Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar on Monday delivered a harsh rebuke of the Nigerian Supreme Court for its decision to allow President Bola Tinubu to get away with presenting a forged university certificate to the Independent National Electoral Commission — brazenly sidestepping a clear constitutional provision that required automatic disqualification of any candidate caught in such act. 

Section 137 (1)(j) of the 1999 Constitution (amended in 2010) states that no one would be legitimately elected president of Nigeria if the person “has presented a forged certificate to the Independent National Electoral Commission.”

But the Supreme Court, in a judgement delivered on October 26, said the evidence that was released via a federal court order in the United States, which exposed Mr Tinubu’s forgery, arrived cannot be added to the body of evidence in the election petitions because it arrived late. 

The decision immediately sparked outrage, with many Nigerians aghast that the nation’s highest court could be so compromised to the point of allowing such brazen illegality to stand. Mr Abubakar, the main opposition candidate who stood against Mr Tinubu during the February 25 presidential election, weighed in on the controversy during a press briefing at the party’s headquarters on Monday morning. 

“If the Supreme Court, the highest court in the land, implies by its judgment that crime is good and should be rewarded, then Nigeria has lost, and the country is doomed, irrespective of who occupies the presidential seat,” Mr Abubakar said. “Obviously, the consequences of those decisions for the country will not end at the expiration of the current government. They will last for decades.”

Spokespersons for the president and the Supreme Court did not comment when Peoples Gazette sent them enquiries about Mr Abubakar’s remarks. 

The Supreme Court panel was led by John Inyang Okoro, an associate justice who was arrested by the State Security Service in 2016 over allegations he took bribes to compromise judgements. Mr Okoro denied the charges, but the agency confiscated cash, mostly U.S. dollars, from his residence that was said to have been proceeds of inducement. 

Mr Abubakar said future elections would suffer further credibility crises unless immediate steps are adopted to address the damage done by the axis of Mr Tinubu, the electoral office INEC and the Supreme Court, urging the parliament to pass sweeping new laws in order to save Africa’s largest economy. 

Some of the recommendations include a new law that would require a candidate scoring above 50 per cent to be declared the winner of a presidential or governorship election. This, Mr Abubakar believes, would help address the current situation in which Mr Tinubu became president with only 36 per cent of the vote, an outcome of the splitting of opposition votes between Mr Abubakar’s Peoples Democratic Party and Peter Obi of the Labour Party. 

Mr Abubakar also said a candidate should not be allowed to assume office until all challenges have been resolved at the election tribunal. The former vice-president believes this would help curb the existing arrangement that allows Mr Tinubu to seize control of federal resources and apparatus, which he subsequently deployed to keep himself in office. 

The recommendations are not entirely new, but some political analysts believe Mr Abubakar’s advancement might make them resonate better among the political elite and force a possible amendment to the Constitution.

“This is likely going to gain better traction now that the former vice-president is talking about it,” political analyst Sola Olubanjo told The Gazette by telephone on Monday afternoon. “The credibility crisis that confronts the Supreme Court and INEC could just be the start of a better future for the Nigerian election management.”