Imo again! Supreme Court to hear Ihedioha’s matter

Ihedioha and Uzodinma

Tuesday, 18 February has been fixed by the Supreme Court for hearing in the fresh application by former governor of Imo State, Emeka Ihedioha, challenging the judgement earlier delivered on 14 January. This is contained in a message circulated on Saturday.

However, one of the lawyers representing Governor Hope Uzodinma, Festus Jombo Esq, as reported by Daily Trust, said although he heard about the new date, the office has not been served the hearing notice. 

Ihedioha in the application dated February 5, 2020 and brought through his counsel and former Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Kanu Agabi (SAN), according to the report, is praying the apex court to set aside the judgement. “Ihedioha and PDP listed five grounds which they said the apex court erred in arriving at its decision to nullify the March 9, 2019 election and declare Uzodinmma winner of the election after he presented excluded results from 388 polling units.”

The fresh application is brought under Section 6(6) of the Nigerian Constitution 1999 and Section 22 of the Supreme Court Act, 2004. 

A seven-member justices, as contained in the report, had unanimously ruled that Uzodinma, who is of the APC, proved the allegation of unlawful exclusion of results in 388 polling units of the state where he scored 213,695 votes. The lead judgment read by Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, held that the Court of Appeal was wrong to have ruled that the PW54, subpoenaed police deputy commissioner, who produced the documents of the results, was not the proper person to tender same as he was not at the polling units. Ihedioha of the PDP had polled 273,404 votes for the election in 27 local government areas of the state; Action Alliance candidate, Uche Nwosu, polled 190,364 votes and APGA’s Ifeanyi Ararume polled 114,676 votes. With the addition of the excluded votes, Uzodinma’s votes now rose to 310,153