BY VICTOR BUORO, ABUJA – The Supreme Court on Tuesday finally sealed former Governor Emeka Ihedioha’s fate by throwing out the appeal he filed asking the apex Court to set aside its January 14, 2020 judgment that sacked him.
The Supreme Court ruled that it has no power to entertain Ihedioha’s appeal.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), had in March 2019 declared Ihedioha as winner of the Imo Governorship election saying that he won majority of lawful votes cast at the governorship poll.
The Imo State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal and the Court of Appeal in their rulings in the appeal filed by Senator Hope Uzodinma, upheld Ihedioha’s election and dismissed Uzodinma’s petition on grounds that he did not prove his allegations against the election of Ihedioha. However, the Supreme Court ruled otherwise.
The Supreme Court in its judgment of January 14, 2020 disagreed with the ruling of the Court of Appeal on the grounds that they erred in law when they excluded votes from 388 polling units from the total scores at the poll.
In judgment delivered by Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, the apex court added the excluded votes totaling over 200,000 to Uzodinma thereby declaring him the winner of the election and not Ihedioha who actually won majority of the lawful votes cast in the March 9 governorship election in Imo State.
Not satisfied with the ruling of the apex court, Ihedioha, approached the court with a request to set aside its ruling saying that the court was misled in arriving at its decision. Arguing his application, lead Counsel to Ihedioha, Chief Kanu Agabi SAN, urged the Court to take a critical look at the issues and change its earlier ruling owing to certain inherent errors in the judgment that removed his client from office.
Agabi said the apex court did not consider the judgment of the Court of Appeal which struck out Uzodinma’s appeal for being incompetent, adding that as at the time the Supreme Court gave its judgment, the decision was still sub-siting and wondered where the issue of 388 polling units came about when in actual fact, Uzodinma had had tendered results of 366 polling units which he claimed was excluded from the total figure of votes cast at the election.
Agabi further said; “The judgment gave them credit in 22 polling units from nowhere contrary to all precedents. The number of votes cast at the election exceeded the number of accreditation by 129,000″.
“The judgment did not show that the APC had the necessary Constitutional spread to be declared as winner of the election. The appellants ought not to have benefited from an election which they claimed was invalid by reason of alleged malpractices.
“They themselves stigmatized the election as been invalid and as such cannot be beneficiary. From all our pleadings and from evidence, 366 instead of 388 polling units have dispute. There is something wrong with them.
“It is a fatal error on the part of the Supreme Court. If he tendered results of 366 polling units and gets results in 388 polling units, how did he do it”, Agabi asked?
He therefore appealed to the court to set aside its judgment sacking Ihedioha and restore the verdict of the Court of Appeal, stressing that by section 6 of the Constitution, the Supreme Court has all powers, including powers to correct its errors.
Responding, counsel to Uzodinma and the APC, Mr Damian Dodo SAN, urged the court to dismiss Ihedioha’s application for being incompetent and lacking in merit. Dodo said they are opposing the application because the court lacked the jurisdiction to entertain it in the first place, adding that; “Whether the application is characterized as an application for review or classified as an application to set aside or so ever dressed or clothed, this Court has consistently and rightly so held that it lacked powers to sit on appeal over its own judgment and this is what it is.”
Dodo further said that what the applicants are asking the court to do amounts to an invitation to review its judgment and that is not tenable and argued further that the judgment in dispute was clear enough and does not fall into any of those situations where the court can review its judgment.
He also said that reviewing this particular case would imply that the Supreme Court did not think through its judgment before it was delivered.
In his words; “The fundamental thing here is jurisdiction. The law says there is no jurisdiction for this court to sit on appeal over its own judgment. For the court to set aside its judgment, it must first hear the appeal, which is something the court does not allow.
Dodo refuted the claim that Uzodinma called for the nullification of the election, saying that a litigant has right to choose the best option in prosecuting his case. He noted that the appellants abandoned that relief and relied only on the one praying the court to return them as winner of the poll following compelling evidence at their disposal that they won the election.
On the judgment of the Court of Appeal which dismissed their case, Dodo said that the judgment of the Supreme Court which set aside the judgment of the Court of Appeal has completely taken care of all issues raised at the lower court and therefore urged the apex court to dismiss the application for lacking in merit.
