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How votes from 388 polling units made Uzodinma governor
BY OUR EDITOR
The seven-man Supreme Court panel led by the Chief Justice of the Federation, Tanko Muhammad, Tuesday upheld the appeal filed by Senator Hope Uzodinma of the All Progressives Congress (APC) asking to be declared winner of the 2019 governorship election in Imo State.
Uzodinma’s appeal was hinged on the ground that Hon Emeka Ihedioha of People’s Democratic Party (PDP) who was declared winner and subsequently sworn-in as governor, did not score majority of lawful votes in the election.
The apex court, in a unanimous judgment delivered by Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, upheld the appeal and ordered that Uzodinma of the All Progressives Congress (APC) be sworn in immediately as the duly elected governor of Imo State.
The court agreed that results from 388 polling units were unlawfully excluded during the collation of the final results in the state.
There was a lull in the courtroom as the apex court handed down the judgment. Ihedioha’s lawyers and supporters were visibly shocked after the judgment at 6:20pm. The court had sat for about eight hours with two intermittent breaks.
More than 10 minutes after the apex court panel members departed the courtroom, Ihedioha’s lawyers and supporters were unable to move as they remained stuck to the same position
But Uzodinma’s supporters in the courtroom burst into shouts of joy as they trooped out of the courtroom.
They joined others, who could not gain entry into the courtroom, to celebrate the court’s pronouncement. Some of them latched on their phones, ostensibly making calls informing their supporters back home of their court victory.
Justice Kekere-Ekun noted that with the result from the 388 polling units, the APC governorship candidate polled the majority of the lawful votes and ought to have been declared winner of the election by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Consequently, the court ordered that the certificate of return, which was wrongly issued to lhedioha of the PDP, be immediately withdrawn by INEC, and a fresh one issued to Uzodinma.
By so doing, the court set aside the verdicts of the Imo State Election Petition Tribunal and the Court of Appeal both of which had upheld the election of Ihedioha by dismissing the petition filed by Uzodinma.
CJN Justice Tanko Muhammad
The court below had refused to recognise and accept the votes from the 388 polling units as being unlawfully excluded in the general collation.
Uzodinma and APC had in their appeal prayed the apex court to review the judgment of the two lower courts against them and restore their victory in the election. The two appellants maintained that the unlawful exclusion of votes from 388 polling units denied them victory in the election.
In upholding Uzodinma’s appeal on Tuesday, the Supreme Court agreed with him that the votes polled in 388 out of the 3,523 polling units were excluded in the final results declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission in the state, on March 11, 2019.
Justice Kekere-Ekun ruled that with the addition of the excluded votes to the earlier declared final results, Uzodinma polled the highest lawful votes with the required spread of votes in the state.
She set aside the judgments of both the Imo State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal and the Court of Appeal which had both affirmed Ihedioha’s election.
She stated, “The lower court misunderstood the case of the appellants,” adding that “the case was not a case of exclusion from the election but exclusion of votes from final results.”
She explained that the lower courts were wrong to have rejected the results of the 388 polling units on the grounds that they were not tendered before the tribunal by the proper person.
The results were said to have been tendered by the petitioners’ 54th witness.
“P54, a police officer who tendered the results was subpoenaed to produce the results. Having been subpoenaed to produce the results, it was wrong for the lower courts to hold that P54 was not the proper person to tender the results,” Justice Kekere-Ekun ruled.
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Ihedioha had argued that the Supreme Court had earlier in its judgment delivered on December 20, 2019 declared that Uche Nwosu was the candidate of both the APC and the Action Alliance and on the basis of that declared the nomination of Nwosu for the March 2019 election as null and void.
His lawyers argued that the apex court’s judgment implied that Uzodinma was not the APC’s candidate in the election.
But addressing this argument, Justice Kekere-Ekun held that the issue of nomination was a pre-election issue that could not be raised in a post-election litigation.
As the consequence of the findings, she ordered, “The judgment of the lower court which declared the first appellant as the winner with the majority of lawful votes is hereby set aside.
“It is hereby declared that votes due to the appellants – Hope Uzodinma and the All Progressives Congress – were wrongfully excluded.
“It is ordered that the votes unlawfully excluded should be added.
“The first respondent (Ihedioha) was not duly elected by the majority of lawful votes and his return as the winner of the election is hereby declared null and void.
“The first appellant (Uzodinma) polled the majority of the Imo State governorship election held on March 9, 2019 and got the required spread across the state.
“The first appellant is the winner of the governorship election held on March 9, 2019 in Imo State.”