A human rights Islamic organisation, Muslim Rights Concern, MURIC, has expressed dismay over alleged abuse of judicial process by politicians.
The group spoke against the backdrop of the court orders secured to stop the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, from the continuation of the collation of results in Rivers State and Bauchi State in the March 9 governorship election.
Election in the states as well as in others had been declared inconclusive and a date for supplementary elections had been announced.
But following results of its fact finding committee, INEC resolved to move ahead with the collation, a situation which did not go down well with some top politicians.
The politicians, including the Governor of Bauchi State, Mohammed Abubakar, went to court and obtained an order stopping INEC.
In a statement issued by the Director of MURIC, Professor Ishaq Akintola, the injunctions effectively compounded the dilemma facing INEC in its attempts to resolve the phenomenon of inconclusive results in five states of the federation.
The statement by MURIC reads: “Nigeria today is sandwiched between desperate politicians and a corrosive judicial system. The system holds INEC by the jugular, strangulating the electoral body in a vicious grip. Politicians are using too many injunctions to confuse INEC. They have taken liberty for licence and the system continues to condone their excesses. They approach the courts at will and, like spoiled brats, they spill the milk by kicking the cup, yet they cry over it.
“Except for very few, our politicians are too desperate and this cuts across the existing political parties. They are short in discipline, long in litigation. In fact discipline has long taken flight from their vocabulary. They pay more attention to the law courts, lawyers and judges than the citizens who voted for them. As a result, they waste a large portion of available resources on litigation, leaving too little for projects.”
MURIC said that the desperation exhibited by politicians was caused by the high profit margin in politics while the recklessness and savagery were caused by a total desertification of eschatological values.
“Most politicians of present-day Nigeria lack piety. Impunity drives their political impulse because they find it easy to circumvent man-made law while very few among them remember that they will still render account to Allah in the Hereafter,” MURIC argued.
It stated that the solution was with the National Assembly, NASS, and the Nigerian people.
It advised the National Assembly to make political posts less attractive.
In particular, it said, “the salaries of members of the NASS must be drastically reduced. Judges should rely more on rationality, morality and natural justice than law in its crudeness. The judicial process must be reformed. In particular, the process of filing injunctions must be tightened.”
It stated further: “Nigerians must change their docile profile and become active participants in the affairs of the nation. Nigerians must be prepared to stop the excesses of the political class through non-violent but sustained agitation.
“As we rise from this session, we assert the innocence of the Nigerian electoral body, INEC. In view of the obvious desperation and excesses manifested by Nigerian politicians, the lion share of the blame for the ups and downs in the 2019 general elections must go to the politicians. Nigeria has too many political imbeciles parading the political landscape. It is these political shenanigans who collude with the courts to make INEC a victim of circumstances.”
