Former governor of Imo State, Emeka Ihedioha, has asked the Supreme Court to set aside its judgment, which sacked him as the governor of the state.
In a cross petition filed on Thursday, in pursuant to section 6(6) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended); section 22 of the Supreme Court Act, 2004 and under the inherent jurisdiction, Ihedioha is praying the apex court to declare, as a nullity, its judgment on the January 14, 2020.
The court in its unanimous judgment had asked that Hope Uzodinma, candidate of the All Progressives Party (APC) should be sworn in as the duly elected governor of the state, having majority of lawful votes cast.
Applicants in the Cross Appeal with suit No: SC.1470/2019,
are Ihedioha, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), while the respondents are Uzodinma and the APC.
The cross appeal filed by counsel to Ihedioha, Chief Kanu Agabi, said that it is unlawful for the total number of votes cast in an election to exceed the number of accredited voters.
Agsbi said it was an illegality which rendered the judgment null and void.
He said the apex court was 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.”
The petioner wants the judgment set aside on the following grounds:
“Having regard to section 140(2) of the Electoral Act (as amended), the Appellants/Respondents divested this Honourable Court of the relevant jurisdiction to declare the 1st Appellant/ Respondent as the winner of the gubernatorial election conducted in Imo State on the 9th day of March 2019 by branding or stigmatizing the entire election as invalid.
“This Honourable Court had no jurisdiction to declare the 1st Appellant/Respondent as elected in an election petition which was based on two inconsistent and mutually exclusive grounds, to wit, (i) that the 1st Applicant was not duly elected by majority of lawful votes cast at the election, the implication of which is that the majority of votes cast at the election were valid; and (ii) that the election was invalid for non-compliance with the Electoral Act, the implication of which is that the election be annulled.
“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.
“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,” among others.
“…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.”
The petitioners said the failure of the Supreme Court to consider and pronounce on the issue of jurisdiction “amounts to a failure of jurisdiction and completely erodes the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court to consider the appeal on the merits.”
The petition said the justices of the Supreme Court 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.”
The cross appeal formulated some questions for determination.
“How could this Honourable Court declare victory in favour of a petitioner that prayed for a rerun election to be conducted in all the polling units where he alleged election results were withheld or cancelled?
“How could this Honourable Court award votes and declare victory for the 1st Respondent when it had the effect of swelling-up the total number of votes cast such that it far exceeded the total accredited voters by 129,304 votes despite the settled principle that accreditation is the bedrock of any valid election? How could this Honourable Court declare victory for the 1st Respondent based on his computation which did not at any time and in any way reckon with the votes scored by the other 68 candidates that participated in the election?
“In the absence of evidence, how could your Lordships come to the conclusion that the 1st Respondent’s votes met the mandatory geographical spread as decreed by the Constitution?”
The applicants appealed to the apex court to consider the application patiently and dispassionately. “Do not be angry with the applicants. The least that we can do is to understand the plight of those who are aggrieved by the judgments of our courts.
“However justified we may be, we cannot deny them the right to vent their grief.
“This application is brought in good faith. It is better for litigants to bring applications of this sort than to spread lies and rumours and gossips behind the back of the court. Above all, we should bear in mind always that this application is authorised by law.
“Our ancestors decreed that a decision which is final should not be the work of one man. And so they ordained that a number of justices of this court should preside over cases of the type that is the subject of this application. Even then, they considered that the participation by several justices in the decision of a case would not guarantee its correctness. And so, they further ordained that in the event that mistakes were made, you should have the power and authority to correct yourselves. It is that power that we urge you to exercise in this instant application.”
