By Afolabi Abdullahi

One of the principal threats to democracy in Nigeria is the constant defying of court orders by Nigerians both at higher and lower places whenever there are court rulings on certain issues which does not suit their emotion.

It is important to classify such trend of disobeying our constitution as an easy avenue to disrupting the balance of our hard – earned constitutional democracy.”

At the height of the Supreme court judgement between Senator Hope Uzodinma and Honorable Emeka Iheodioha, most Nigerians refuse to respect the supreme court judgement vacating the seat of the incumbent Governor of Imo State (Ihedioha) for the appellant (Uzodinmma) without reading the basis of the judgement.

Because of the judgement, some Nigerians now erroneously label the triumphant litigant as “Supreme court Governor” with further queries like: how does someone who came fourth in an election became the number one?

It is a trite in law that the Supreme court can disturb the concurrent findings of two lower courts if new evidences are found or the law is wrongly misinterpreted by lower courts which is the example of what transpire in the hotly contested Imo Gubernatorial election petition. The issue fought between the parties to the appeal at the supreme court was on the exclusion of votes scored by the appellant in 388 polling units from ward collation results which led to a wrong declaration of the 1st respondent as the winner of the election and of which after the excluded votes from 388 wards were added, the appellant was rightly declared as the winner after scoring the highest number of votes at the election.

Of recent, the Ebonyi State Governor railed against the Federal High Court ruling sacking him for crosscarpetting from the PDP to APC without following due process. In his words, Umahi said: The court ruling is a sham and he further said the judge did a hatchet a job.

Meanwhile, the constitution is clear that fractionalization or internal crisis consuming the National leadership structure of a party which sponsors elected representatives is what can validate defection especially in the case of Lawmakers, this part of the law is silent on a situation when a governor defect though. The reverse is the case in the defection of Umahi and many lawmakers in the country in the last 6 months as there was no internal division in the party which brought them to power before defecting.

While Nigerians attitude to respecting court ruling is worrisome, it is advisable that people should sharpen their reading culture and read more about Nigerian Laws and also obtain court documents detailing the premises of why judgements go in a particular direction, rather than attempting to ridicule the judiciary.

Afolabi Abdullahi is a student and member of the Quintessential Equity Chambers, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile – Ife, Osun – State.

He can be reached via [email protected]