The judiciary is construed as the heart of democracy and the refuge of the people against unwanted deprivation of their rights and privileges. When matters become knotty and inexplicable at any level of the society, the courts are relied upon for interpretation and clarifications. To be able to interpret, the courts itself must be clear in its judgement and rulings; to be able to clarify, the court must refrain from making conflicting rulings and judgement on matters brought before it.However, in recent times, clarity seems to have eloped the judicial process in Nigeria. Rather than providing solution to conflicts, the court itself is now embroiled in conflicts emanating from the confusing and inconsistent decisions of the different panels of the Court of Appeal on election matters. The judgment and ruling that has trailed the April general election have dragged the nation into more judicial confusion than it met it. This, according to Prof Yemi Osinbajo, a former Attorney-General of Lagos State, is a national embarrassment. The danger such condition portends for the country is too many to be discussed.The continual, and seemingly unending, cycle of trial of election petitions in Oyo State is a worrying indicator of the wide road to decadence upon which the judiciary is treading. . There is no doubt that the Electoral Act is the superior law when hearing election petition cases. Therefore, it becomes an issue of concern to see that most of the judgment on the appeals, arising from the tribunals, have been conflicting, with little or no regard to the dictates of the Electoral Act. Therefore, it bothers the mind that those who are supposed to defend and uphold the laws of the land are the source of the conflicts they were supposed to be resolving.In the trial of the petition filed by Chief Bisi Ilaka of the Accord Party against the election of Senator Ayo Adeseun of the ACN of Oyo Central Senatorial District, it was apparent that the lower tribunal had been acting out of jurisdiction by sitting in full to hear interlocutory motions and application. During the trial of this case, the Ilaka-team had sought to amend the address of their petition on the motion raised by the Adeseun team that the petition was addressed to a tribunal unknown to law. The tribunal, however, granted the prayers of the Ilaka-team, allowing it to amend the heading and the address of the petition.Not satisfied, the Adeseun team approached the Court of Appeal to move that the tribunal lacked jurisdiction to amend the petition of the applicants and that in hearing the interlocutory motion, the tribunal also erred by sitting in full, a pattern it had been using since inception. The Adeseun team brought to the notice of the court that the paragraphs 47(1) and 27(1) of Electoral Act 2010 as ammended which is: 47(1): "No motion shall be moved and all motions shall come up at the prehearing session except in extreme circumstances with leave of Tribunal or Court"27 (1) "All interlocutory questions and matters may be heard and disposed of by the Chairman of the Tribunal or the Presiding Justice of the Court who shall have control over proceedings as a judge of the Federal high Court"After finding that the motion to amend the address of the tribunal by the Ilaka-camp was not made during the pre-hearing session and that the tribunal sat in full in hearing the interlocutory motion, the Court of Appeal, through the Justice Alagoa-led panel rose in defence of the Electoral Act and the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, to set aside the ruling of the lower tribunal granting the amendment of the petition and set aside the motion. With this judgment, the lower tribunal had no option but to dismiss the case brought before it by Chief Bisi Ilaka, as it therefore meant that the petition was brought to a tribunal unknown to law.This judgement also meant that those cases such as Wale Okediran vs Agboola, Adeleke Apapa vs INEC and Adewale Vs Alli, during whose hearing the tribunal sat in full to hear interlocutory motions, had to be tried using the new order and pattern dictated by the judgement of the Court of Appeal and the Electoral Act as amended that only the chairman of the tribunal can hear interlocutory applications. These cases were then tried with this new decision and the chairman of the tribunal sat alone to hear interlocutory matters as dictated by law.However, in the same Court of Appeal, Chief Bisi Ilaka filed an appeal to set aside the ruling of the tribunal of his case being dismissed. Without regard to the precedence set by the same court, Justice C. N. Uwa and his panel members, in less than 48 hours gave a hurried ruling that the chairman of the tribunal could not sit alone in hearing interlocutory motion, thus overruling the earlier decision of the Alagoa-led panel. With the manner and conduct of the Justice Uwa-led panel, it was obvious that there is more than meets the eye, in the way the panel hurriedly reached his decision within a very short time.The implication is that the same Court of Appeal had given different and conflicting decisions in the same case between the same parties on the same subject matter. And it is trite law that once a case had been tried, it can never be returned to the same court for hearing or trial. Thus, with the new decision of the Justice Uwa's panel, the Court had shot itself in the foot. It meant that all the aforementioned other cases which the tribunal had revisited of which the chairman sat alone to hear interlocutory motions, would have to tried the third time. Also, this judgement has left the lower tribunal in a confused state on what to do - whether to sit in full or for the chairman to sit alone, according to the Electoral Act, in hearing interlocutory motions. What the Justice Uwa's decision meant was that the lower tribunals ought to disobey the Court of Appeal judgement of Justice Alagoa and sit as a panel of three.Such judicial volte face is not only embarrassing; it is absurd and totally meddlesome for the clarity of the legal system. What this would infer is that there will be a continous cycle of trials of the same cases over and over in Oyo State, a state known for its politically volatile nature. For as it stands, the Adeseun camp has filed yet another appeal praying that the Justice Uwa-led panel's decision be dismissed. Won't this be the beginning of the era of unending litigation in the state' Will such conflicting ruling not ignite chaos and anarchy in such a politically-tensed state as Oyo State'The President of the Court of appeal must thus step in, to control the way and manner by which Justices in his hallowed courts are giving conflicting orders capable of dismantling the system as a whole. The case of Oyo State is not an isolated one, there have also been conflicting decisions in the Abuja, Calabar, Kaduna and Makurdi divisions of the same Court of Appeal as to the manner of initiation of pre-hearing sessions for the lower tribunal. Justice Dahiru Musdapher must clean the system of Justices who are willy tools in the hands of politicians to give rulings and decisions which are not only conflicting and confusing but are capable of destroying the nation's judicial system.Lamidi wrote in from Ibadan ,Oyo State.
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