Festus Keyamo, Minister of State for Labour and Employment, has tackled those calling for the speedy determination of the election petitions before the May 29 inauguration of the President-elect, Bola Tinubu.
According to Keyamo, such individuals are doing the petitioners more harm than good, adding that they are plainly ignorant or crassly mischievous.
He argued that it is the petitioners that need more time to plead their case and not the other way around, adding that it would be impossible to amend laws and rules of court to accommodate such an idea.
The minister stated this in a lengthy post via his verified Twitter handle on Sunday.
He wrote, “Those calling for the determination of the Election Petitions BEFORE the swearing-in ceremonies on MAY 29th under our present electoral laws and Rules of Court and/or procedure are either plainly ignorant or crassly mischievous.
“In the future, it is possible to amend our laws and rules of court to accommodate such an idea, but it is clearly IMPOSSIBLE under our present circumstances.
“Those who think by such a call they are doing the Petitioners any good, do not realise that they are, in fact doing great harm to the cases of the Petitioners.
“It is the Petitioners that need more TIME to prove their cases and not necessarily the defendants. That is why the Petitioners are given 21 days to file and the defendants have 14 days to respond. And the Petitioners have a further 7 days to reply, making a total of 30 days as against the 14 days of the Respondents.”
Keyamo, further maintained that it is more difficult to prove an election petition than to defend it.
“If these characters say a single point (let’s say the FCT 25 percent storm-in-a-teacup issue) should be set down for determination immediately, would the Petitioners’ lawyers agree to withdraw and abandon all other issues raised in their Petition and proceed only with that issue?
“Will they take that risk? Ask them privately. They know better. This is because the rules of Election Petitions do not allow Petitioners to prove their cases piecemeal.
“A Petitioner cannot pursue a single point up to the Supreme Court and after losing, return to the Tribunal or Court and say he/she/it wants to now prove other aspects of the case.
“Even that single point alone CANNOT be determined by the Supreme Court BEFORE MAY 29th because of the time given by the rules for parties to file their Notices of Appeal and exchange their briefs.
“They should realise that just as we say ‘justice delayed is justice denied’, we also say ‘justice rushed is justice crushed,” he added.
