Supreme Court dismisses Ihedioha’s suit seeking judgment review

An application filed by Mr Emeka Ihedioha, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the Imo State governorship election asking the Supreme Court to review its judgement which sacked him as the governor of Imo State, has been dismissed.

The suit was dismissed on Tuesday in a majority judgement of a seven-man panel of judges led by Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Tanko Muhammad.

Six of the judges on the panel agreed with the apex court’s verdict while Justice Chima Nweze gave a dissenting judgment, stressing that the decision ought to be reviewed.

Justice Nweze held that the court has the power to overrule itself in a situation where such a judgment was not seen to have met the justice of the case.

He added that the Imo State Governor, Hope Uzodinma, misled the court in arriving at the judgment which removed Ihedioha from office after about 10 months.

According to the judge, there is no evidence that Governor Uzodinma satisfied the required spread to have been declared the winner of the election.

He, therefore, told other judges on the panel that the judgment upholding Uzodinma’s victory in the March 9, 2019 poll would continue to haunt the nation’s electoral jurisprudence.

INEC had declared Mr Ihedioha as the winner of the March 9, 2019 governorship election in Imo State on the ground that he won the majority of lawful votes cast at the governorship poll.

Meanwhile the Governorship Election Petition Tribunal and the Court of Appeal, during appeals filed by Senator Uzodinma, gave a concurrent decision, upheld Ihedioha’s election and dismissed Uzodinma’s petition on grounds that he did not prove his allegations against the election of Ihedioha.

But the apex court held otherwise and sacked Mr Ihedioha on the 14th of January.

The apex court in its judgment disagreed with the decisions of the appeal court on the grounds that they erred in law when they excluded votes from 388 polling units from the total scores at the poll.