Hope Uzodinma: Why Justice Cletus China Nweze dissented

ABUJA, Nigeria – The Supreme Court of Nigeria on Tuesday affirmed Sentor Hope Uzodinma of the All Progressive Congress(APC) as the validly elected Governor of Imo State.

The 7-man panel, led by Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Tanko Muhammad dismissed all grounds of appeal raised by candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP), Hon. Emeka Ihedioha.

Emeka Ihedioha had through his lawyer, Kanu Agabi called for review of the January 14 judgement for reasons that the judgment is unconstitutional in that it declared the 1st Respondent the winner of the election without proof that the votes accredited to him met the geographical spread stipulated in section 179 (2) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended)

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“The judgment was obtained by fraud in that the votes upon which the 1st Respondent was declared as the winner of the election were in excess of the number of voters accredited for the election.

“The judgment was given per incuriam as your lordships by this judgment unwittingly sanctioned that total votes cast at an election can be in excess of the total number of accredited voters, as in this case, the total votes exceeded the total accredited voters by 129,340 votes.

“Furthermore, the judgment was given per incuriam in view of the 1st Respondent’s contention that the election was invalid by reason of non-compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended) whereupon he prayed that a supplementary election should be held in the 388 disputed polling units where he claimed his votes were cancelled.

“We respectfully urge your Lordships therefore to set aside the judgment in Appeal No. SC.1462/2019 and Cross Appeal No. SC.1470/2019 as prayed in our motion paper because as this Honourable Court rightly noted in ADEGOKE MOTORS v. ADESANYA (supra) “it is far better to admit an error than to preserve an error”.

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But Justice Cletus China Nweze who delivered the dissenting judgement described the January 14 judgement, which removed Emeka Ihedioha as nothing but a nullity, adding that the judgement was given in bad faith and consequently nullified the declaration of Senator Hope Uzodinma as governor of Imo State on account of wrong declaration.

According to him, Senator Hope Uzodinma mischievously misled the court into unjust conclusion with the unverified votes credited to himself in the disputed 388 polling units.

“In my intimate reading of the January 14 judgement, the meat and substance of Ihedioha’s matter were lost to time frame. This court once set aside its own earlier judgement and, therefore, cannot use time frame to extinguish the right of any person. This court has powers to overrule itself and can revisit any decision not in accordance with justice.”

“The decision of the Supreme Court in the instant matter will continue to hunt our electoral jurisprudence for a long time to come. Without evidence of meeting other constitutional provisions, the court misled itself into declaring Uzodinma as governor. This court has a duty of redeeming its image, it is against this background that the finality of the court cannot extinguish the right of any person. 

“I am of the view that this application should succeed. I hereby make an order setting aside the decision of this court made on January 14 and that the certificate of return issued to the appellant be returned to INEC. I also make an order restoring the respondents as winner of the March 9, 2019 governorship election.”

But in the majority ruling delivered by Justice Olukayode Ariwoola, the court held that granting the request of the applicants would open the flood gate by parties to all kinds of litigations. He insisted that by the provision of section 235 of the 1999 Constitution, its decision on any judgement based on merit is final and shall not be reviewed once delivered under any guise, except for clerical errors. 

The court also stated that by Order 8 Rule 16, the general law is that it has no power to alter any judgement and that such judgement once delivered on merit shall remain forever.

“Certainly, this court has no inherent power to grant what is being sought; it is beyond the powers of this court. There are no constitutional provisions for this court to review its own judgement. To say the least, this court has no competence and indeed lacked power to sit on appeal in its own decision. Finality of the Supreme Court is entrenched in the constitution and inherent power can only be invoked where there is law to do so. This court cannot under any guise alter any judgement under any inherent power, as doing so would bring the court into disrepute and ridicule.

“The application is liable to dismissal and is hereby dismissed for want of jurisdiction and competence.”