Analysts have expressed divergent views on the legality of some certain governors seeking tenure extension on the basis of winning rerun in their states, IDOWU BABAJIDE writes.
It is no more news that some state governors have gone to court to ask for tenure extension. The court actions were instituted not too long after the decision of the Independent National Electoral Commission to strike out the names of six governors (now five) since Ekiti State now has a new governor from the list of beneficiaries of tenure elongation. The states where elections will not hold come 2010, according to INEC are Ondo, Edo, Anambra, Rivers and now Ekiti.
The aggrieved governors, Liyel Imoke (Cross River); Timi Sylva (Bayelsa); Ibrahim Idris (Kogi); Aliyu Wamakko (Sokoto) and Murtala Nyako (Adamawa) who are incidentally all members of the Peoples Democratic Party have been ordered by the court to consolidate their briefs since their prayers are similar and to enable the courts to fast track the whole process of judgment delivery.
The basis of their prayer is that they took fresh oath of offices and oath of allegiances upon their re-election, following the nullifications of the earlier one held in 2007. They are therefore asking the courts to declare that their tenure starts to count from the time the second oath of office was taken, which means after their re-election.
Tenure extension has been a word which crept into the nation‘s democratic lexicon with the sacking of former Anambra State Governor, Chris Ngige and the declaration of Peter Obi as the state governor by the Supreme Court on March 15, 2006.
This argument of the state governors however ingenious as it may sound, is very nauseating to the thought process and I have propounded three grounds upon which their prayers must fail. Let me also state that because of the controversies surrounding the version of the constitution that should apply for the purpose of determining the fate of the governors and elections, I have decided to exclude that issue from my discussion.
The first ground why my Lords must not allow such plea is because allowing the reverse will be tantamount to allowing the statute to be used as an engine of fraud. The first question that the governors should ask is if there were no elements or traces of electoral irregularities, would there have been any need for the courts to order fresh elections? It is bad enough that they engaged in electoral irregularities, now, the governors want to benefit from their own fraud. This is against the equitable maxim which states ex turpi causa non oritur action which in simple word means ‘a person should not be allowed to benefit from his own wrong-doing.’ I must not fail to state that the action of the above mentioned state governors rekindles the call for the prosecution of electoral riggers. If these governors were convicted or barred, where would they get the impetus to request for tenure elongation? It is an insult on the process of justice and I pray the judges to remember the legal maxim frauget Jus Nunquam Cohabitant which means fraud and justice can never dwell together when coming to its decision in the case.
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