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.