By Matilda Ikediobi

Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, Oba Maduabuchi, in this monitored interview, spoke on on the ruling of the Supreme Court on the matter of the African Democratic Congress, ADC, and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.

Excerpts:

What is your take on the ruling of the Supreme Court on the matter of the ADC and PDP?

If I start with the ADC, the ADC had no business in the Supreme Court in the first place. This is because there was no decision of the Federal High Court that was appealable.

The court said put them on notice, and they went to court of appeal without obtaining leave because it’s an interlocutory appeal. And the court of appeal says, my friend, go back and hear your case on the merits in full. But the court of appeal now overstepped its boundaries by making an order nobody sought. In law, we say that courts are not Father Christmas.

They do not give you what you didn’t ask for and what you do not merit. But somehow, the court of appeal, in making the proper decision that there was no valid appeal, now took a step further to say, maintain status quo. That, in my opinion, was wrong. If there is no podium upon which you can stand, you cannot sprint and you can’t spring. Once the court said there is no valid appeal before us, it should just wash its hands off the matter.

And that was the only appealable point that could move from the court of appeal to the Supreme Court. That is why every other thing they brought to court was dismissed by the Supreme Court. But that main point, that the court of appeal did not have the powers or jurisdiction to make an order not sought by any of the parties was properly made by the Supreme Court. Still on ADC, we have to look at it from the perspective of INEC. The court of appeal said, maintain status quo ante bellum. We remove ante bellum and just concentrate on status quo.

They are not the same thing. Status quo ante bellum means before the commencement of hostilities, that is what we mean by status quo ante bellum. When INEC, acting on the order of the court of appeal removed David Mark, they were on solid ground because the order of the court of appeal was maintain the status quo ante bellum, not the status quo. If they say maintain the status quo, what they mean is stay where you are, don’t move. When they vilify the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC ,because he removed David Mark, well, I assure that if the law is only a perspective thing, it depends on how you see it. But if I know, status quo ante bellum means before what brought you to court occurred, before the commencement of hostilities.

So when Joash Amupitan, as a lawyer, as a professor of law, removed David Mark, he was only obeying the law. Now, the Supreme Court has said the court of appeal was wrong. He has restored David Mark, but we won’t give him an accolade for being subject to the rule of law. That is our problem. Public officers are always criticised, but we do not give them accolades when they deserve it. Two court orders, which did not give any advantage to INEC, and he obeyed them promptly.

If I am to talk on PDP, the PDP judgement settled the issue of factionalisation and who are the proper leaders of the PDP. It settled it conclusively. I don’t know why we are concentrating on this judgement regarding Ibadan Convention. Ibadan Convention is not what took people to court. What took PDP to court is who are the proper and valid rulers or officials of the PDP. Ibadan Convention is simply tangential to the whole thing, and we do not seem to concentrate on the judgement of the Supreme Court. What the Supreme Court said about the other faction, the Sam Anyanwu faction, which it completely obliterated, the Supreme Court was pointed on it by saying you are not members of the party. You don’t have a right to speak for the party. Anything you have done, whether it is in terms of money, any letter you have written, the March 12th Convention was removed. If that has been removed by the Supreme Court, what it means is that these people are not members of the PDP.

The members of the PDP are the Turaki members, those who are backing Turaki. But I said it before that one thing courts don’t tolerate is defiance of its orders. In law, when you raise the issue of jurisdiction, the court takes it first, but there is an exception. Where the issue of contempt or defiance of court is involved, you keep jurisdiction aside and determine first whether the court was defied. When the Supreme Court said, if I give you a more broad explanation, the two groups, both the majority judgement and the minority judgement, agreed that this thing is internal affairs of a political party. But the majority now took a step further to say, but that thing happened, what they did, they did in defiance of court order.

The other group was not ready to go that extra mile to say they did it in defiance of court order. But this one said no, even though it is the affair, they did it when there was a valid, persisting order, binding them, debarring them from conducting the convention. And that is the position of the law.

Now that the supreme court has said, go back to the high court, where the originating summons was before the court. In other matter, in the court of Justice Joyce Abdulmalik, that was brought by Norman Obinna and other persons from the states, has that now been rendered academic, or is it still a living matter?

No, it is a living matter because a judgement has been rendered. A judgement was rendered by the court where I think there were certain decisions reached. That’s the judgement that set aside all state congresses and where they removed the state chairman. Of course, it is a valid judgement, and the court acted within its jurisdiction. If you are affected by it, you take the next step to the court of appeal. What is before Justice Joyce Abdulmalik is who takes over the leadership of the ADC when Ralph Nwosu resigns. The Gombe man is saying, I am supposed to take over.

But the other group is saying, no, we met the NWC, they resigned, and we were appointed as the authentic leaders. These are two different issues. The issue of what happened in the state is different from who is occupying the position at the national level. This one will continue. I can bet you that the David Mark thing will go back to the Supreme Court again.

Talking about outcomes or next steps for the ADC. Now, they have to go back to the Federal High Court. But there is the issue of time, especially when you look at the INEC timetable.

What would you say to the ADC? Should the members continue to pursue this at the Federal High Court, bearing in mind the time factor?

Well, that’s a political decision. It’s not a law decision, and I discuss law here. But if I were them, I would see how I can settle this internally. They have already inflicted the wound upon themselves. Go and put somebody on notice. You run to the Court of Appeal. From Court of Appeal, you run to the Supreme Court. And they are complaining about time.

What they should do is call Gombe. Gombe, what’s your problem? And every time you are saying it is the APC. Do you want the APC to feed you? I don’t see how you can expect the APC to be making you stable so that you’ll be strong to oppose them. When I’m doing a case, even against any of my good friends, I look for his greatest weak point and exploit it. They look for my own weak point and exploit it. When we come out, we start smiling and laughing, oh boy, I deal with you today. That is the way these things work.

ADC cannot be giving advances to the APC, and then they complain that the APC is destabilising them. You know that this thing is a question of time, and you allow Gombe, you allow your state chairmen to go to court, kept you busy. That is one thing people know, they keep you busy, you are not organising, you are chasing shadows, the other one is moving. And by 30th you wont be able to present a candidate. By 30th, you are not sure you have come back from the Supreme Court. On these two cases, and more, there are more cases pending.

So, when you behave naively politically, you don’t blame anybody. They should explore how to make people not go to court. How many people are in court in APC? How many? Because they have sorted themselves out and put their things in order. It is not a law issue now, you are entitled to go to court, you are entitled to go on appeal.

Who should INEC listen to: is it the Joyce Abdulmalik judgement, or David Mark judgement? That’s number one. Number two, I want to go back to the PDP. You said the Turaki are the authentic ones. Really? Is that the case now? This is now confusing…

If I understand those things properly, because I am not in the ADC cases, what was before the other judgement by the state chairman is that their tenure had not expired, if I understand the issue properly. So, if the tenure has not elapsed or expired, and the court says, yes, your tenure has not expired, it is different from saying, who is the national chairman of the PDP, which is what is pending before Abdulmalik.

And if the Supreme Court says, go and determine that issue, the question of who is state chairman in Enugu state where I come from has nothing to do with who is the national chairman of the party. The INEC, for purposes of national chairmanship, must listen to the Supreme Court. There is no other valid order saying maintain status quo or no status quo, because nobody asked for it, it was invalidly made, and there was no valid appeal upon which the court of appeal could have acted.

So, go back and do your work. INEC knows those who were there on the platform, and they brought back David Mark. So, the two are parallels that cannot meet. David Mark’s case is different from that of the national chairman. I don’t know if I made myself clear.

Can the national chairman go now with their own judgement to INEC and say, this is our own judgement, we want to claim leadership of the party since they have a judgement that has not been appealed?

The Supreme Court did not decide the issue of leadership. The only thing the Supreme Court removed was status quo. The main issue is still in the High Court. Now, if a suit is pending, and there is an authentic judgement of a court, it must be obeyed.

Does that mean the state government chairman can go to INEC with that judgement and say, activate for us?

Of course. At the end of the day, if Judge Abdulmalik delivers her own judgement, all of them will come. That is when options will be available to INEC, to decide which of the judgments it wants to pick.

Can you quickly talk about Turaki?

Now, Turaki’s issue. Remember there were two appeals. I don’t know why people forget it. One was argued by Paul Erokoro. One was argued by Chris Uche. The Paul Erokoro appeal was allowed. There was an appeal by Sam Anyanwu’s group. They were obliterated. They were told, my friend, you have no business with the PDP. You’ve been expelled. You’ve been expelled. So, that put paid to the Wike faction completely.

Now, if there is no Wike faction, there is only the Turaki faction left. The Supreme Court said, that thing that brought Turaki as national chairman, is invalid. It does not mean that the PDP as a body has been removed, or it was in any way affected. It is Turaki as a leader, as a chairman, with all his National Executive Committee and National Working Committee, that were dissolved. But the PDP as a party, as we know it as a party today, is still intact. And it is that group that produced Turaki that is the PDP of today because, you go back to the known, which is Damagun.

They sprouted from Damagun and held the Convention. They nullified the Convention, but they did not nullify the fact that the authentic National Working Committee and National Executive Committee of the PDP was headed by Damagun. So, whoever originates from Damagun whichever group now belongs to Damagun is the authentic PDP on ground.

I wanted you to comment briefly on this other matter, in which the Attorney General of the Federation is a defendant, INEC is also a defendant. Namely, the issue brought by plaintiff, the incorporated trustees of former national legislators, to the effect that certain political parties, the Accord Party, the ZLP, the Labour Party and the ADC have not met the constitutional threshold under section 225A of the amended constitution, and that INEC should de-recognise them.

What do you think will be the implications of this, whichever way is determined, for the political process?

I have to be careful here, because the matter is still pending. I am not supposed to comment on it. But I will just say this. I will ask two questions: one, what is the locus of those that brought the matter? Forum of Former National Legislators. You are not a political party, you don’t want to run on the left. What is your business? You don’t say you want to run an election. You don’t say that your position was taken by them.

How did you suffer anything above and more than any ordinary Nigerian? That is what we mean by locus standi.

What is their locus? Second, and more importantly, before you can say somebody did not meet the law, you must look at the validity of that law. Why are you asking a court today to deregister political parties because they did not comply with the law, which says you must have elected officers and so on and so forth. But the same constitution was amended this year. The constitution of last year is not the constitution of this year.

When the constitution says unless you do so and so, you look at when that law took effect, which is when the president signed the amendment into law. From that day that the president signed that amendment into law, have we held an election? If we have not held an election, which law then did they flout? You can’t go back to a law that has been amended and dropped. The current constitution of Nigeria is not that of last year. The constitution that they will flout is when an election is held under the current constitution.

Then you can go to court and say this should be deregistered. But you can’t amend the law and then still want to punish me. Even if the provisions are the same, it now becomes a question of efficacy. When did it become effective? The law became effective the day the new constitution, the one we’re using today, became effective the day the president signed the amendment. Any infraction must be after that signing, not before.

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