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The Terms of the Nigerian Political Offices are scalar and not vector quantities!


The purpose of the judiciary is to dispense justice. If this is the case, how does a Governor deprived of his mandate receive justice when denied? Obi was a victim of so many subterranean forces at play, starting from his absence at Okija where his mandate was ritually assigned to his opponent Ngige. This poor and descent guy also fell victim of the rampart House of Assembly dominated by his  adversary. When all these tortures are considered, Gov. Obi deserves nothing but mercy for those who care to be merciful.


 



The Terms of the Nigerian Political Offices are scalar and not vector quantities!
NigerianNews Editorial


 

The Supreme Court by granting Governor Obi of Anambra an extension is expressly stating that the terms of the Nigerian political offices cannot be considered a vector quantity as the value of the office longevity can only be characterized in a scalar term. For those who may want to know, all vector or tensor quantities will retain their values in any assigned frame of reference (either in a covariant or contravariant tensoral transformation). A tensor or vector quantity must have magnitude and direction, because of this, if for example the position of a governor is given a vectoral value of four years, this value will remain same if evaluated in an interstellar space. Of course, like velocity, a vector may be considered not to be an objective vector.

Having explained what we mean by a vector quantity, it is now clear that the Supreme Court considers the tenure of a Governor as a SCALAR quantity, having magnitude but no direction, or at best, a non objective vector since the 4 years assigned to the position of a Governor must now not consider the starting point tied to an origin and the end point also not anchored to an end point as the constitution requires. The origin in the Obi's instance was 2003, which requires an end tied to 2007 completing the circuit of 4 years magnitude and a direction of 2003 to 2007.

The purpose of the judiciary is to dispense justice. If this is the case, how does a Governor deprived of his mandate receive justice when denied? Obi was a victim of so many subterranean forces at play, starting from his absence at Okija where his mandate was ritually assigned to his opponent Ngige. This poor and descent guy also fell victim of the rampart House of Assembly dominated by his  adversary. When all these tortures are considered, Gov. Obi deserves nothing but mercy for those who care to be merciful.

However, constitutional requirement is not only about mercy, it is about its clarity when clarity can be determined, or interpretation by court of competent jurisdiction when clarity cannot be ascertained. Obviously, and in our opinion, the constitution has in mind a tenure of an objective vector quantity, however, objectivity of this vector starting, from Okija, was seriously perverted to the point where only the Angels of Heaven can untangle the implications of this human wickedness.

The 7 Supreme Court Justices are unfortunately not Angels from Heaven. The implication of this is the unsettling of this portion of the constitution for sometimes to come. The first test of this interpretation is the ongoing Court cases on the 2007 elections. It is not impossible that either Buhari or Atiku may win their election petitions against Yar'Adua. Since the tenure is now a scalar rather than a vectoral quantity, May 29 will now be transformed scalarly to the counting of 4 years starting from when the judgment is delivered (remember the direction is 2003 to 2007?). If this scenario is projected to the rest of the 36 States, and in fact, including Abuja, we can see the looming confusion. Justice is done when all implications are taken into considerations in giving judgment. It is reported that the Presidency has accepted this judgment just rendered in the case of Gov. Obi, however, it is left for us to see whether he will equally accept a judgment that throws him out of office!

Since Andy Uba was also elected (or was it selected?), does he also have rights? Will his right be deferred until after March 17, 2010? Is Andy Uba guilty of running for this office at the end of the vectorally mandated end of one term? Let us now transpose Uba's position to that of Ngige and Ukachukwu who both contested (or were they barred by the invisible hands?) the end point election of 2007, had they won or selected, do they also have rights? What happens when the same Justices at the Supreme Court exercise the same Sword of Damocles on the current occupier of Aso Rock? Confusion seems to be in the offing! This is where the National Assembly and the various State Assemblies (as required by the constitution) should act and act quickly. The Judiciary seems to have done its best, the best ways it knows how, so, it is now time for a quick constitutional amendment to correct the so many glaring inconsistencies in the constitution. Nigeria can simply not afford so many mid, quarter terms elections considering our revenue as a nation and the human common denominators that are entitled to this revenue. Some uninformed Nigerians really think Nigeria is a rich country! When you compare Nigeria to other African countries, perhaps these people are correct, but a comparison of our revenue (of a nation of 140 million people) to that of the City of New York (City of 8 million people) exposes the falsity of this assumption. Nigeria can also not afford all electoral processes to be concluded from the many Okijas in Nigeria thereby injuring innocent non believers in rituals

When the Supreme Court rules, only constitutional amendment by the legislative branches or a re-think by the same Supreme Court can change the ruling. We are not legal experts at the NigerianNews, but we never envisaged that the Court would rule the way it ruled today taking into consideration the chaotic implications of such judgment. Apart from the legal aspects, we had assumed that other thing justices take into consideration is how it impacts on the polity, obviously, the Justices just follow a strict act of compassion on a man wrongfully thrown out of office. In this case, the benefit to one man outweighs the benefit to many. Ladoja must be salivating where he is now although he failed to benefit from this judgment for the fear of his formidable foe. The unintended consequences of this innocent judgment is tremendous. This is not the time to dare Adedibu, the strong man of Ibadan. Will Adedibu accept a loss of his gubernatorial candidate as well as accept the loss of the presidential candidate of his party? Will this twin occurrence not be exploited by the Adedibus all over the Nigerian political terrain? We predict a constitutional stalemate soon.

The PDP made sure they "won" the 2/3rd of the states necessary to get through a constitutional amendment, and this includes its ability to garner the same at the National Assembly. The question then is (since vector is no longer a consideration), which legislatures will consider the constitutional amendment? The old ones in case the current ones are thrown out? In case of Anambra, which legislators would Obi deal with? The new one or the old one? We `are not sure our Justices at the Supreme Court ever bother themselves with all these implications, and these are considerations that must guide delicate situations like these. To think the military is not watching all this and drawing contingency plans is to be very naive. We will have to see how things pan out in days to come.

 



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