Tobias Sylvester
Former Imo State Governor, Emeka Ihedioha has prayed the Supreme Court to set aside the judgment it delivered on January 14 which nullified his election.
KanyiDaily recalls the court had declared Senator Hope Uzodinma of the All Progressive Congress (APC) as the winner of the March 9 governorship election in the state.
The apex court agreed that results in 388 polling units were unlawfully excluded during the collation of the final governorship election result in Imo State.
Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun said that with the results from the 388 polling units added, Uzodinma polled a majority of the lawful votes and ought to have been declared the winner of the election by the.
The court, however, did not provide the details of the new votes scored by each of the candidates after the addition of the results from the 388 polling units.
In a fresh suit filed through their lawyer Chief Kanu Agabi (SAN), Ihedioha and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) urged the apex court to set aside it’s judgment that oust him from office on the ground that, it was fraudulently obtained by Hope Uzodinma.
The applicants argued that Governor Uzodinma and his party fraudulently misled the apex court into holding that 213,495 votes were unlawfully excluded from the votes they scored in the governorship election held on March 9, 2019.
They recalled that that Uzodinma, while under cross-examination, admitted that he was the person, who computed the result that gave him the 213,495 votes alleged to have been excluded from his total votes in the election and not INEC.
“The fraudulent nature of the additional votes was demonstrated by the fact that the total votes cast as shown in the first 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 first appellant/respondent showed only the votes of the first applicant and the first appellant/respondent without specifying the votes scored by the other 68 candidates who participated in the election.
“The judgment which is a nullity ought to be set aside because it was given per incuriam, meaning the previous court judgment failed to pay attention to relevant statutory provision or precedents.
“That the judgment is a nullity having been delivered without jurisdiction”, they noted.
Ihedioha and PDP also said that by Exhibit A1, the total number of voters accredited for the election was 823, 743, while the total valid votes cast was 731, 485.
They pointed out that the inclusion of 213, 695 votes for the first appellant/respondent, made the total number of votes cast at the election to be more than the total number of voters accredited for the election.
The applicants, among other grounds, argued that the majority judgment of the Court of Appeal dismissing Uzodinma’s petition as incompetent continues to subsist as the appeal against that decision was not considered by the apex court.
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