Sagay accuses S/court of disenfranchisement, ask APC to return to court over Zamfara, Rivers

Prof. Itse Sagay (SAN), has accused the Supreme Court of Judicial disenfranchisement against thousands of Zamfara and Rivers State electorates. 

Recall that the Supreme court on April 24 transferred APC’s victories in Zamfara State to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for alleged irregularities in the ruling party’s primaries.

Unsatisfied with the Supreme Court judgment, Sagay asked the APC to demand for a review of the judgment voiding its victories in Zamfara State. The Nation reports 

He said that in the governorship election in Zamfara, the APC candidate scored over 500,000 votes while the PDP candidate scored just over 100,000 votes.

He also said that the APC won all three Senate seats in the state, seven House of Representative seats and 24 State House of Assembly seats.

“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 legal 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 Representative and House of Assembly elections 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 transgressions of party officials?

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

“Can the APC officials not be punished, for their lapses without denying the electorate their democratic rights? Should the judiciary take over the electoral rights of the electorate? Is this not a clear case of technical law completely overthrowing justice?

“Have the members of the Supreme Court not achieved a level of creativity and authority to provide a solution without burying democracy and taking over from the registered voters as the judicial electorate?

“If this 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.”