The role of the Judiciary in the festering leadership crisis in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has portrayed the revered third arm of government as a market place where anyone could buy justice if he could pay the price.

At the last count, there were 15 conflicting orders issued by judges to petitioners on the imbroglio in the PDP over the continuity of Senator Ali Modu Sheriff as its national chairman. The most confusing were the roles of judges in the aborted August 17 PDP National Convention, which was scheduled to hold in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

As various parties in the PDP attempted to affirm or discard a ruling by Justice Ahmed Mohammed of the Federal High Court, Abuja on May 18, 2016, to the effect that Senator Sheriff’s tenure would end in 2018, different judges have resorted to issuing opposing orders.

In a case instituted by Sheriff against the PDP, INEC and others, at the Federal High Court, Abuja, Justice Okon Abang ruled on July 28, August 15 and August 16, 2016, that the Sheriff executive was the authentic one, nullifying the Senator Ahmed Makarfi’s caretaker committee. It also gave an injunction halting the planned National Convention in Port Harcourt.

On this same issue, Justice Ibrahim Watila of the Federal High Court, Port Harcourt, ruled on August 15, 2016 on a case file by Senator Ben Obi against Sheriff, granting an ex-parte application which gave the PDP the go-ahead to hold the National Convention.
These conflicting orders led to a serious confusion and a waste of resources. First, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), which was supposed to have monitored the election of the new executive members of the PDP, openly declared that it did not know which of the court orders to obey.

Also, the Nigeria Police Force was drafted into the lacuna as they were not sure whether to obey the instructions of the judge who asked them to seal-off the venue of the convention or that of the judge who gave a nod to the event.

The Police Public Relations Officer, Don Awunah, a Deputy Commissioner of Police, explained the force’s role in the aborted convention thus: “There were two conflicting court orders, but the primary motive of the police was that there should be peace and protection of lives and property. It is not the issue of A and B. It is not about obeying A or B, you must be proactive in law enforcement because at the end of the day, the question you are asked is: “What did you do?” It is just like a simple case of conflict resolution where there are two sides. What do you do? You revert to the status quo and see where they can move forward. The status quo is that we are maintaining security.”

The role of the Judiciary as an arm of government in a democracy is to resolve conflicts involving individuals, organisations, government and political parties, not to confuse the parties and relevant institutions when cases are taken before it. The conflicting orders issued in the PDP case gave the impression that the judges interpreted different statute books, not from the same provisions of the 1999 Constitution. It is for this reason that the National Judicial Council must wade into the confusion and ensure that the Judiciary is not exposed to the whims and caprices of few individuals in a practice that sounds like the proverbial ‘he who pays the piper dictates the tune.’

The Council should investigate the roles played by various judges in the PDP crisis and punish those whose activities contravened the ethics of the highly regarded profession. Turning the blind eye on this matter could encourage other judges to engage in similar schemes and deface the Judiciary further.

On its part, PDP’s leadership must put its house in order. No doubt, the current crisis is an offshoot of the ambitions of individuals and groups, as politicians begin to realign in preparations for 2019.

As at February 16, 2016 when Senator Ali Modu Sheriff was dragged into the party as chairman, it was not clear if he would be there for three months or if he was there to complete the tenure of former Governor Adamu Mu’azu from the North-East zone. In their desperate but inexplicable moves, the party’s leadership failed to clearly articulate the tenure and tasks to be performed by the new chairman; hence he had to resort to court to determine his tenure. The court said he should occupy the seat until 2018. Perhaps, as their strategy began to crumble, the party’s competing interest groups resorted to another measure – the setting up of the Senator Makarfi-led Caretaker Committee. The fallout of this dimension is seen in the multiple court orders and the crash of the much-publicised Port Harcourt convention on which billions of naira was wasted.

We call on the PDP to end the needless hide-and-seek game on who leads the organisation. We call it hide-and-seek because the party has an in-built mechanism for resolving its crisis. The party’s constitution has provisions on how to deal with leadership stalemates, and even discourages the resort to courts of law in handling its internal affairs. Also, organs of the party like the National Executive Committee (NEC), Board of Trustees (BoT), national and regional caucuses, are populated by men who have the capacity to wade into and resolve the leadership conflict. We call on the party to use these internal mechanisms to sort out the issues militating against its harmony, instead of dancing naked in the market arena.

We also challenge the Makarfi-led Caretaker Committee and Senator Sheriff’s loyalists to come together and deal with the issues outside the courtroom.

In politics there is always give-and-take. These leaders must engage all the parties involved in the conflict to ensure that a decision on the future leadership of the party is taken in a manner that will be fair to all.

No doubt, because of its unending internal confusion, the PDP has not been able to play its role as a viable opposition to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). This is not healthy for our democracy.

Culled from DailyTrust