RULING
MAJORITY OPINION
KULENDI JSC:-
A. INTRODUCTION
Having regard to the many election petitions that flood our courts after each general election, one cannot help but agree with Niccolo di Bernardo dei Machiavelli in his book titled “The Prince” when he said;
“The desire to acquire power is truly very natural and common; and men who succeed in doing so are always praised, not blamed.”
(The Prince, 1532, ch. III)
However, in a constitutional democracy such as ours, the pursuit of political power is attained through the ballot box and persons who are aggrieved by the outcome or processes may have solace in the court of law. In other words, elections are the constitutional moment when the sovereignty of the people is not only affirmed in language but performed in practice. They are, in reality, the periodic renewal of the social contract in the Hobbesian, Lockean or Rousseauian sense and because elections are the clearest expression of collective self-government, disputes con…