Ariwoola said, “Certainly this court has no inherent power to grant what is being sought, it is beyond the powers of this Court. There is no Constitutional provisions for this court to review its own judgment.
“To say the least, this court has no competence and lacked power to sit on appeal in its own decision. Finality of the Supreme Court is entrenched in the constitution and inherent power can only be invoked where there is law to do so.
“This court cannot under any guise alter any judgment under any inherent power, as doing so would bring the court into disrepute and ridicule.
“The application is liable for dismissal and is hereby dismissed for want of jurisdiction and competence.
The court, however, held that parties in this case should bear their cost.
However, Justice Centus Nweze in his dissenting judgment set aside the January 14 judgment of the Supreme Court that removed Ihedioha from office as a nullity and in bad faith.
Nweze who nullified the declaration of Uzodinma as governor on account of wrong declaration held that Uzodinma mischievously misled the court into unjust conclusion with the unverified votes in 388 polling units.
“In my intimate reading of the January 14 judgment, the substance of Ihedioha’s matter was lost to time frame.
“This Court once set aside its own earlier judgment and therefore cannot use time frame to extinguish the right of any person.
“This Court has powers to over rule itself and can revisit any decision not in accordance with justice”, he said.
According to Nweze, ‘this decision of the Supreme Court will continue to hunt our electoral jurisprudence for a long time to come, adding that without evidence of meeting other constitutional provisions, the court misled itself into declaring Uzodinma as governor.
“This Court has a duty of redeeming its image.
“I am of the view that this application should succeed. I hereby make an order setting aside the decision of this Court made on Jan. 14 and that the certificate of return issued to the appellant be returned to INEC.
“I also make an order restoring the respondents as winner of the March 9 governorship election.
He said that in the judgment, reference was made to 388 polling unit that were excluded but they tendered result from 366 leaving the balance of 22 polling units uncounted for.
“Besides, they added the number of votes that exceeded the registered voters by over 100,000.
” Also at the lower court, the appellants branded the election invalid, If their relief is for the court to declared the election invalid they can not be given the governorship seat from an election that is invalid?.
He said that appellant did not defend all the abnormally and he got a verdict which he did not seek.
“We plead the errors and urge the court to set aside the judgment of Jan 14.
Dodo argued the competence of the motion and the jurisdiction of the court to entertain same and therefore urged the apex court to strike out the motion filed by Ihedioha.
“There is a total lack of jurisdiction in this court to review the Jan. 14 judgment and the constitution does not enable this court to review its judgment.
” The judgment given on Jan. 14 is clear and explicit, the application constitutes an invitation to the Supreme Court to sit on appeal over its final decision,” Dodo argued.
NAN reports that the apex court had, in a unanimous judgment nullified the election of Ihedioha and ordered that Sen. Hope Uzodinma of the APC be sworn in as governor.
The court, which set aside the judgments of the state governorship election petition tribunal and the Court of Appeal, which affirmed Iheodioha’s election, held that he was not validly elected as the governor of the state and consequently ordered that the certificate of return issued to him be retrieved and issued to Uzodinma.
Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, who read the unanimous decision of the apex court on Jan. 14, held that the lower courts erred when it rejected the evidence tendered before them to the extent that the votes from the 388 polling units were not credited to the APC and Uzodinma.
Dissatisfied with the verdict of the apex court, Ihedioha, through his legal team, approached the Supreme Court seeking to set aside the judgment.
INEC had declared Ihedioha as winner of the March 9, 2019 governorship election on the ground 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 concurrent decisions in the appeal filed by Uzodinma, upheld Ihedioha’s election and dismissed Uzodinma’s petition on grounds that he did not prove his allegations against the election of Ihedioha.
Those who dismissed the application include the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Ibrahim Muhammad, Justices Sylvester Ngwuta, Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, Amina Augie and Mary Abba-Aji
Highlight of the event was when after the ruling of Justice Nweze, people in the court, including counsel, burst into spontaneous clapping and the CJN threatened to sentence anyone caught clapping to “continuous clapping”.
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