A Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) and erudite Professor of Law, Itse Sagay has faulted the judgments of the Supreme Court on the 2019 primaries of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers and Zamfara States.

 

The Supreme Court had delivered judgments in favour of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in Zamfara and Rivers States thus ousting them from the 2019 polls.

 

Sagay, in a statement on Thursday, May 30, 2019, urged the APC to apply for a review on the judgments.

 

The Supreme Court, in its series of judgments, barred the APC from fielding candidates for the general elections in Rivers State.

 

In a recent judgement, the apex court also nullified the victory of the APC in the governorship and other elections in Zamfara State, and ordered that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) should recognize and issue certificates of return to the first runner-up in the elections.

 

In a statement he issued, he said, “The Zamfara and Rivers State judgments are a national tragedy. We should not allow our legal system to throw up such unimaginable injustice.

 

“This major judicial disenfranchisement of the Zamfara and Rivers electorate should be reversed. I advise the APC team to apply for a review of the two judgments.

 

“Their Lordships ought to be given an opportunity to reverse this unprecedented tragedy.

 

“The prefix ‘justice’ preceding the names of Supreme Court and Court of Appeal Judges is significant, for it prescribes what they stand for and what they represent: justice!

 

“By this judgment, the landslide APC victories in the governorship, Senate, House of Representatives and State House of Assembly are transferred to the PDP.

 

“If the APC primaries were defective, should the electorate be deprived of their democratic and Constitutional rights to vote? Is the electorate to be punished for the transgression of party officials?

 

Should the Judicial replace the electorate’s decision and install losers in office? Could the judicial not have drawn on the deep recesses of its intellectual capacity, authority and its inexorable commitment to justice, to prevent this undemocratic calamity?

 

He further explained his stand on the judgment, he said, “If the judgment had been an international one, it could have been described as ‘shocking the conscience of humanity’. In this case, it shocks the conscience of Nigerian humanity”.

 

He advised judges not to announce judgments until they are satisfied that justice is served irrespective technicality of the law.