A Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) Mr Chukwuma Ekomaru on Thursday raised an alarm that three-quarters of judges in the Nigeria would be involved in post-election tribunals thus paralyzing activities in many courts. To solve the challenge, the learned silk suggested that the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) could invite some retired judges, give them licences and make them to handle election petition cases.

More than 200 judges have been trained by the National Judicial Institute (NJI) on election cases and may not be back to their courts in the next six months because election petition cases are time bound.

Mr Ekomaru (SAN) who said this at the Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre (PLAC) Webinar series opined that the 2022 Electoral Act has affected the whole literature of electoral history. According to him, election petitions are matters of a special kind. They are peculiar. Certain things that count in civil proceedings are not allowed in election tribunals.

The learned silk who spoke on the “Electoral Act 2022 and Election Dispute Resolution”, said: “all lawyers must go back and look at the radical things in the 2022 Electoral Act”. “Section 137 of the Electoral Act is a very, very radical addition to the electoral litigation. Even in Presidential election things that were not possible before, are now possible. Come with the result or Certified True Copy (CTC) of the result and raise issues of non-compliance. Unlike before when you need to bring Presiding Officers to speak to the results”, he stressed.

He said time-frame of election disputes have been given constitutional flavour. “It is now more fundamental. It is now a constitutional issue”, adding that Section 285 of the 1999 Constitution as amended addressed the issue of time-frame.

Mr. Ekomaru said by virtue of Section 239, the Court of Appeal have exclusive original jurisdiction to hear and determine Presidential Election in the country.

He said the nation’s experience after 2023 elections will trigger more electoral reforms adding that in future elections through the use of technology, it should be possible the election may take up to 14 days to allow people vote at their pleasure.

Already, Mr. Ekomaru who said manual accreditation has been jettisoned through the introduction of BVAS, said in future elections it would be possible to “hand over counting, Collation and declaration of results to the Machines. I am thinking of an electronic device that can accommodate our entire electoral process”.

Speaking on the Osun gubernatorial election, the learned silk said the judges demonstrated good knowledge of the law but they did not demonstrate good knowledge of BVAS. He challenged the Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) to continue to push for the establishment of the Electoral Offences Tribunal.

According to him, the CSOs should effectively monitor all the process of the 2023 with so many volunteers working as observers.