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#OpEd: Democracy In Africa And The Dangers Of A Judicial Selectorate, By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu

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7 months ago

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The more election disputes end up in court, the more it becomes evident to politicians that it is easier to make deals with the judges.

 

​In March 2006, Uganda’s Supreme Court convened to begin adjudication of the disputes over the presidential election that occurred the previous month in the country. Voting took place on 23 February. Two days later, on 25 February, the Electoral Commission announced the results giving the incumbent, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, 59.28% of the valid votes cast. In second place, with an award of 37.36% of the votes, the Commission announced Kiiza Besigye, a medical doctor whose military career began as part of the bush war that brought Museveni to power 20 years earlier in 1986.

​In his petition against the announced result, Col. Besigye argued that the Electoral Commission did not validly declare the results in accordance with the Constitution, and the Presidential Elections Act; and that the election was conducted in contravention of the provisions of both. His evidence was compelling.

​Yet, the impression that the petition process was a ritual performance with a predetermined outcome pervaded the process. Leading the legal team for the Electoral Commission of Uganda who were defendants in the petition was Lucian Tibaruha, Solicitor-General of Uganda. In reality, he also led the lawyers for the president, also a defendant alongside the Electoral Commission. Handling election petitions for a party political candidate was not supposed to be part of Lucian’s job,but there he was.

​Presiding was Bejamin Josses Odoki, Chief Justice of Uganda since 2001 and the author of the 1995 Constitution that incrementally made Museveni a life president. Idi Amin, Uganda’s infamous military dictator, elevated Odoki to the bench as a 35 year old in 1978. Amin’s nemesis, Museveni, elevated him to the Supreme Court eight years later and made him Chief Justice in 2001.

Announcing its reasoned judgment in January 2007, the court found that there had been non-compliance with the Constitution of Uganda and the applicable laws in the form of “disenfranchisement of voters by deleting their names from the voters register or denying them the right to vote” as well as “in the counting and tallying of results.”

The Court equally found as a fact that the “principle of free and fair elections was compromised by bribery and intimidation or violence in some areas of the country” and also that “the principles of equal suffrage, transparency of the vote, and secrecy of the ballot were undermined by multiple voting, and vote stuffing in some areas.”

​Despite these findings, Chief Justice Odoki and his court ruled by a majority of four votes to three of Justices of the Supreme Court of Uganda to uphold the election and grant President Museveni another five years in power. Two years after this decision, in 2009, when the Chief Justice’s son, Phillip Odoki, wedded, Museveni’s son, General Muhoozi Kainerugabawas the best man

In 2010, it emerged that Chief Justice Odoki never harboured any doubts about the outcome. Questioned about the role of judges in deciding elections in Africa, Odoki, “smiled when commenting that to nullify a presidential election would be suicidal.” He lived to see his peers in Kenya and Malawi do just that in 2017 and 2020 respectively. It proved not to be suicidal.

​According to former law teacher, Olu Adediran, the role of judges in these kinds of cases is in reality “a compromise between law and political expediency.” Jude Murison is more direct in calling it “judicial politics.” Judges are not instruments of change or revolution and when they are called upon to adjudicate between sides in a political dispute, they are more often than not likely to treat that not as an opportunity to change political paymasters except when the bell has already tolled undisputedly for an incumbent.

​Politicians are supposed to sell themselves to the people through their programmes and through campaigns in a contest of both ideas and vision. In return, the people through their votes offer endorsement to the politicians and programmes whom they believe best advance their interests. An electoral commission is a referee supposedly engaged and maintained at the public expense to administer this contest.

​This is where things begin to break down. Although engaged in the name of the people, every electoral commission is appointed by people in power who never wish to relinquish it. When a dispute emerges as to the kind of job done by the electoral commission, it ends up before judges. However, the same people who appoint the electoral commission also usually appoint the most senior judges into office. In the maelstrom of party political competition, guardrails break down as politicians struggle to casualise the popular electorate in order to prosper a judicial selectorate.

​The more election disputes end up in court, the more it becomes evident to politicians that it is easier to make deals with the judges. The people are and can be unpredictable, unlike most judges. Increasingly, therefore, politicians seek to judicialize the site of decision-making on elections, relocating that from the polling booth to the courtroom.

If a politician can get their spouse appointed to become a judge, they can even make the site of decision-making in elections more intimate, relocating it from the courtroom to the bedroom.

Instead of the usual soapbox, increasingly elections in many countries can be decided by good old pillow-talk. Former federal legislator, Adamu Bulkachuwa, whose wife, Zainab, headed Nigeria’s Court of Appeal for six years until 2020, published the manual on this model of electoral ascendancy in his parliamentary valedictory remarks as a senator in June 2023.

This is why the judicialization of politics in Africa increasingly represents a huge risk to the popular will as the basis of government. First, it vitiates the right to democratic participation and suppresses the popular will as the foundation for democratic legitimacy. Second, it enables the courts to deprive the people of their democratic rights, accomplishing that under the alluring pretence of rule of law. Third, it provides perverse incentives for politicians to capture the courts, making the judiciary in many African countries a battleground for the pre-determination of election outcomes. Fourth, it has the capacity to alter the character of the judiciary from an independent institution to a plaything of political insiders.

​This trend in consigning elections to the care of a judicial selectorate around Africa now endangers judges and their independence. In Malawi, in 2020, the president attempted to remove the Chief Justice in order to secure a Supreme Court panel more solicitous of his interests in the lead-up to a presidential re-run, following a rigged electoral contest that had been struck down by the courts.

The following year in September 2021, the ruling party in Zimbabwe pressured the Constitutional Court to overrule an earlier decision of the High Court that blocked an extension of the tenure of the Chief Justice after he had reached the official retirement age. This allowed the Chief Justice to still serve, but on a contract that made him more subject to presidential whim. Ahead of contentious national elections two years later, the same president decided to advance $400,000 to all serving judges in Zimbabwe in “housing loan” with no repayment obligations.One of the beneficiaries was the chair of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), herself a serving judge.Unsurprisingly, she announced her benefactor, the incumbent president, as winner in the ensuing election.

​Even worse, this trend now also endangers entire countries, if not indeed regions. This was evident in April 2020, when Mali’s Constitutional Court overturned the results of 31 parliamentary seats won by the opposition. Its decision to hand these seats over to the ruling party sparked an uprising that led first to the dissolution of the Constitutional Court, and later the overthrow of the government in a military coup.

Mali’s twin crises of governmental legitimacy and state fragmentation is a tragic reminder of the dangers of judicial overreach in election adjudication. But the crisis in Mali has also become a regional crisis for West Africa. To adapt an expression familiar to new-age Pentecostals in West Africa: what judges cannot do does not exist.

A lawyer and a teacher, Odinkalu can be reached at chidi.odinkalu@tufts.edu

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President Tinubu Transmits to The Senate Lists Of Ambassadorial Nominees

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11 hours ago

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December 4, 2025

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President Bola Tinubu has transmitted to the senate two lists of 34 career and 31 non career ambassadors nominees for screening and confirmation.

Prominent names listed as non career ambassadors include Reno Omokri, Femi Fani-Kayode, Gen. Abdulrahman Dambazau, Victor Ikpeazu and Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi.

Also listed as non career ambassadors nominees are Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, Vice Admiral Ete Ibas, Senator Jimoh Ibrahim, Senator Nora Daduut, Fatima Ajimobi, and Senator Ita Enang among others.

The two lists brings to 68 number of persons nominated so far as ambassadors awaiting confirmation by the Senate.

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PRESIDENT TINUBU FORWARDS NEW AMBASSADORIAL LIST TO SENATE, NOMINATES DAMBAZAU, IBAS, CHIOMA OHAKIM AND OTHERS

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16 hours ago

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December 4, 2025

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By Prince Uwalaka Chimaroke
4-DEC- 2025

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has submitted a fresh set of ambassadorial nominations to the Senate, featuring a mix of distinguished public figures and seasoned professionals drawn from across the country.

Among the notable nominees are former Chief of Army Staff and ex-Minister of Interior, Abdulrahman Dambazau; former Chief of Naval Staff and immediate past sole administrator of Rivers State, Ibok-Ete Ekwe Ibas; former senator Ita Enang; and Mrs. Chioma Ohakim, former First Lady of Imo State.

The President formally transmitted two comprehensive lists containing 34 career and 31 non-career ambassadorial nominees, bringing the total number of nominees awaiting Senate confirmation to 68.

The newly submitted lists mark another significant step in the administration’s ongoing diplomatic restructuring, aimed at strengthening Nigeria’s representation and presence across global missions.

The Senate is expected to commence screening and confirmation proceedings in the coming days.

 

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I’m Not Playing Politics with Nnamdi Kanu’s Release – Gov Otti Replies Chief Ogbonna

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19 hours ago

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December 4, 2025

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Our attention has been drawn to a statement credited to a Former Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs in Abia State, Chief Charles Ogbonna, wherein he called Governor Alex Otti unprintable names and also alleged that Governor Otti didn’t visit President Tinubu to discuss the issue of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, but to plan on how to defect to the APC, among other childish verbal attacks.

Chief Ognonna has been unleashing unprovoked verbal venom and vituperation on the Governor, but we chose to ignore him, not only because we have been busy with the task of governance, but because we also know that he is traumatised by the obscurity he was plunged into after the 2023 general election and felt he should be allowed to experience some healing that could help normalise his reasoning.

 

Ordinarily, we would have still ignored Chief Ognonna’s latest idle tirade and allow him delude himself with fantasies of fury, but because the Nnamdi Kanu issue is both sensitive and very important to this government, we felt we should respond and put the records straight.

 

In continuation of Governor Otti’s efforts aimed at securing Kanu’s release, the Governor subsequently had a meeting with the President after visiting the IPOB leader at the Sokoto Correctional Centre on Sunday, November 30 2025. This is in continuation of earlier meetings the Governor had been having with the FG on this matter in the past two years.

The issue of Kanu was the only subject matter that took Governor Otti to Aso Rock and to the Glory of God, the meeting was both positive and fruitful, as the President was so gracious and generous.

 

Chief Ogbonna’s allegation of Governor Otti going to lobby to join the APC is both petty, ignoble, laughable and very irresponsible. At the risk of sounding immodest, any political party Governor Otti chooses to join today would roll out the drums and red carpet to welcome him with joy and excitement. If anything, many notable and respected APC leaders are not just desirous of having him in their fold, but are strongly appealing to Governor Otti to join their party because they know that he is not a liability.

 

Ogbonna accused Otti of betrayal, but he didn’t say who Otti betrayed, how and when.

 

He claimed that Otti doesn’t have capacity, yet Otti defeated him in his Polling Unit, Ward and LGA where his PDP Candidates from House of Assembly to President lost woefully.

 

He accused Governor Otti of inconsistency, yet he abandoned Alhaji Atiku Abubarkar less than 48 hours after the result of the Presidential Election was announced, in spite of the empty noise and boast he made about the PDP’s Presidential Candidate, all for Atiku’s money when it was needed and available.

He alleged that Governor Otti is playing politics with Nnamdi Kanu, yet, he is angry that the Governor is engaging the FG to secure Kanu’s freedom. Is there anything more contradictory and ridiculous than Ogbonna’s utterances?

 

At this point, the general public needs to know the genesis of Chief Ogbonna’s anger and aggression.

Having acquired Agbozu Cocoa Plantation when he was in government, the present government decided to reclaim the Plantation which was yielding nothing to the state under Charles Ogbonna. In line with Governor Otti’s policy of operating a government with human face, which sees him pay compensation so as not to hurt any citizen or investor, he approved a compensation package which was paid to Chief Ogbonna. He was excited and full of thanks and appreciation to Governor Otti for the gesture, because he knew he didn’t deserve it. Unfortunately and in line with his insatiable quest for power and money, he thought that another opportunity had opened for him to surreptitiously sneak into the government as he later nominated his son to be appointed by Governor Otti. The Governor flatly declined the request and subsequently appointed another person from the same Ogbonna’s Community, a development that made him feel slighted, diminished and broken and has since then gone out of control, throwing tantrums and hoping to be invited for settlement.

 

Chief Ogbonna’s problem, like some of his co-travellers is his failure to wake up from his slumber and realise that the era of ruins is over and that Abia has moved forward, never to be dragged back.

His primitive arrogance and mediocre mindset that limit his understanding of government and governance to political appointments, settlement and sharing of public funds without service to the people has so blinded him to the extent that he attacked the Governor recently for awarding the badly broken Umuahia-Ikot Ekpene road, claiming that the FG had aleady awarded it and thus should not be awarded by the Governor. How could any human being with conscience prefer that his people continue to suffer and die in their numbers just because he feels that building the strategic road would earn the Governor a huge political capital? Ogbonna needs to be reminded that such evil mindset has no place in the New Abia.

 

Even though Ogbonna’s character deficiency doesn’t position him for any modicum of respect, however, having advanced in age, he is expected to conduct himself honourably and responsibly so as not to attract insults to himself.

 

Finally, Ogbonna needs to be educated that one of the hallmarks of a great leader is his ability to apply wisdom, emotional intelligence and deploy the instrument of diplomacy in solving problems that have the propensity to impact the security of life and property of the people negatively if handled wrongly.

Governor Otti didn’t campaign with Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s name in 2023, and doesn’t need to campaign with his plight for 2027, however, he strongly believes that resolving the problem of Kanu’s conviction is one of the ways to achieving peace, security and healing in our land. Unfortunately, Chief Ogbonna is not grounded, both in character and knowledge of the ingredients of modern leadership, hence his kindergarten politicisation of Governor Otti’s engagements with the FG and visit to the President.

Now that Ogbonna has become an errand boy in the APC, he needs to be reminded that he can pursue his stomach agenda without necessarily carrying out this misplaced aggression against Governor Otti, because it makes him look more pathetic than he can ever imagine.

 

Ferdinand Ekeoma

Special Adviser to the Governor

(Media and Publicity)

December 4, 2025.

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