It's no longer news that the Supreme Court has fixed Tuesday 18th of February to hear an Application brought before it by Ihedioha asking it to review its judgment on Imo election petition.

Just to let us know that hearing of the application is one thing then agreeing to Review the judgement is another thing cos it's one thing to apply for a review is another thing for the application to be granted.

Hence two things will Likely happen on Tuesday after hearing the application - The Supreme court will either decide to review their judgement or decide to stand by it by dismissing the application.

For me going by the recent pronouncements of the Supreme Court on judgement review, I think they will likely dismiss the application and throw it away by Tuesday.

So what do you think?

...LEST YOU GET IT TWISTED- ��

FILING AN APPLICATION FOR REVIEW IN THE SUPREME COURT REGISTRY DOES NOT AUTOMATICALLY AMOUNT TO REVIEW OF THE CONCLUDED APPEAL BY THE SUPREME COURT!⚖

The recent application for review filed in the Supreme Court Registry by PDP and her sacked Imo guber candidate over the 2019 Governorship election is being grossly misunderstood in certain quarters particularly within the partisan ranks of those that would want the Supreme Court to overrule itself in that matter even when the judicial calendar for adjudication im electoral cases has formally closed and notwithstanding that it was a considered unanimous judgement of the full court of seven Justices of the Supreme Court.

This 2019 Imo Governorship case is one of the many high profile political cases handled on a final appeal at the Supreme Court and it was disposed of by the apex court on 14 January 2020.

In that ground-breaking unanimous judgement, the Supreme Court sacked the PDP Governorship candidate from office while the APC Governorship Candidate was declared lawful winner and ordered to be sworn into office as Governor of Imo State.

Consequently, the APC Governorship candidate has since 15 January 2020 been sworn in as Imo Governor by the Chief Judge of Imo State in obedience to the final decision of the Supreme Court.
The law of the land requires all parties embroiled in a dispute in court to accept the final decision of the highest court in the land as appeals lie from the Supreme Court to no where else.

However, politicians being incurable optimists by nature will not mind asking for the impossible including applying all manner of subterfuge to secure power via the polls or seeking judicial reprieve through the back door even when there are no valid, cogent and legally sustainable grounds to do so.

Shortly after the Supreme Court judgement in the Imo Governorship case, instead of accepting the final verdict in line with the tenets of rule of law, the applicants in this matter, contrary to established civilized norms, resorted to all sorts of demeaning antics ranging from street protests to openly scandalizing the judiciary and pouring unprintable umbrage and invectives on the Justices of the Supreme Court.

Finally, they have ended up filing an application in the Supreme Court Registry requesting the Supreme Court to review the said judgement and overrule itself.

For the records, the Supreme Court is a public institution and its Registry is open to members of the public.

If a litigant (like PDP and or her sacked guber candidate in the present Imo Guber case) presents an application and pays appropriate assessed filing fees in the Supreme Court Registry, the Chief Registrar of the Supreme Court is under legal compulsion to receive the application and slate it for consideration of the Supreme Court on a named date.

Even in the event where the said application is frivolous, spurious and lacking in merit, the Registry must receive and process the said application provided always the litigant has paid necessary fees and complied with requisite filing norms in the appellate court.

Accepting an application filed in the Supreme Court is procedural and routine and has nothing to do with the merit or demerit of the application filed or the case to which it relates.
It is therefore no big deal to get a date fixed for consideration of an application filed for a review of a judgement which the Supreme Court has decided with finality.

What is the big issue is whether the Supreme Court will countenance the prayers or reliefs sought in the application for review.

We dare say that with this application now listed on the cause list of the Supreme Court, it signposts the beginning of the many stringent hurdles the applicants will be required to surmount as a precondition for getting the Supreme Court to agree to review and or and overrule itself in a judgement it has conclusively determined.

Thus, it settled that the filing of the application and consequential fixing of a date to consider the said application for review does not amount to an automatic review of the judgement already done and dusted.

With this development, on the date fixed for hearing of the application for review or so soon thereafter as the business of the Supreme Court may permit, the applicants, being PDP and her sacked governorship candidate, will have the Herculean task of convincing the Supreme Court Justices of the substantive law or procedural rules under which they brought the application.

They also have the onus of satisfying the Supreme Court on the propriety of the application they brought for review in view of the settled law that a disposed case by the Supreme Court has come to a dead end or final bus stop.

In addition, this Imo Governorship case being an election petition matter that is *suis generis* man and time sensitive, the applicants must show good cause why the Supreme Court should reopen the case it is now *functus officio* and may not be lawfully entitled to reopen by reason of effluxion of time, the sixty days allowed under the Constitution for election petition appeals before the Supreme Court having long expired.

It is settled law that the issue of sixty days constitutional timeline for conclusion of election petition appeals in the Supreme Court is a grave constitutional question and the courts do not answer them lightly.

The above are among the compulsory things the applicants must satisfy the Supreme Court before talking about the merits or demerits of the review proper which will require them among other things to convince the Supreme Court that the unanimous judgement of the full court of seven justices were in patent error requiring rectification.

In view of the foregoing, the innocuous concluding point must be made that unlike the propaganda out there, it is not yet uhuru for the applicants as the Supreme Court is not yet reviewing their unanimous judgdment declaring His Excellency Senator Hope Uzodinma of APC winner of the 2019 Imo Governorship election.

The Supreme Court seldom overrules itself although it has power to do so.

An application for a review is not a leisure walk in the park even as filing an application for a review of a concluded judgement does not automatically approximate to a review.

Nigerians and the legal community are optimistic that the Supreme Court is more than able and capable to resolve all issues, constitutional and otherwise, raised in this application.

The other street talks that international observers drawn from EU, UN, AU, World Court, ECOWAS Court and the rest of them will be present to watch or is it supervise the Supreme Court proceedings in this matter are laughable and can only be dismissed as idle and ignorant propaganda.

International and local observers are welcome to attend the proceedings (or any others for that matter) but their presence or otherwise in the Supreme Court will never impact on the outcome of the application which can only be decided based on Nigerian law and as interpreted in the infinite wisdom of the Supreme Court.

No person or authority can armtwist, browbeat, intimidate or harass the Supreme Court into going against the Constitution and laws of Nigeria.

Justice will always be done and the heavens will not fall.

Let all concerned be properly advised lest we get it twisted.

A new normal is possible!

Prof Obiaraeri, N.O., Ph.D (Law), B.L.,

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In OBIOHA v. IBERO (1994) 1 NWLR Pt. 322 Pg 503, the applicants sought an order of the Supreme Court to set aside its own judgment on among other grounds that the court's decision was a nullity because the court lacked jurisdiction to decide on and interpret certain documents.

Belgore JSC (as he then was) who read the lead judgment put the law thus at pg 520-521:

"What this court is being asked to do, is to review its judgment, not to correct clerical errors or errors from accidental slip or omission, but to overturn its own judgment already given. This court has consistently refused to be dragged into this pitfall. The purpose of this application is clear, it is an appeal cloaked in the guise of a motion. From the wordings of a motion and the grounds for bringing it, it is manifestly clear that the validity of the judgment of this court as given on 26th February, 1993 is being challenged ...

Once the supreme court has entered judgment in a case, that decision is final and will remain so for ever. The law may in future be amended to affect future issues on the same subject, but for the case decided, that is the end of the matter ... It is emphatically restated that this motion with a double edged sword of alleged powers under the Constitution S. 6 (6)(a) and under the Rules (Order 8 rule 16) should once and for all be nailed in its coffin. The law does not permit this court a double say in the same matter. It either allows or dismisses an appeal, not the two on the same issue. The inherent powers under S. 6 (6) of the Constitution cannot be invoked to reverse a decision already given by this court..."

Whether Hearing, Review, Preview, or Postview, what we want is justice. Let the people's vote prevail.

Tuesday is almost here....let's watch and see.

Raccoons article centred on "Reasons why Ihedioha won aswell as arithmetic errors and procedural errors" before coming to conclusion... but yours is based on supreme court not giving ears to Ihedioha's petition for appeal on supreme court verdict. You could have tried proving why Hope should remain on sit as Governor to balance that article.

I agree they'll probably throw it out. I would prefer to see a runoff election. That would be very entertaining.

They dont ve choice

With God all things are possible. I want Father Mbaka to be disgraced. Useless priest

I think that its most likely that the Supreme Court will throw out Ihedioha's application for review. However, due to the nationwide controversy that judgement generated, the Supreme court may grant a review. Who knows?

kahal29:
In OBIOHA v. IBERO (1994) 1 NWLR Pt. 322 Pg 503, the applicants sought an order of the Supreme Court to set aside its own judgment on among other grounds that the court's decision was a nullity because the court lacked jurisdiction to decide on and interpret certain documents.

Belgore JSC (as he then was) who read the lead judgment put the law thus at pg 520-521:

"What this court is being asked to do, is to review its judgment, not to correct clerical errors or errors from accidental slip or omission, but to overturn its own judgment already given. This court has consistently refused to be dragged into this pitfall. The purpose of this application is clear, it is an appeal cloaked in the guise of a motion. From the wordings of a motion and the grounds for bringing it, it is manifestly clear that the validity of the judgment of this court as given on 26th February, 1993 is being challenged ...

Once the supreme court has entered judgment in a case, that decision is final and will remain so for ever. The law may in future be amended to affect future issues on the same subject, but for the case decided, that is the end of the matter ... It is emphatically restated that this motion with a double edged sword of alleged powers under the Constitution S. 6 (6)(a) and under the Rules (Order 8 rule 16) should once and for all be nailed in its coffin. The law does not permit this court a double say in the same matter. It either allows or dismisses an appeal, not the two on the same issue. The inherent powers under S. 6 (6) of the Constitution cannot be invoked to reverse a decision already given by this court..."

. You people just opened this page to analyze nothing, you just took your time to waste, if supreme Court does not revert a fraudulent or one grossly perceived to be laced, why would the agree to review the judgement, supreme Court is smarter than you people to be premted by you paid goons, every right thinking Nigerian knows that the judgement on Emeka Ihedioha was purchased, that is why people like the op are jittery over the review and think by writing this can change the obvious fact that once the benchers at supreme Court Justice review and discover obnoxious facts in that judgement, it will be automatically be reverted Emeka Ihedioha Hope case is not the first to be so and will not be the last

gidgiddy:
I think that its most likely that the Supreme Court will throw out Ihedioha's application for review. However, due to the nationwide controversy that judgement generated, the Supreme court may grant a review. Who knows?

. Tell yourself the truth, are you jittery of the review?