a a lot of these things. Um, Young Progressives Party played in Anambra, played in aqua bomb. Some other political parties ADC played in Ondo. In fact, before the noise about Labour Party before Peter Obi become to Labour Party. Labour Party won election in 2007. 2007.

[00:19:26]So you will allow this political party to play in their communities in their rural areas once you they are able to win one seat. Not this lies that we now begin we now we now we now prompt people to go to court. I make those words to do what to do. And I support the fact that after 2027 election if any party does not perform, let I know they register the they register such party. Not that government will now be prompting them before before they do what what is necessary.

[00:19:53]>> Very interesting conversation. I mean I wish we could we could go ahead but talking about the judiciary we have a special we have a senior advocate of Nigeria who will be joining us all the way from our Abuja studios. Extensive conversation on how the judiciary should actually take its place. It's interesting to have you join us and would like to anchor this particular conversation here telling you thank you as we prepare to head to Abuja to have that one. But before we go >> What we do yeah I must mention I must say thank you for taking this time and the sacrifice to come on TV on your birthday. Happy birthday from all of us here at Breakfast Central and all of us at News Central. Happy birthday.

[00:20:30]>> Thank you it's it's it's good to be here always.

[00:20:32]>> great to have you.