Page 36 One of the Justices among the 7-man Panel of the Supreme Court, Justice Chima Nweze, on Tuesday, disagreed with the judgment of the six other members, and declared Emeka Ihedioha of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, winner of the 2019 Governorship election in Imo State.
He said that Ihedioha’s application has merit, and therefore allowed it.
In a dissenting judgement, Nweze set aside the January 14, 2020, ruling of the Supreme Court, and declared Ihedioha the winner of the election.
Nweze insisted that the application by the PDP and Ihedioha had merit, adding that, the Supreme Court had the power to review its judgement.
Recall, that the Supreme Court on Tuesday, dismissed the application brought by Ihedioha, urging it to review its judgement in favour of the incumbent Governor, Hope Uzodinma, of the All Progressives Congress, APC, for lack of merit.
Justice Olukayode Ariwoola, who read the ruling, also said that it is a final judgement of the court.
The suit was thrown out in a majority judgement of six-to-one, by the Panel of Justices, led by the Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, Tanko Muhammad.
However, Nweze maintained that the Apex Court has the power to overrule itself, in a situation where such a judgement was not seen to have met the justice of the case.
According to Nweze, Governor Hope Uzodinma misled the Supreme Court, in arriving at the ruling which ousted Ihedioha as Governor.
He said that Uzodinma failed to show the needed proof, that he satisfied the required spread to have been declared the winner of the election by the court.
For this reason, Justice Nweze declared that the decision of the other Justices of the Panel to rule in favour of Uzodinma, could keep haunting the nation’s electoral jurisprudence.
