Supreme Court refuses to sack Imo Gov, Uzodinma

By Vivian Okejeme Abuja

The Supreme Court, on Tuesday, declined to grant an application seeking to sack Governor Hope Uzodinma of Imo State from office.
In the application, the Plaintiff held that Uzodinma was not validly nominated by the All Progressives Congress, APC, to contest the election that led to his first tenure in 2019.
Uche Nwosu further asked the Apex court to invalidate the years that Uzodinma spent in office as the Governor of Imo state.
In a bench ruling, a seven-man panel of the court, led by Justice Inyang Okoro, held that it had no jurisdiction to entertain the appeal which it described as frivolous and highly vexatious.
Consequently, it award a personal cost of N40million against Chief Mike Ozehkome, SAN, who represented the PDP and Ihedioha in the matter.
Arguing the application, the PDP, through it’s counsel, Chief Mike Ozekhome SAN, urged the apex court to restore its candidate, Ihedioha, back to office, since the APC was precluded from sponsoring two candidates in the election.
PDP 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 in view of the double nomination of the Appellant/Respondent by the two political parties aforesaid, and his subsequent disqualification as their gubernatorial candidate, as found by this honourable court in its judgement.”
It argued that in view of the fact that governor Uzodinma did not contest the election as an independent candidate, there was no legal basis for him to be recognized as the validly elected governor of Imo state.
The applicants contended that there was no basis for the recent election that held in the state on November 11, since Ihedioha had yet to conclude his tenure.