And the day passed peacefully
There were police and police horses everywhere on the way to work this morning. I had an email through that the Airport Road had been blocked. Its slightly eery how liquid information can be at times like this, with emails and texts flying around. A journalist friend in the court room kept texting me updates, while a colleague watched the proceedings live on local tv in his office.
The verdict, when it came, was as I had expected. All the same, whatever one's feelings towards Atiku and Buhari, its difficult not to sympathise with the appellants on the simple level that what everyone agrees were highly fraudulent elections were not recognised as such by the Court of Appeal.
No matter now. MYA needs to put his weight behind the Electoral Reform panel to ensure meaningful recommendations are implemented. One simple reform tip is to use proper ballot 'boxes' next time round, not those flimsy transparent easily-re-stuffable ones that INEC procured last time round. Oh and to have ballot papers that are actually numbered. Simple stuff really.
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1 comments:
the message from the courts (the sitting for the presidential as well as state level judgements) today was very clear. election malpractise and other irregularities are fine. the standard of proof is a criminal standard - beyond reasonable doubt. do not bring any claims forward unless you can prove you definitely would have won the elections. the nigerian constitution is full of unneccessary nonsense the courts will totally ignore. common sense does not apply and the judges will not exercise any brain power.
only in extreme cases where the candidate has been 'excluded' will there be a re-election even if there is proof that the candidate did in fact participate and did not win (a la Adamawa). at least now atiku has somewhere to throw all the cash he embrezzled.
also, the court scene was a disgrace. people making noise (even the main lawyers for inec), using their phones, chewing gum like morons (open mouth chewing), the judges themselves taking cheap shots at the appellants etc.
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