Sokoto: When the law is not an ass

Whatever the interpretation we choose to give to the phrase and whichever way we decide to view the law, penultimate week’s judgment by the Supreme Court on the protracted Sokoto State gubernatorial elections case reveals some aspects of the law that most of us laymen take for granted. From the beginning of the case up […]

Whatever the interpretation we choose to give to the phrase and whichever way we decide to view the law, penultimate week’s judgment by the Supreme Court on the protracted Sokoto State gubernatorial elections case reveals some aspects of the law that most of us laymen take for granted. From the beginning of the case up to the landmark ruling by the Supreme Court it was very obvious that the litigant in the case, the Democratic People’s Party (DPP) in Sokoto State had sought to exploit the technical lacunas in the law to grab a mandate it was unable to have through the ballot box. If the Supreme Court had ruled in any other way other than the way it did, wherein it described the orchestrated and overlapping legal actions simultaneously pursued by the DPP as an abuse of court processes, the Supreme Court would have paved the way for a travesty of justice in which the losers would have been the very people that the law is supposed to protect; in this case the people of Sokoto State who had given their mandate overwhelmingly and willingly to the candidate of the PDP, Alhaji Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko, the winner of the 2007 and the re-run 2008 governorship elections in the state.
By its decision, which is unanimous, the law is saying in unequivocal terms that though an Ass it may be, it is nevertheless a very intelligent specie of an Ass; that though it is vulnerable to the manipulation of the most persuasive orators, it will not render itself available for abuse of its processes. This is as it should be, if the DPP had restrained its overzealousness and kept itself within the tolerable limits set by the law for the pursuit of one’s rights and privileges, it was just possible that it would have succeeded in exploiting the loopholes of the law and snatch a technical mandate as against a popular one.
Meanwhile as the people of Sokoto State celebrate, they would do well to take a very sober look at the cost of this lengthy litigation and do everything within their power to ensure that in subsequent elections their votes are not only cast for the right candidate but for the right reasons.
But what is even more surprising is how Governor Wamakko has been able to find the time and the energy to provide very solid and credible governance for the state in spite of the distraction of the legal battles that he has been fighting for the past three years. In terms of modern infrastructure, Sokoto is one of the best in the entire North West sub-region which is made up of seven states. Apart from the routine aspects of urban development that consists of building roads and renovating schools, Wamakko has brought a new definition to
the concept of urban renewal; he is positively and sometimes even forcefully reinventing ghetto neighbourhoods that were thought to be beyond redemption; he has a youth empowerment scheme that combines skill acquisition with individual empowerment. In terms of rural development, Wamakko had built more rural roads than any of his closest neghbours and doing so without plunging the state into debt as is the case with most other states that achieve more money from the federation account than Sokoto. When the state, like several other states in the country was devastated by unprecedented amount of flooding, the state government almost single-handedly managed to reclaim submerged communities, roads and bridges within the shortest possible time. The state has also gone far in its independent power project.
Thus if Wamakko has been able to record such achievements in spite of the distractions he has faced, it would be interesting to see how far he would take the state when he has a fresh mandate that is not arrested by any such legal wrangles. These are some of the issues and context within which the legal victory that the Supreme Court verdict must be adjudged, not from a sentimental perspective in which a party that never won an election was struggling desperately to snatch a mandate through the back door. In the end it is all about the will and wishes of the people as expressed through the ballot box.
Mohammed wrote in from Maitama, Abuja