Centus Nweze, one of Nigeria’s Supreme Court judges on Tuesday, March 3, said the apex court’s decision on the Imo governorship election is wrong and for a long time to come will haunt Nigeria’s electoral jurisprudence.
According to Premium Times, the judge in his minority judgment disagreed with the ruling of majority of his six colleagues. Nweze gave a dissenting ruling in the application that was filed by the sacked PDP governor, Emeka Ihedioha.
Ihedioha’s application was dismissed by the following justices who had majority judgment, Olukayode Ariwoola, Sylvester Ngwuta, Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, Amina Augie, Uwani Abba-Aji and the CJN.
However, Justice Nweze in his dissenting judgment, held that based on merit a judgment or order can be set aside. He added that the apex court has the power to overrule itself and has done so in the past.
Though he wasn’t originally part of the seven-member panel that nullified Ihedioha’s election, he was added to replace Amiru Sanusi, who retired back in January.
Nonetheless, Nweze in giving his dissenting judgment nullified the declaration of Hope Uzodinma as governor of Imo state on the grounds of wrong declaration. He stated that Uzodinma mischievously misled the court into an unjust conclusion with the unverified votes credited to himself in the disputed 388 polling units.
He said: “In my intimate reading of the January 14 judgment, the meat and substance of Ihedioha’s matter were lost to time frame. This court once set aside its own earlier judgment and therefore cannot use the time frame to extinguish the right of any person.
“This court has powers to overrule itself and can revisit any decision not in accordance with justice. The decision of the Supreme Court in the instant matter will continue to haunt our electoral jurisprudence for a long time to come.”
Justice Nweze went on to note that without evidence of meeting other constitutional provisions, the Supreme court misled itself into declaring Uzodinma as governor.
The judge said that Uzodinma and his party misled the apex court into accepting the alleged excluded results in polling units without indicating the votes polled by other political parties.
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