The Judiciary Must Be Wary Of Substituting Their Will For The Will Of The Electorate – Osinbajo

The Vice president of the federal republic of Nigeria, Yemi Osinbanjo has condemned the court’s seemingly overbearing judicial intervention in election matters.

The vice president expressed his worry at the 53rd Conference of the National Association of Law Teachers, held at Bayero University, Kano (BUK).

Naija News reports that during his speech, Osinbanjo stated that the will of the people should supersede all other legal interpretations and cited the case of Zamfara where the supreme court judgment favored the party that was defeated in the election.

“The decision of the Supreme Court in the case of APC and Marafa, and that is a case, where the Supreme Court nullified the elections of all candidates of the APC and gave judgement in favour of the party, who were resoundingly defeated in the same election.

“In that election in 2019, the trouble at the Supreme Court game was that the APC primaries that produced candidates that were voted for were invalid.

“And without recourse to the elections that had in the polls rejected all the other candidates in the other political parties, the Supreme Court declared candidates of parties other than the APC as winners of the various offices that were contested, as winners in that February 23rd and March 15 general election.

“The court held that the APC votes cast by the Zamfara State electorate to select their preferred candidate to governor, senators, members of the House of Representatives, members of the House of Assembly were all, and I quote, ‘wasted votes’. Why? Because according to the court, APC did not conduct any valid primary elections and as such, had no candidates for any elections in the state.

“So, here is a situation, where the party that lost every seat, from governorship to House of Assembly, was given all those seats on judicial pronouncements. For the voter, this decision must have at best been puzzling.”