Idayat Hassan, the Director of the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD), has said that democracy is nurtured and not given.
She said this yesterday in a phone interview with The jurist reporter while reacting to the Supreme Court judgement, which affirmed Ahmed Lawan as an authentic candidate for the Yobe north senatorial district.
She noted that the judgement would dampen the confidence of Nigerians in the electoral process.
Furthermore, “The fact remains that this Judgement will again dampen people’s thoughts and confidence in the electoral process.
She said, “Basically, this is an election period, people need to have confidence in the electoral process, but when this Judgement comes along, it again casts doubt on the people. They are feeling like, is this good? What will be the outcome of the election? Even if the outcome is ok, it will even push more people towards apathy.
She opined that Nigerians had focused less on the judicial arm of government.
She said, “I think, I will say we as citizens have not focused enough on the judiciary the way we have focused on the executive or the legislature, which means we have to rethink our work and engagement
“We have to put more effort and focus on all arms of government, but importantly we cannot be gifted; democracy is nurtured and not given, so all these Judgments should give us the basics to move back and push more for more democracy”.
Background
Mr Lawan had contested in the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential primaries, which he lost to Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
After losing out, he resulted in picking the senatorial tickets of the party for the Yobe North. However, Bashir Machina had already emerged as a candidate after participating in the primaries, which INEC officials supervised on May 28.
On June 9, APC held another primary election in which Mr Lawan emerged as the winner. Subsequently, the party forwarded the name of Lawan to INEC as the party’s candidate.
INEC, in turn, refused to recognise Mr Lawan as the candidate, saying the APC currently has no senatorial candidate for Yobe north.
Machina then approached the court, praying to declare that he is the authentic senatorial candidate of the APC for the 2023 election.
In her judgement, the presiding judge ordered APC and INEC to recognise and forward Mr Machina’s name as the senatorial candidate.
Though Mr Lawan had earlier released a statement saying he was not going to challenge the lower court’s judgement, the APC, dissatisfied by the court’s judgement, approached the Court of Appeal in Abuja seeking to nullify the judgement.
The APC argued that Mr Ahmed was the authentic candidate as the party had cancelled the primary poll, which produced Mr Machina, because of the irregularities observed during the exercise.
Read also: Ahmad Lawan: Supreme Court Affirms candidacy
They further argued that the second primary held on June 9, conducted by the APC National Working Committee, produced Lawan as the party’s authentic candidate.
However, the President of the appellate Court, Justice Monica Dongban-Mensem, who led the panel, held that the appeal was an abuse of the court process.
The panel affirmed Mr Machina as the party’s valid candidate for the senatorial district.
The APC approached the Supreme Court seeking to overturn the judgement of the other courts.
They maintained that Mr Lawan is the authentic senatorial candidate for the Yobe North Senatorial District for the forthcoming general election.
In its ruling on Monday, the Supreme Court declared Mr Lawan as the authentic candidate for the APC Yobe North Senatorial District.
