New electoral law meant to save judiciary — Olajumoke

Chairman of the Senate Committee on Navy, Senator Bode Olajumoke, has said that the Electoral Law 2010, was not passed by the lawmakers to ridicules the judiciary, but to strengthen it. He therefore cautioned those who were accusing the Peoples Democratic Party of attempting to benefit from the new law because of its loss of some states as a result of judicial pronouncements. Olajumoke, who stated this in Akungba-Akoko on Wednesday, however, urged Nigerians to see the development as an attempt to save the country’s democracy. He said the section of the law that removed the power of the judiciary to give a declarative judgment on any electoral dispute was initiated by the National Assembly to protect the nation’s democracy because of the recent revelations in the judiciary. The new law had removed the power of the Election Petitions Tribunal to award victory to any candidate in their judgments. The new law provides that where the tribunal is convinced that the results of election declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission should not stand, it should order a rerun instead of declaring the petitioner the winner. He said, “Some few months ago, the president of NBA openly said that less than 30 per cent of the members of the bench can be said to be corruption-free; that is a very low mark. “If the president of NBA can come out openly to say this and he did repeat it of recent, so the bill will check the naked dance in the market by the judiciary. “You may recall the unfortunate exposure by the judiciary of their rank and file: if you consider the legislation, it is a sort of vote of no confidence on the judiciary. The judiciary has badly exposed itself, a situation where high ranking judges are accusing each other of corruption.” By Sunday Aborisade, Akure Courtesy of: Punch