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REVEALED: Supreme Court berates INEC in Ihedioha’s sacking
BY KAZIE UKO
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) came under severe rebuke by the Supreme Court in the historic judgment that swept off former Imo State Governor, Emeka Ihedioha, and enthroned Hope Uzodinma, in his place.
The Supreme Court which premised its judgment on the admissibility of results from 388 polling units in the March 9, 2019 gubernatorial election in Imo State, lampooned the electoral body for not diligently prosecuting the case, according to a copy of the judgment obtained by RELIABLESOURCENG.COM
“As regards the 3rd respondent, it failed woefully to tender the results it termed “genuine,” which would have rebutted the presumption of regularity in favour of the documents tendered by the appellants,” the apex court ruled in the judgment delivered by Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, on behalf of the seven-man panel of justices led by the Chief Justice of the Federation (CJN), Ibrahim Tanko Muhammad, which sat over the case.
INEC is the third respondent in the case brought before the Supreme Court by Senator Hope Uzodinma and the All Progressives Congress (APC), first and second Appellants, respectively, while Rt. Hon. Emeka Ihedioha and People’s Democratic Party (PDP) were listed as the first and second Respondents, respectively.
Even though INEC, just like the other respondents, had argued all through the trial from the tribunal stage up to the Supreme Court, the last arbiter, that there were no such results from 388 PUs and that it had not failed to record any vote due to Uzodinma, calling any document bearing such PUs fictitious, the Supreme Court was not impressed.
READ: How votes from 388 polling units made Uzodinma governor
The crux of Uzodinma’s appeal, according to the Supreme Court, is the claim that INEC incorrectly stated the votes that accrued to him by excluding the results from the polling units where he has stronghold and scored the overwhelming majority of the votes cast.
Uzodinma’s mathematical calculation which the Supreme Court bought and awarded victory to him was based on the following claim:
According to Justice Kekere-Ekun: “The appellants did not plead or base their claims on any anomalies in the polling units. Their case was that votes lawfully earned were unlawfully excluded from the collation at Ward level. The documents relied upon were alleged to be fake or forged but none of the respondents was able to prove forgery.
“I hold that on a preponderance of evidence, the appellants discharged the burden on them of proving that the results from 388 polling units, which were in their favour, were excluded from the collation of results and that if the excluded votes are added to the results declared in their favour, they would have emerged as the winners of the election.”
The Supreme Court, through Justice Kekere-Ekun, finally held:
