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Group applauds Kenya’s Supreme Court over polls annulment 

By Segun Olaniyi, Abuja
02 September 2017   |   4:00 am
A pro- democracy and non-governmental organisation, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has applauded the Kenyan Supreme Court for annulling the controversial Presidential election...

Emmanuel Onwubiko

A pro- democracy and non-governmental organisation, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has applauded the Kenyan Supreme Court for annulling the controversial Presidential election, which saw the incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta sweeping the results. 

HURIWA in a statement by the National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko and the National Media Affairs Director, Zainab Yusuf in Abuja yesterday, said the decision by the Kenyan Supreme Court, which is the first time a Presidential poll is cancelled based on a petition filed by an opposition candidate would provide the much needed reinvigoration of democracy and the supremacy of the Principle of Rule of law in a continent torn apart by the demolition of state institutions and the weakening of these democratic institutions by Presidents with predatory ‘Big man’ tendencies.

The group said the scenario in Kenya is a fundamental departure from Rwanda whereby President Paul Kigame changed the rules in the middle of his last term in office to self perpetuate himself in power and has systematically destroyed the independence of the judiciary which is why opposition politics in Rwanda has withered away.

HURIWA said the Kenyan example has demonstrated to the rest of the World that contrary to the pathetic experiences of nations like Angola, Uganda, Togo, Burundi, Sudan where incumbents muzzled democratic institutions, President Kenyatta is poles apart because he truly believes in the supremacy of the Constitution and the judicial pronouncements. 

“The Nigerian Judiciary has over the years, tagged along with the powers that be at the center”. 

HURIWA noted that the ruling in Kenya apart from assuaging frayed nerves and calming down and deescalating possible political tsunami and riots, has once more shown that there is light at the end of the tunnel and that Democracy is working in Africa just as the Rights group praised both the opposition and the incumbent President of Kenya for not doing anything to frustrate the dispensation of justice. 

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