₦airaland Forum

Two critical pointers aside from the legal aspect brilliantly explained below made this judgment compelling. Firstly as I've come to learn, the judgement was unanimous ie, all sitting Justices of the Supreme Court agreed on the judgment - it's not so often this happens. Secondly, the judgement is in line with the dissenting judgment of one of the Court of Appeal Judges who disagreed with the overall judgment of the Court of Appeal that affirmed Ihedioha's victory. From the simple legal explanation below by Twitter user @jstmo, the Supreme was only inclined to arrive at one verdict.

THE IMO GUBERNATORIAL JUDGMENT A JUDGEMENT ON SOUND LEGAL FOOTING.


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 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.

This a case of i go school but school no go me The lawyers must make refund to ex gov ihedioha

Op @ wesley80 come and take your trash back bro

Your punching like 1050ti hand don weak oooo

It cant punch paper sef

The supreme court just rubbished itself. Now there is clear case of over voting in Imo state.

courts don't have power to "hand" electoral victory. it is the people that choose who wins and governs them.

wesley80:
Two critical pointers aside from the legal aspect

The writer of your piece is talking pure nonsense.
He is being too clever by half and he probably knows it.
About unanimity, Tanko carefully shopped for justices to hear the case, removing and adding justices to get exactly what he wanted.

More importantly, there is nothing in law that says they shouldn’t see the obvious fraudulent nature of the documents in front of them. There is nothing that says they shouldn’t make sure Uzodinma’s written numbers tally with the documents he submitted before declaring him elected. There is nothing that says they shouldn’t make sure he meets the geographical spread.

They carefully avoided mentioning numbers in a case that is all about numbers BECAUSE they were pre-determined to install Uzodinma on any excuse no matter how erroneous. Same way INEC carefully avoided giving the final tally of votes as they do in every other case!
Of course it was pre-determined. They know full well you don’t replace an 8th-month governor with a FOURTH place finisher on ridiculous technicalities based on obviously fraudulent documents.

Below is from dissension of Justice Centus Chima Nweze (whose name is forever written in gold). Read it carefully.

The following is directly from him VERBATIM (including the phrase “wonders shall never end”):

Five, “The applicants equally complained that the said judgement of this court is a nullity in that it was delivered without jurisdiction. True indeed, one of the grounds of the first appellants (Uzodinma)’s reliefs was that the election was invalid by reason of non-compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act (as amended). It was therefore, with profound respect, clearly preposterous to award him electoral victory in exercise he has deprecated and maligned as being invalid.”

Six, “Although the first appellant claimed that his 213, 695 votes were unlawfully excluded in the third respondent’s final result, the statement of his excluded votes in Exhibit AGA339527, the one on record, mysteriously omitted any reference to the votes scored by other candidates in that election. In my respectful view, having thus failed, neglected or omitted to plead the scores of other candidates in the said election, this court wrongly declared him as duly elected.”

Seven, “True indeed, DW 5, in his INEC form EC40G, Exhibit 63 RB1, 63 RB19 shows that elections in those polling units were either cancelled or did not hold at all. Unfortunate for defence was that the said first appellant misled this court into accepting those duplicitous and fake results which he had tabulated as shown above that was how 213, 695 votes were added to him and 1, 903 votes were added to the first applicant. The net effect was that although by Exhibit A1 Form EC8, Exhibit AGA2 in the affidavit in support of the application, the total number of accredited voters in the state was 823,743, the total number of votes cast came 961, 083.

Wonders shall never end! That means there were 159,340 votes in excess of the total number of accredited votes. “In the circumstance, I think that the humble view, that this court has inherent jurisdiction of redeeming its image by setting aside the said judgement, is not out of place.”

CanadaOrBust:
The writer of your piece is talking pure nonsense.
He is being too clever by half and he probably knows it.
About unanimity, Tanko carefully shopped for justices to hear the case, removing and adding justices to get exactly what he wanted.

More importantly, there is nothing in law that says they shouldn’t see the obvious fraudulent nature of the documents in front of them. There is nothing that says they shouldn’t make sure Uzodinma’s written numbers tally with the documents he submitted before declaring him elected. There is nothing that says they shouldn’t make sure he meets the geographical spread.

They carefully avoided mentioning numbers in a case that is all about numbers BECAUSE they were pre-determined to install Uzodinma on any excuse no matter how erroneous. Same way INEC carefully avoided giving the final tally of votes as they do in every other case!

Below is from dissension of Justice Centus Chima Nweze (whose name is forever written in gold). Read it carefully.

The following is directly from him VERBATIM (including the phrase “wonders shall never end”):

Five, “The applicants equally complained that the said judgement of this court is a nullity in that it was delivered without jurisdiction. True indeed, one of the grounds of the first appellants (Uzodinma)’s reliefs was that the election was invalid by reason of non-compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act (as amended). It was therefore, with profound respect, clearly preposterous to award him electoral victory in exercise he has deprecated and maligned as being invalid.”

Six, “Although the first appellant claimed that his 213, 695 votes were unlawfully excluded in the third respondent’s final result, the statement of his excluded votes in Exhibit AGA339527, the one on record, mysteriously omitted any reference to the votes scored by other candidates in that election. In my respectful view, having thus failed, neglected or omitted to plead the scores of other candidates in the said election, this court wrongly declared him as duly elected.”

Seven, “True indeed, DW 5, in his INEC form EC40G, Exhibit 63 RB1, 63 RB19 shows that elections in those polling units were either cancelled or did not hold at all. Unfortunate for defence was that the said first appellant misled this court into accepting those duplicitous and fake results which he had tabulated as shown above that was how 213, 695 votes were added to him and 1, 903 votes were added to the first applicant. The net effect was that although by Exhibit A1 Form EC8, Exhibit AGA2 in the affidavit in support of the application, the total number of accredited voters in the state was 823,743, the total number of votes cast came 961, 083.

Wonders shall never end! That means there were 159,340 votes in excess of the total number of accredited votes. “In the circumstance, I think that the humble view, that this court has inherent jurisdiction of redeeming its image by setting aside the said judgement, is not out of place.”

I'm sure you were there when Justice Tanko was handpicking the judges and dissecting their brains to know their respective inclinations. In any case, this case is settled, Hope Uzodinma is Imo governor for the next four years. Any appeal or dissent you have, you can lodge it with God. My advice is that you dissipate this energy on more productive issues. Try getting Igbos to stop playing insular politics and get them to understand that without building enduring bridges and relationships with other minor and major ethnicities, the presidency along with its undeniable perks would remain elusive.

wesley80:
I'm sure you were there when Justice Tanko was handpicking the judges and dissecting their brains to know their respective inclinations. In any case, this case is settled, Hope Uzodinma is Imo governor for the next four years. Any appeal or dissent you have, you can lodge it with God. My advice is that you dissipate this energy on more productive issues. Try getting Igbos to stop playing insular politics and get them to understand that without building enduring bridges and relationships with other minor and major ethnicities, the presidency along with its undeniable perks would remain elusive.

Well stop posting nonsense about the case then.
This is not about Igbos or any party. I am neither Igbo nor PDP nor even from SE. Just step back and take a broad look at what u r celebrating. The SC is supposed to be the epitome of justice, beyond reproach, yet here they are rewarding blatant cheating and forgery that is obvious to even a child. This is something that will affect you/your children in the future. Also, how can u now tell any Nigerian that lying and cheating does not pay when they can see the highest court in the land unabashedly rewarding exactly that!

The writer should please keep deceiving him/herself.

Nonsense and ingredients