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The Supreme Court, in the judgment, upheld the appeal by Hope Uzodinma of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
It ordered the swearing-in of Uzodinma, who has since resumed.
In a February 5 application, PDP and Iheodioha are praying for “an order setting aside, as a nullity, the judgment delivered by this honourable court on the 14th of January 2020 in appeal No: SC/1462/2019 and cross-appeal No: SC/1470/2019.”
Their application is based on five grounds, including that the judgment was obtained by fraud and that the beneficiary misled the court.
Ihedioha and his party also argued that the Supreme Court lacked the requisite jurisdiction when it heard and decided Uzodinma’s appeal and that its decision was given per incuriam (lack of due regard to the law or the facts).
The applicants said: “The appellants/respondents (Uzodinma and the APC) fraudulently misled this court into holding that a total of 213,495 votes were unlawfully excluded from the votes scored by the first appellant/respondent (Uzodinma) in the gubernatorial election of 9th March 2019 in lmo State.
“The first appellant/respondent admitted under cross-examination that he was the person, and not the third respondent (INEC) or any of its officials, who computed the result that gave him the 213,495 votes alleged to have been excluded from his total votes in the election.
“The fraudulent nature of the additional votes was demonstrated by the fact that the total votes cast, as shown in the first appellant/respondent’s computation, was more than the total number of voters accredited for the election and in some polling units more than the total number of registered voters.
“The fraud was also demonstrated by the fact that the result computed by the first appellant/respondent showed only the votes of the first applicant and the first appellant/respondent without specifying the votes scored by the other 68 candidates who participated in the election.
“The fraud was further demonstrated by Exhibits 63RD1 to 63RD19 (INEC Forms EC4OG), which show that there were no valid elections in the 388 polling units where the additional 213,495 votes claimed by the first appellant/respondent were allegedly generated.”
According to the applicants, the Supreme Court acted without adequate consideration to the facts and law.
They said: “By Exhibit A1 (Form EC8D), the total number of voters accredited for the election was 823,743, while the total valid votes cast was 731 ,485.
“With the inclusion of 213,695 votes for the first appellant/respondent (Uzodinma) and 1,903 to the votes of the first applicant (Ihedioha), as ordered by this court, the total number of votes cast at the election now stands at 953,083 (i.e. 731,485 + 213,695 + 1,903) making the total number of votes cast at the election to be far in excess of the total number of voters accredited for the election, 129,340.
“It is unlawful for the total number of votes cast in an election to exceed the number of accredited voters and that illegality rendered the judgment sought to be set aside null and void.
“The appellants/respondents pleaded in paragraph 39 of their petition that a supplementary election should be conducted in the 388 polling units where the additional votes that created the illegality were alleged to have been cast and that pleading was binding on the appellants/respondents and the court.”
On their contention that the court was misled, the applicants said: “The appellant/respondent alleged that votes from 388 polling units were unlawfully excluded or cancelled and urged the court to include, in the computation of the election result, the votes from those polling units.
“At the same time, the first appellant/respondent prayed that fresh election be conducted in the said polling units, thus rendering the petition incompetent.
“The appellants/respondents failed to plead the votes scored by all the parties in the 388 affected polling units. Only the votes allegedly scored by the first appellant/respondent and the first applicant were pleaded – an omission which rendered the petition incompetent.
“This honourable court was consequently misled into making a vague order directing the inclusion of votes from the 388 polling units without stating or specifying the particular number of votes to be included from those polling units for all the parties.”
“Without computing the votes for all the parties from the 388 polling units, this honourable court was misled into making a declaration that the first appellant/respondent was the winner of the gubernatorial election in Imo State – an election that the appellants/respondents had themselves branded or stigmatised as invalid on account of non-compliance.”
On their claim that the Supreme Court acted without jurisdiction, Ihedioha and the PDP argued that: “Having regard to section 140(2) of the Electoral Act (as amended), the appellants/respondents divested this honourable court of the relevant jurisdiction to declare the first appellant/ respondent as the winner of the gubernatorial election conducted in lmo State on the 9th day of March 2019 by branding or stigmatising the entire election as invalid.
“This honourable court had no jurisdiction to declare the first appellant/respondent as elected in an election petition which was based on two inconsistent and mutually exclusive grounds, to wit, (i) that the first applicant was not duly elected by majority of lawful votes cast at the election, the implication of which is that the majority of votes cast at the election were valid; and (ii) that the election was invalid for non-compliance with the Electoral Act, the implication of which is that the election be annulled.
“This honourable court did not have the jurisdiction to declare the first appellant/respondent as elected in the absence of any proof that the votes ascribed to him met the mandatory geographical spread stipulated in section 179 (2) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended).
“This honourable court did not have the jurisdiction to declare that the first appellant/respondent met the constitutional geographical spread without providing, in its judgment, the reason(s) for that conclusion.”
BINNABOOK PUBLISHERS
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