It is not for nothing that the apex court in the land is called the Supreme Court. It is supreme in all things and literally can make a man a woman and vice-versa.
As the last point for adjudication of all judicial cases, the finality of the Supreme Court equates it almost with the power of God. The difference between the jurists as a court and God Almighty is that the men who populate the Supreme Court are mortal.
Indeed, while we understand from scripture that God does not change, being as constant as the Northern Star that He created, the character and effusions of the Supreme Court change from time to time.
It is for this reason that today, many people look with affection towards the court of yore that was populated by some of the most erudite jurists in the land, nay in the world.
Many today have continued to recall memories of the court of Justice Samson Uwaifo, Justice Augustine Nnamani, Kayode Eso, Chukwudife Oputa among some other egg heads whose legacies and judicial pronouncements have been appraised for their encyclopedic wisdom.
Unarguably, the low point of the court was the era of the immediate past Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Tanko Muhammad.
There were several controversial judgments in the Tanko Muhammad court, but the low point was the judgment on the governorship election of Imo State.
That judgment brought Senator Hope Uzodimma who was the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC who was fourth in the INEC result to the first position.
The controversy over the judgment was also shadowed by the still unanswered question of double nomination as regards the sustenance of the APC given the issues around the party’s disputed candidate, Uche Nwosu.
Nwosu it would be recalled, had been nominated by Action Alliance, AA, and also by APC and was as such disqualified by the courts on the basis of double nomination. So, the question many have asked and continue to ask is on what political platform was Uzodimma also catapulted from the fourth position to the first position? If Nwosu was disqualified on the basis of being the candidate of the APC and the AA, how come Uzodimma was also elevated on the platform of the APC?
Four years after but now under another judicial era, the Supreme Court is faced with resolving a number of controversial judgments thrown up by the Court of Appeal.
Truth be told, there has hardly been a more controversial Court of Appeal than the one now headed by the Plateau-born president, Justice Monica Dongban-Mensem.
That court has now thrown a number of contentious judgments to the Supreme Court. Among the most controversial cases are the governorship election disputes in Nasarawa, Kano and Plateau States.
However, none of the cases is as contentious as that of Plateau where issues have narrowed down to what some allege as primordial issues on the plateau.
The Appeal Court has countered the Supreme Court on several issues on election disputes on the plateau bringing to question doubts as to the finality of pronouncements as made by the Supreme Court.
In the past, the Supreme Court had in not-too-reserved comments cast aspersion on lower courts which upturned or to some degree put shadows on settled law as determined by the Supreme Court.
In the case of Plateau, several issues have been thrown up as to put to question the superiority of the Supreme Court over the Court of Appeal and other courts in the land.
The most poignant is the question of pre-election matters being brought up in election tribunals. The court in several landmark cases and most recently in the case brought against Vice President Kashim Shettima affirmed that issues that ought to be settled before elections should not be brought up in election adjudications.
The wisdom of the court appears to flow from the fact of simply determining election cases on their merits and not being tied up with issues having to do with nominations.
In Plateau, the APC has stressed that the PDP did not have a structure. But as the Supreme Court proved in 2021 in Anambra State on the nomination of the PDP candidate, the apex court proved that it is the duty of the National Working Committee of the party to nominate candidates for the governorship election.
The court at that time established and has continued to hold that the state chapter of the party has no role in the nomination of candidates for election.
That is what makes the judgment of the Court of Appeal appear as an affront to the Supreme Court.
Another affront of the Court of Appeal to the Supreme Court is the repeated judgments of the apex court that a political party cannot question the nomination of the candidate of another political party. The PDP has restated time and again that there is no one member of the PDP that has challenged the nomination of its candidates on the plateau with the notable exception of the APC.
That the Court of Appeal whose president is from Plateau State gave what has now been termed contradictory judgments on election disputes in favour of APC has made judicial watchers to look in askance at the motif of the judgments. Is it to settle local political or ethnic scores or an ascendancy of the Court of Appeal over the Supreme Court? Nigeria is watching this final match between the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court.
