Despite the wide criticism of the judgement delivered by the SC yesterday, I believe strongly that the verdict is VERY CORRECT!
It is indeed a perplexing paradox: Hope Uzodinma may not have won the 2019 Imo State gubernatorial election, yet the Supreme Court, on the facts, was right in declaring him the winner of that election in law.
Facts gathered is that during the governorship election in Imo State, what appears to be concocted results perhaps not having any basis whatsoever in reality, BUT SIGNED BY INEC PRESIDING OFFICERS, were turned in from more than 350 polling units, .......
giving Hope Uzodinma of the APC an incredibly unassailable lead. When those results were transmitted to the wards collation centres, the collation officers, who had no power in law to cancel or reject them, rejected the said polling units results, and refused to collate them,
thereby effectively excluding them from the total tally of the governorship result that was eventually declared by the Returning Officer.
On that basis, The Independent National Electoral Commission declared the now sacked Governor Ihedioha the winner of the election.
The exclusion of the results of those polling units was the crux of the petition presented at the Tribunal by Hope Uzodinma.
It has been well settled in a long line of judicial pronouncements after David Mark V. ABUBAKAR USMAN, and DOMA V. INEC, that neither collation officers nor a returning officer, has the power in law to exclude a polling unit result duly signed by..............
the presiding officer at the polling unit; only the election tribunal possesses the power to cancel or exclude such a result. So, at the point of its presentation, Senator Uzodinma's petition was on very strong legal grounds, even if the signed result from these polling units...
looked fabricated there being a REBUTTABLE presumption of regularity and correctness, by virtue of both the Electoral Act and Evidence Act, enuring in favour of any result declared by a presiding officer.
The decision would probably have been different had Ihedioha's legal team filed a CROSS PETITION fiercely challenging the integrity of the suspect polling units results upon which Uzodinma was relying,
and praying the election tribunal to formally nullify the said results. Without a cross petition, none of the grounds under section 138 (1) of the Electoral Act for questioning the elections conducted in those polling............
.......units in which Uzodinma supposedly won could have been competently raised by Governor Ihedioha in his defence to Uzodinma's petition.
The above was the ratio decidendi of the Court of Appeal decision in IDRIS V. A.N.P.P.(2008)8 NWLR (PT.1088) Page 1. The above principle was reinforced by the Court of Appeal decision in ATIKU ABUBAKAR V. BUHARI, in dismissing Buhari's .............
contention that Atiku ABUBAKAR was born in Cameroun to parents who originally were Camerounians, and thus disqualified from contesting the election. Dismissing the contention, the Court of Appeal held that the issue was incompetent, since Buhari did not file a cross petition.
Ihedioha's legal team did set up facts in his Reply to the petition rehashing the serial infractions that led to the exclusion of the results of the said 300 plus polling units. But that was legally not enough,.......
..........in the absence of a cross petition. Besides, such renditions by a Respondent in a mere Reply or Statement of Defence are clearly incompetent.
The reason for the incompetence was was made clear by the Court of Appeal in NATIONAL JUDICIAL COUNCIL & ORS V. HON. JUSTICE JUBRIL BABAJIDE ALADEJANA & ORS(2014) LPELR - 2413 (CA) Page 31, paras C - F, at ratio 3 thus -
"The law is that it is a plaintiff who by his statement of claim primarily nominates issues to be tried in a suit and which he relies on to have the judgment of the Court. For a defendant, it is only necessary to resist the plaintiff's claim on the facts pleaded.
It is not for a defendant to set up facts which would convey that it is not just setting up a defence but setting up a new case of his own. He can only do so by way of a counter claim..."
What the above quotation means simply is that since the issue put forth for trial by Hope Uzodinma was the unlawfulfulness or otherwise of the exclusion of the results of the 300 plus polling units by the ward collation officers,........
Ihedioha's defence was therefore necessarily restricted by law to showing that those who excluded the results had the power in law to exclude them. Herein lies the need for a cross petition to raise doubts..............
..............as to the genuineness of the signed results from the troubled polling units and praying the Tribunal in which the powers to reject same is domiciled to so do.
Without a cross petition, the now sacked Governor Ihedioha couldn't legally raise and canvas argument on the issue of the alleged serial corrupt practices and irregularities marring the said results, in a mere statement of defence.
So, you see, the Supreme Court was legally correct in arriving at the conclusion it did, having found that INEC had no power in law to exclude polling units results duly affirmed by the various polling units presiding officers.

And the prophecy came to pass!!
HOPE will never depart in your household!!
Father Mbaka!!!