Imo State Governor Hope Uzodinma says he is not losing sleep over Emeka Ihedioha’s decision to return to the Supreme Court to seek a review of the January 14 judgment sacking him as governor of the state.
The apex court declared Uzodinma of the All Progressives Congress as the rightful winner of last year’s governorship poll in the state.
But Ihedioha, who allegedly picked loopholes in the ruling, had resolved to approach the apex court for a review.
On Friday, the National Chairman of the APC, Mr Adams Oshiomhole, led Uzodinma on a visit to the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
The visit was to formally present Uzodinma to the President.
Speaking with State House correspondents after the visit, Uzodinma said he was not bothered that Ihedioha had opted to return to court, describing his reasons for doing so as based on “falsehood”.
He argued that the apex court, not being a “market square”, would not be ready to entertain cases even when there was no justification to do so.
Uzodinma stated, “I am not concerned; reason being that going back to the Supreme Court is based on falsehood.
“This is because the number of accredited votes outside the excluded votes is what we are talking about. But, if you are going to court, you must go to court to discuss or talk about number of accredited voters including the excluded polling units.
“We went to court with the issue of exclusion; we didn’t go to court with the business of election malpractices, violence and all of that. So, it is a peculiar case.”
He further argued that election petitions were timed to start and end within 60 days, meaning that the time to approach the court for any matter had elapsed.
The governor said, “I am not a lawyer anyway, but with my little knowledge of lawmaking, I understand what is in the Electoral Act.
“So, the Supreme Court is not a market square that anytime you want you begin to go there.”
Uzodinma, who said he would unveil the “implementation plans” of his administration in another three days, stated that he would start by tackling insecurity and hoped to leave a legacy comparable to that of the late Sam Mbakwe.
Meanwhile, Oshiomhole said Buhari was elated by Uzodinma’s victory, especially that it helped the APC to have its presence in the six geo-political zones.
The ex-Edo State governor mocked Ihedioha and the Peoples Democratic Party, claiming the party did not win the governorship poll in the first place because Ihedioha did not meet the constitutional requirements of winning one-quarter of the total votes cast in at least two-thirds of the local government areas.
Oshiomhole said, “Even the INEC returning officer could not show that Ihedioha scored the constitutional requirements of at least one quarter of the total votes cast in at least 2/3 of the local governments.
“On that criterion alone, there is no question in the eyes of the law, Emeka Iheidioha ought not to have been declared because he had those numbers only in nine local government areas and of course you know you have about 27 local government areas in Imo. That means two-thirds is 15.
“So, is nine two-thirds of 27 local governments? So, INEC completely and irresponsibly misbehaved by using a professor who seems to be so senile that he didn’t know that nine is not 2/3. This is very serious.”
When reminded that there was a protest led by the National Chairman of the PDP, Mr Uche Secondus, over the ruling in Abuja on Friday, Oshiomhole compared the protesters to “madmen”.
He said the APC would not join them, else sane people would think that they were mad as well.
The ex-labour leader said, “When I see people protesting; that is my primary constituency, to do protests, but I don’t run after a madman when he is naked and I have to join him to run because I want to make a point.
“That is the reason we just allowed them to do the sort of thing they were doing. Have you also found out what happened in Sokoto (State).”
Oshiomhole claimed in the past the PDP got away with electoral malpractices in states like Rivers, Akwa Ibom and Bayelsa, adding that in the case of Rivers, the same Supreme Court was used to discard the relevance of the card reader as an election tool.
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