Apex Court Sacks PDP Governor, Declare APC Candidate Winner
The supreme court yesterday removed Honourable Emeka Ihedioha as Governor of IMO state on the ground that he did not score majority of the lawful vote in the march 9 governorship election .
In his place, the apex court ordered that senator hope Uzodinma of the all progressive congress be immediately sworn in as the duly elected governor of the state to take over from ihedioha.
In a landmark judgement delivered by justice kudirat Kekere -Ekun, the apex court agreed that results in 388 polling units were unlawful excluded during the collation of the final governorship election result in IMO state.
Justice Kekere-Ekun said with the result from the 388 polling units , the APC governorship candidate polled majority lawful vote and ought to have been declared winner of the election by the independent national electoral commission, INEC.
Consequently, justice Kekere-Ekun in the Unanimous judgement voided and set aside the unlawful declaration of lhedioha as the winner of the 2019 governorship election.
The court ordered that the certificate of return wrongly issued to lhedioha of the Peoples Democratic Party, be immediately withdrawn by INEC and a fresh one be issued to Uzodinma as elected governor.
Justice Kekere-Ekun in the judgment set aside the judgment of the IMO state electric petition tribunal and that of the Court of Appeal both of which had refused to recognize and accept the votes of the 388 polling units as being unlawfully excluded in the general collation.
Uzodinma and APC had in their appeal pleaded with the apex court to review the judgment of the two lower courts against them and restore their victory in the March 9 governorship election.
The two apellants maintained that the unlawful exclusion of votes from 388 polling units denied them victory in the election.
By PRNigeria
