Kogi, Bayelsa guber elections illegal – Falana

In from Timothy Enietan-Matthews . . .
The governorship elections in Kogi and Bayelsa states and other legislative elections ordered by various election tribunals across the country may be declared illegal if the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) should go ahead with them as presently constituted.
This was stated by a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, Mr. Femi Falana, who explained that the Independent National Electoral Commission as presently constituted lacks the power to fix dates for election and conduct them.
Falana in a statement on Sunday, said that the electoral commission is currently constituted by two national commissioners and therefore cannot take any valid decision.
“In other words, as the INEC is not validly constituted as required by section 159 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999, as amended, its decisions are liable to be set aside.
“Even when the INEC was constituted by a chairman ‎and three other national commissioners in 2010, the Federal High Court held that the electoral body was not competent to take any decision.”
According to Falana, the outcome of the polls would amount to an exercise in futility due to illegal composition of the INEC.
“That was the case of Action Congress of Nigeria v. Independent National Electoral Commission & ors. (Unreported Suit No: FHC/CS/36/09) where the Court declared the composition of the INEC illegal and unconstitutional on the ground that the four national commissioners who were in office at the material time could not take any valid decision as the quorum of the INEC should not be less than five national commissioners at any point in time.

Read also: INEC blows whistle for Kogi, Bayelsa guber elections

“In concluding the judgment the trial judge, the Honourable Justice Liman had this to say:
“Before I end this judgment, let me remark on a very sad note. The Independent National Electoral Commission constitutes the most important indispensable bedrock on which our democratic institutions are built. Its function is central to the smooth and enduring evolution of our political structures. It is not an understatement to say that without a functioning INEC, no election into any political office will be possible.
“Then how come that in the 11th year of the country’s journey into constitutional governance we do not have an electoral body with its full complement of members. We continued to pretend that all was well with our electoral system while the membership continued to drop from 13 down to 4 and it seems, we remain complacent as if all is well. I think something is wrong somewhere and the earlier both the executive and legislative departments of the government acted to reverse this shameful trend the better for the people of this country.”
Falana contended that the Federal Government did not appeal the judgement but rather went ahead to appoint 11 national commissioners for the electoral body.
“The five-year term of office of the national commissioners of INEC has since expired by effluxion of time. In the same vein, the term of office of over 20 Resident Electoral Commissioners has since expired”, Falana said.
INEC had fixed the dates for the Kogi and Bayelsa gubernatorial elections for November 21 and December 5 respectively. This is aside other elections that have been ordered to be conducted within 90 days by election petition tribunals.
In addition to the governorship elections,‎ the recent annulment of legislative elections by the Election Petition Tribunals across the country means that fresh elections would be conducted in the affected constituencies within 90 days of the dates of the verdicts.

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