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Sacked former governor of Imo State, Emeka Ihedioha, has urged the Supreme Court to speedily hear the application he filed for a review of the judgment that ousted him from office and declared Hope Uzodinma of All Progressives Congress, APC, as the validly elected governor of the state.
Ihedioha, in the application he filed through his team of lawyers led by a former Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Chief Kanu Agabi, SAN, maintained that the judgment the apex court delivered against him on January 14, amounted to a nullity.
Enumerating reasons why his sacking should be reversed, Ihedioha who contested on the platform of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, argued that the Supreme Court lacked the jurisdiction to declare Uzodinma governor in the absence of any proof that votes ascribed to him met the mandatory geographical spread.
In his brief of argument, Ihedioha, contended: “This honourable court did not have the jurisdiction to declare the 1st appellant/respondent as elected in the absence of any proof that the votes ascribed to him met the mandatory geographical spread stipulated in section 179 (2) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended).
“This honourable court did not have the jurisdiction to declare that the 1st appellant/respondent met the constitutional geographical spread without providing in its judgment the reason(s) for that conclusion”.
He argued that the apex court panel, which was headed by the Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, Justice Tanko Muhammad, had no jurisdiction to hand victory to Uzodinma “in an election petition, which was based on two inconsistent and mutually exclusive grounds.”
He said the second ground was that the election was invalid for non-compliance with the Electoral Act, “the implication of which is that the election be annulled.”
Besides, Ihedioha argued that the CJN-led panel failed to consider a subsisting judgment of the Abuja Division of the Court of Appeal that dismissed Uzodinma’s petition.
“At the Tribunal the 2nd Applicant (as 2nd Respondent) applied to have the petition struck out on the ground that it was incompetent having regard to the fact that the 1st Petitioner who came fourth did not join the 2nd and 3rd runners up in the Petition.
“The application was heard and dismissed by the Tribunal whereupon the 2nd Applicant appealed to the Court of Appeal by way of Cross-Appeal to which the 1st and 2nd Respondents replied.
“The cross-appeal was heard and allowed by the Court below. In the words of Adah JCA, who delivered the lead judgment in the cross-appeal:
“The preliminary objection of the 1st Cross Respondent (sic) at the lower court is allowed and I hold that the appropriate order of the trial tribunal would have been to have petition no EPT/GOV/IM/08/2019 struck out for being incompetent. I, therefore, order the petition struck out. No cost is awarded.”
“The 1st and 2nd Respondents appealed against the above order of the Court below in ground 18 of their Notice of Appeal but only to the extent of showing that the 1st Appellant was the 1st Cross Respondent at the Court of Appeal.
“The order of the Court of Appeal striking out the Petition for being incompetent raises a jurisdictional issue which this Honourable Court ought to have resolved first before delving into the merits of the Appeal.
“In its judgment, this court neither considered nor resolved this jurisdictional issue.
“The failure of the Supreme Court to consider and pronounce on this issue amounts to a failure of jurisdiction and completely erodes the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court to consider the appeal on the merits.
“Your Lordships neither set aside the decision of the Court of Appeal striking out the Petition for being incompetent nor made any pronouncement on it. In the absence of any pronouncement by the Supreme Court on this issue, the judgment of the Court of Appeal striking out the Petition for being incompetent remains valid and subsisting.
“In the absence of any specific order of the Supreme Court setting aside the order of the Court of Appeal striking out the petition, the Supreme Court had no jurisdiction to countenance the Appellants’ appeal”, Ihedioha added.
More so, he argued that his sack was a nullity in view of section 140(2) of the Electoral Act (as amended), noting that Uzodinma divested the Supreme Court of the relevant jurisdiction to declare him winner since he had in his petition, branded and stigmatised the entire governorship election that held in Imo State on March 9, 2019, as invalid.
“The appellants/respondents fraudulently misled this court into holding that a total of 213,495 votes were unlawfully excluded from the votes scored by the 1st Appellant/Respondent in the gubernatorial election of 9th March 2019 in Imo State.
“The 1st Appellant/Respondent admitted under cross-examination that he was the person (and not the 3rd Respondent [INEC] or any of its officials) who computed the result that gave him the 213,495 votes alleged to have been excluded from his total votes in the election.
“The fraudulent nature of the additional votes was demonstrated by the fact that the total votes cast as shown in the 1st Appellant/ Respondent’s computation was more than the total number of voters accredited for the election and in some polling units more than the total number of registered voters.
“The fraud was also demonstrated by the fact that the result computed by the 1st Appellant/Respondent showed only the votes of the 1st Applicant and the 1st Appellant/Respondent without specifying the votes scored by the other 68 candidates who participated in the election.
“The fraud was further demonstrated by Exhibits 63RD1 to 63RD19 (INEC Forms EC40G) which show that there were no valid elections in the 388 polling units where the additional 213,495 votes claimed by the 1st Appellant/Respondent were allegedly generated.
“By Exhibit A1 (Form EC8D) the total number of voters accredited for the Governorship Election held on 9th March 2019 in Imo State was 823,743, while the total valid votes cast was 731,485.
“With the inclusion of 213,695 votes for the 1st Appellant/ Respondent and 1,903 to the votes of the 1st Applicant, as ordered by this court, the total number of votes cast at the election now stands at 953,083 (i.e. 731,485 + 213,695 + 1,903) making the total number of votes cast at the election to be far in excess of the total number of voters accredited for the election, 129,340.”
“It is unlawful for the total number of votes cast in an election to exceed the number of accredited voters and that illegality rendered the judgment sought to be set aside null and void.
“The Appellants/Respondents pleaded in paragraph 39 of their petition that a supplementary election should be conducted in the 388 polling units where the additional votes that created the illegality were alleged to have been cast and that pleading was binding on the Appellants/Respondents and the court.
“The 1st Appellant/Respondent alleged that votes from 388 polling units were unlawfully excluded or cancelled and urged the court to include in the computation of the election results the votes from those polling units. At the same time, the 1st Appellant/Respondent prayed that fresh elections be conducted in the said polling units thus rendering the petition speculative.
“The Appellants/Respondents failed to plead the votes scored by all the parties in the 388 affected polling units. Only the votes allegedly scored by the 1st Appellant/Respondent and the 1st Applicant were pleaded – an omission which rendered the petition incompetent.
“This Honourable Court was consequently misled into making a vague order directing the inclusion of votes from the 388 polling units without stating or specifying the particular number of votes to be included from those polling units for all the parties.
“Without computing, the votes for all the parties from the 388 polling units this honourable court was misled into making a declaration that the 1st Appellant/Respondent was the winner of the gubernatorial election in Imo State – an election that the Appellants/Respondents had themselves branded or stigmatized as invalid on account of non-compliance”, Ihedioha added.
