by 
After numerous delays in hearing and delivering its judgement, the Honourable Mr Justice J.M. Shishi of the Benue State High Court in Makurdi declined our prayers to give a purposive interpretation of relevant sections of the Constitution and the Benue Electoral Law to make Benue State Independent Electoral Commission (BSIEC) live more to its mandate as the independent body for local government elections in the state and to prevent future occurrences of the body failing, neglecting or refusing to hold local government elections, as and when due, before the expiration of the term of incumbent local government administrations to prevent situations whereby unelected individuals are appointed to run the local government system due to this failure. The court held that the prayers had been overtaken by events.
It will be recalled that in the matter of _Sesugh Akume v Benue State Independent Electoral Commission (BSIEC)_ (with suit number MHC/449/2024) and filed on 13 March 2024, when the term of incumbent local government officials was to elapse on 29 June and BSIEC had no plans whatsoever in the public domain on the forthcoming elections.
Among other things we urged the court to order BSIEC to do so immediately, and to order it to take certain steps to prevent a repeat of this.
Upon filing the action on 13 March, BSIEC quickly released a timetable dated 5 April wherein it scheduled the elections for 6 July, a week after the handover date (which is an abnormality and unconstitutional) even though it was clearly not ready but was acting as one suddenly awakened from a slumber.
The matter did not commence until ten weeks later on 26 May, and was adjourned to 27 June for hearing where the term of the incumbent local government officials was to end on 29 June.
Considering this we further urged the court to declare that whereas BSIEC has the power to set dates for local government elections, it cannot do so arbitrarily, it has to be within the allowed time by the Constitution in order to avoid having a situation of unelected stooges running the local government system.
We urged the court to order BSIEC to subsequently publish election timetables not less than six months to the expiration of the term of incumbent officials and to conduct elections not less than three months to the expiration of the terms, as the Electoral Law (deliberately) leaves this out thus creating a loophole to be serially exploited, and because the court has the power to make such orders.
We also asked the court to order BSIEC to publish election schedules up to 2046 to avoid any ambiguity as to when elections hold in Benue as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has done nationally.
Today(July 31st), the court held that the issues in the case had been overtaken by events as local government elections have already been scheduled in Benue (even though BSIEC never stated this in its pleadings). Also that with the recent Supreme Court judgement on local government autonomy, the issue of not conducting elections before the expiration of the term of the incumbents had been resolved. We personally do not find this enough justification to decline making the order, but appreciate that it is the prerogative of the court to order thus or not.
Our deepest, heartfelt appreciation goes to the duo of Atume Butu, Esq., (A D Butu, Esq), and Peter Tsebo, Esq., (P A Tsebo, Esq), legal counsel in this matter, for their intellectual firepower, legal industry, and resilience in pursuing this matter diligently to its conclusion in the public interest and overwhelming the respondent with superior legal arguments and unique angles hitherto unexplored, unimagined, even.
We litigate for impact. Taking on the insular BSIEC which though independent seems to take orders from elsewhere, and forcing it to respond by fixing a date for the election hitherto unscheduled for is success.
Sesugh Akume
31 July 2024
Abuja
