The Supreme Court Decision In Uzodinma Vs Ihedioha Raised More Questions Than Answers By Jimmy Abia, Esq

After reading the Supreme Court judgment on Imo gubernatorial election, I noted a few interesting points which equally raised more questions than answers:

1) The Supreme Court declined to give effect to its own judgment delivered just a few weeks earlier. In effect, that earlier decision was discountenanced. The rationalisation was that the parties were different. Really? Yet, the case affected INEC in the same election. If the earlier decision is binding on INEC which was a a party in that case and in the instant one, would it not remain so binding and therefore have effect in deciding this later case ?

My Lords of the apex court also held that the previous decision was on a pre-election matter. Fine, it was on a pre election matter but it was also a decision of the court. Should the earlier judgment be ignored in a case that bothers on the same election, because it was decided on a pre-election matter?

Assuming the decision being one on a pre-election matter had already been complied with and given effect by INEC which was a party in both cases, how was Mr. Uzodinma going to remain on the ticket? Did my lord justices expect their initial decision to be one in futility?

The court should have addressed the question of the petitioner’s candidacy since it is a jurisdictional one and can be raised at anytime. If Nwosu was the candidate then the petitioner cannot also be the candidate and therefore would lack the locus to approach the court.

2) The Supreme court, interestingly didn’t consider whether the petitioner met all the conditions to be declared governor before upholding his appeal. The requirement to poll at least ¼ of valid votes in ⅔ of the state has constitutional imprimatur and could not be rightly discountenanced as was in this case. It was not a point to be glossed over. The learned justices ought to have considered that issue and made a clear, unequivocal determination on it.

Did the petitioner ever adduce any proof or did he prove that he got ¼ of votes cast in ⅔ of the LGAs in the state? On what basis was the petitioner (now appellant) declared winner of an election he didn’t meet constitutional requirement of?

Generally, it is not the role of the apex court to compute the results of an election. However, having taken up that role, the court ought not to shriek from that very important constitutional question which it could raise suo motu.

The Supreme Court ought to have made a clear finding regarding the number votes garnered by the petitioner in each local government and utilised that to determine whether the petitioner met the ¼ of ⅔ of the valid votes cast in the LGA’s. This should have been tabulated, clear and unequivocal and not have been left to conjectures.

3) Also interesting is that there was totally nothing in the judgement that explained how only 2 candidates were in the forms EC8A and EC8B in the entire 366 polling units when there were several other candidates?

4) One will be surprised that while the petitioner only tendered documents regarding 366 units the judgment covered 388 units.

5) “He who asserts must prove”. “A petitioner is not to rely on the weakness of the respondents case but on the strength of its own case”. These are principles based on stare decisis of the supreme court, but were strangely not applied to the petitioner’s case.

6) The court misdirected itself that the respondents pleaded forgery which is a crime and had to be proved beyond reasonable doubt. I beg to differ. The respondent clearly pleaded FALSE entry and not forgery. The respondents were not saying that the paper on which the result was written was not INEC paper as that would be tough to prove. What the respondents said was that the figures written therein were false.

7) Justice in an election petition is not a two way traffic. It is not just for the petitioner and respondent but also for the electorate. My respectful view is that the judgment did not satisfy this basis of electoral jurisprudence.

8) The Supreme Court is called a policy court for a reason. What is the role of the Supreme Court as a policy court? As a policy court its role in an election related matter is to protect democracy and the will of the electorate rather than the shenanigans of “smart” politicians.

This implication of this decision seems to be the exact opposite as no politician really needs to go through the due process anymore, but just write his own results, concoct figures, get a policeman to dump it on the court, and then be declared winner.

– JIMMY ABIA, ESQ