A Renowned Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, Jibrin Okutepa says the Independent National Electoral Commission,INEC is the only body that has a constitutional duty to deregister a political party.
Okutepa who made the assertion during a live Television interview emphasised that the electoral umpire is the only entity with the authority to regulate political parties under the country’s highest law.
The legal expert while criticising the recent ruling by the Federal High Court clarified that the impacted political parties had fulfilled all legal requirements to continue operating, having won legislative seats in multiple states in the last general election, since the Independent National Electoral Commission had previously submitted a clear counter-affidavit affirming this.
Concerned about judicial misconduct, Okutepa brought attention to the fact that the case was already subject to a stay of proceedings from the Court of Appeal, which effectively removed the lower trial court’s ability to rule on the political parties.
Additionally, he brought attention to the fact that the rule of law is jeopardised when lower courts are allowed to disregard the explicit orders and well-established precedents of higher appellate courts.
This, he said causes grave uncertainty within Nigeria’s democratic space in the run-up to the next election cycles.
The SAN emphasised the importance of a highly disciplined judiciary in maintaining the country’s multi-party democracy and called on the legal community to firmly implement internal disciplinary sanctions against corrupt judges and attorneys who deliberately misled the courts.
