Sacked Imo State governor, Emeka Ihedioha plans to head back to the Supreme Court today to seek a review of the judgment that removed him from office.

In a unanimous judgment delivered by Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, the apex court had on January 14, 2020 sacked Ihedioha of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on the ground that the results from 388 polling units were not included in the results announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission. The court went ahead to award the results of all those polling units to Senator Hope Uzodinma of the All Progressives Congress who had appealed to the apex court, claiming that he won in those areas.

After adding the cancelled results of the 388 polling units to the votes scored by Senator Hope Uzodinma of the All Progressives Congress (APC), The Supreme Court ordered that he be immediately sworn in as the duly elected governor.

The judgement has been criticized in various quarters as falling short of the expectations of most Nigerians. The PDP held open street demonstrations to protest the judgement.

Criticisms of the Supreme Court judgement have been generally anchored on three planks. One is that even after adding the entire number of the withheld votes, Ihedioha still had the highest number of votes cast at the election over and above those won by Uzodinma.

Another plank has been that after adding the votes from those polling units, the total number of votes supposedly cast at the election went far beyond the number of voters accredited to vote at the election. This in the thinking of many critics, creates a mathematical illogicality.

The third plank has been that even with the addition of the votes in question, the APC candidate did not secure 1/4 of the total votes cast in 2/3 of the local government areas of Imo State as required by the constitution.

Ihedioha’s decision for review of the judgement was disclosed in a press conference yesterday by the executive director of Abuja Discussion Group (ADG), Manzo Abubakar.

Abubakar said “The judgment will go down in infamy and may make Nigeria a laughing stock in the comity of nations, if not reviewed. Section 176 (2b) of the Constitution is clear that to be declared governor, a candidate must have, not only the majority of total votes cast, but also 1/4 of the votes in 2/3 of the local governments.

“We sympathise with their Lordships as mortals who are not infallible. To err is human. It would be practically impossible for any human to have read briefs and record of proceedings exceeding 5,000 pages in the matter within two hours after hearing, when it also had the pressure of time to deliver judgment in the remaining pending governorship appeals. No doubt, this accounted for the mistakes made by the Supreme Court.

“The Supreme Court is supreme and can creatively reinvent its rules to do justice. It is necessary to do so now more than ever to save Nigeria’s democracy, constitutionalism and retrieve the judicial and justice system from its present opprobrium.” he said.