Senate plans law on May 29 handover date

AGAINST the backdrop of speculations that the May 29 handover date might be tinkered with, the Senate yesterday began a move to enact a law aimed at making the date sacrosanct.

The chamber also yesterday finished the second reading of another bill seeking to amend the Electoral Act 2010 with a view to democratising the National Executive Committees (NECs) of all political parties.

The Senate, however, threw out a motion sponsored by Lee Maeba from Rivers State, which sought to honour the executed Ogoni rights activist cum environmentalist, Ken Saro-Wiwa, post-humously.

Maeba had prayed the chamber to name a major street in the Federal Capital Territory and observe a minute silence in Saro-Wiwa’s honour.

According to the report submitted by the Senate Committee on Establishment and Public Service, which was passed by the chamber yesterday, at the inauguration of the President and the Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the swearing-in ceremony shall be organised and executed by the National Assembly while the “inauguration shall take place in the arcade of the National Assembly.”

The proposed bill, in Section 1(ii), also provides that “the entire inauguration ceremony, apart from the actual administration of the Oaths of Office, shall be conducted and officiated by members of the National Assembly.”

Clause 6 (1) of the bill proposes that all serving and former presidents, heads of state, heads of the Federal Government, vice presidents or their equivalent, Senate presidents and Speakers of the House of Representatives and the Chief Justices of the Federation shall be in attendance with their spouses while “the president-elect and the vice president-elect and their spouses with the immediate families shall be the last to come in the procession for the inauguration’’.

The inauguration shall have a committee headed by a chairman appointed from the National Assembly with 12 other members drawn from the Legislature, Executive and the Judiciary.
The Clerk to the National Assembly, the bill further stated, shall be the head of the secretariat of the inauguration ceremony.

In another development, the problem of protracted electoral litigation in the country again took the front burner yesterday with former President of Ghana, Mr. John Agyekum Kufuor; Chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Attahiru Jega, erstwhile Chief Justice of Nigeria, Muhammadu Uwais and a retired jurist, Justice George Oguntade, all proffering the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) mechanism as panacea to the vexed issue.
However, Kufuor charged INEC to be fair, independent and transparent in its conduct of the 2011 general elections to stem the deluge of litigation that had trailed past elections conducted by the commission.

In a related development, President Boni Yayi of Republic of Benin has called on Nigerians to ensure that they elect a transparent and peaceful leader as President come 2011.
Briefing the media after holding bilateral talks with President Goodluck Jonathan at the State House, Abuja yesterday, President Yayi noted that Benin Republic looked up to Nigeria for guidance as “a big brother,” stressing that Nigeria had come of age to elect credible leaders through transparent polls.

Yayi’s charge came on the heels of a similar call yesterday by President John Atta Mills of Ghana who said Nigerians should be allowed to choose their own leaders through the ballot box next year.

Yayi also solicited President Jonathan’s support and input, in his capacity as chairman of ECOWAS, towards transparent and credible polls in Benin Republic, saying: “Benin’s problems are Nigeria’s problems too and vice versa”.

He added: “President Jonathan and I discussed areas of greater cooperation with Nigeria as our big brother, issues of security of our borders, better infrastructure for our peoples, the prosperity of our citizens, and how we can choose transparent and peaceful leaders in the ECOWAS sub-region.

“I am going back to Benin satisfied and happy that President Jonathan is ready to help us.”
Meanwhile, the Federal High Court, Abuja Division on Wednesday acceded to the request of 13 plaintiffs to serve some respondents in a suit challenging the zoning of the Presidency by substituted means.

The plaintiffs noted that although they have served majority of the defendants, they could not serve 11 of them despite several attempts by the court bailiff.

Ruling on an ex-parte application moved by a team of lawyers led by Babatunde Bamgboye, counsel to the applicants, Judge Gabriel Kolawole granted their prayer “for leave to the plaintiffs to serve all the defendants save and except 8th, 11th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 23rd, 27th 37th, 50th, 53rd, 58th, 59th defendants by substituted means, to wit: By advertising same in a newspaper circulating within the federation and by a notice put up at the Federal High Court, Abuja and for such further order(s) as this Honourable court may deem fit to make in the circumstances of this case”.

The court adjourned the suit to December 6, 2010 for mention and report of service on the said defendants.

Also, yesterday, the chamber began the process of amending the 2010 Electoral Act with a view to institutionalising internal democracy in the nation’s political parties.

Senate Majority Leader, Teslim Folarin, who introduced the bill titled: “A Bill for an Act to amend the Electoral Act No. 64 of 2010,” said one of the highlights of the bill is amendment to section 87 of the principal Act to strengthen internal democracy by ensuring that the National Executive Committee (NEC) of a political party is the highest decision making body, and including in its membership presiding officers of the National Assembly, chairmen and vice chairmen of standing committees in the Senate, chairmen and deputy chairmen of standing committees in the House of Representatives.

The bill was sponsored by the Senate Committee on the Review of the 1999 Constitution led by the Deputy President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu.
Folarin explained: “The rationale here is to ensure robust discussion on party issues by a larger number of party members and to avoid a situation where a very few party members sit to decide the faith and affairs of a political party.”

The amendment sought reads: “No political appointee at any level shall be a voting delegate at the convention or congress of any political party for the purpose of nomination of candidates for any election, except such a political appointee is also an elected officer of a political party” and “every political party in Nigeria shall establish in its constitution a National Executive Committee (NEC) which shall be the highest decision making body of a political party.”

The bill listed the members of NEC to include the President and Vice President who are members of the party as well as presiding officers of the Senate and the House of Representatives who are members of the party and chairmen and vice chairmen of standing committees of both chambers of the National Assembly who are members of the party.
Speaking at the fifth ADR summit organised by the Negotiation and Conflict Management Group (NCMG) at Federal Palace Hotel, Victoria Island, Lagos, Kufuor said the ADR had been used to resolve disputes in Africa over the ages.

According to him, in modern times, the complex nature of disputes, with their deep and wide implication on society, makes advocacy for ADR take on new dimensions.
Of all modern disputes, he said, none was of more urgent nature than the quick resolution of electoral cases, “since the outcome of elections affects the whole spectrum of our lives, be it social, economic, environmental, health, education, sports and cultural.”
The former Ghanaian President said the ADR mechanisms must be welcomed on the African continent since “our court system is already over burdened with cases some of which stretch into many years.”

The ADR, he argued, would engender a speedy resolution of election disputes as well as equip the courts with specialised personnel who could be relied upon to give fair and impartial verdicts.

Kufuor added: “ADR offers flexibility to the regular court system, it is cost effective, time-saving, and offers a multi-dimensional approach to remedy justice.

“With a few months to the 2011 general elections in Nigeria, perhaps, it is appropriate that the question of resolving election disputes has caught the attention of several well-meaning Nigerians and Africans.”

He recommended that the ADR panel should be made up of three or five members, with the chairman appointed with the consent of the parties by the president, Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (Nigeria).

Jega argued that it was time for a major shift in the orientation of politicians in the handling of political and electoral disputes, observing that it is now common practice for litigants to exploit the multiplicity and the hierarchy of courts to either delay or frustrate the course of justice.

According to Jega, INEC has initiated moves to facilitate the resolution of political and pre-election disputes through the ADR.

This, he said, was done to provide a structure and create awareness for the “availability of these processes which, with their inherent quality of flexibility, can accommodate the peculiarities of political disputes, while contributing to the creation of a conducive atmosphere for elections.”

Jega, who spoke through INEC National Commissioner, Philip Umeadi, added that it was gratifying to note that other agencies of government and non-government organisations like the NCMG had also shown keen interest in the ADR.

Chairman, NCMG Board, Uwais, described election-related conflict as one of the major threats to democracy and political stability in Nigeria and several countries across the world.

He stressed the important of the ADR and other conflict management processes like mediation, arbitration and conciliation as potentially more accessible, cost-effective and rapid means to address such disputes.

In his remarks, Oguntade, who had sat over several election-related cases, said some had remained protracted due to “the monetisation of the nation’s political system.”
He canvassed a re-orientation and sustained efforts to solve the problem since according to him, “it is a difficult task.”

For Chief Arthur Mbanefo who presented the NCMG’s new initiative tagged: “Zero violence and litigation project,” the group prides itself on the successful projects it has been able to initiate to promote mediation in Nigeria like the Lagos Multi-Door Courthouse and the NCMG African ADR summit.

Mbanefo said the new project was aimed at eliminating election-related violence by 2015 and reducing the number of post-polls court cases drastically by encouraging mediation in place of litigation in the courts.
He submitted that the courts were yet to dispose off no fewer than 300 documented cases arising from 2007 general elections.


Speaking with The Guardian on Wednesday while on a familiarisation visit to the Lagos Multi-Door Courthouse, (LMDC), Kufuor, who successfully handed over power to an opposition party candidate in January 2009, said INEC should also ensure a hitch-free printing of ballot papers and appointing credible electoral officers who would uphold the integrity of the polls.

He also said that all political parties must subscribe to the values of democracy by respecting the right of the people to choose their leaders.

His words: “The electoral commission should be transparent and above board. All parties should subscribe to the same value of democracy by respecting the people’s right to choose their leaders.”

According to him, if the 2011 elections are flawed, it would hamper the growth of democracy.
Kufuor argued that if Nigeria must get it right this time, INEC must embark on a biometric voters registration exercise.

His words: “To avoid impersonation and forgeries, the voters registration exercise should be done biometrically. When that is done, the voting itself would be more or less a confirmation because if a person thumb-prints and he is not the person in the register, it would reject him.

“In a very populous nation like Nigeria, I think it will make for quite a clean electoral system. India did it with hundreds of millions of voters and succeeded, so I believe that Nigeria too should be able to do it.”

On the LMDC, Kufuor said: “With this system, I can see a judiciary with a sense of initiative. I am convinced that the LMDC system should be the system to operate not only in Nigeria but all other countries that subscribe to justice as the cornerstone of peace.”

But a Justice at the Supreme Court of Ghana, Julius Amsah, who represented the Chief Justice of Ghana, Justice Georginia Theodora Wood, said the ADR bill in Ghana was sent to their National Assembly when Kufuor was president but was never passed.

Amsah added: “The most unfortunate thing is that we are still lagging behind in ADR in Ghana after what I have seen in Lagos today, we have to emulate Nigeria back in Ghana.”