The Supreme Court has dismissed an application by Emeka Ihedioha and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), challenging the Supreme Court’s decision in 2019, affirming Hope Uzodinma as the governor of Imo State.
In its ruling, read by a five-man panel, led by Justice Inyang Okoro, the Supreme Court dismissed the application for lacking merit, and fined the counsel for the PDP, Mike Ozekhome, 40 million Naira, for bringing a vexatious and frivolous appeal before the apex court.
The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and its governorship candidate, Emeka Ihedioha, applied to the Supreme Court in October 2023, seeking to remove Imo State Governor, Hope Uzodinma from office, on the premise that he was not validly nominated by the All Progressives Congress, APC, to contest the election that led to his first tenure in 2019.
The application also sought to invalidate the years that Uzodinma spent in office as the governor of Imo State.
In the application, counsel for PDP, Mike Ozekhome, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, had asked the court for a consequential order, to compel INEC to issue a fresh Certificate of Return to Ihedioha, because the incumbent governor, Senator Hope Uzodinma, unlawfully spent the four years that Ihedioha ought to have spent as Governor of Imo State.
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The PDP in the application also urged the Supreme Court to hold that “both the AA and APC did not sponsor and/or field any candidate for the governorship election, held in Imo State on March 9, 2019.
It was argued that, because Governor Uzodinma did not contest the election as an independent candidate, there was no legal basis for him to be recognised as the validly elected governor of Imo State.
When the matter commenced on Tuesday, the apex court held that it had no jurisdiction to entertain the appeal, which it described as frivolous and highly vexatious.
The apex court, therefore, dismissed the appeal and proceeded to award a personal cost of N40 million against Mike Ozekhome, who represented the PDP and Ihedioha in the matter.
(Editor: Ifeanyi Mark)
