At first glance it seems impossible that Hope Uzodinma should be the Governor of Imo State, after all, he was the fourth runner-up! However, upon close scrutiny, it becomes clear where the legal team of Ihedioha lost their way.
The APC camp left no stone unturned when appealing for the now-former Governor be unseated. First, they appealed that Ihedioha was not elected on the basis of the majority of lawful votes cast and also that the election violated part of the Electoral Act, thus the election should be nullified
However, in appealing the case, Hope Uzodinma’s legal team argued that votes from as many as 252 polling units were cancelled and 388 polling units were excluded from the results. They also demanded that on that basis, with confidence that their client had a majority of those votes, Uzodinma should be upheld as the state’s governor.
A decision which the Legal team of Ihedioha failed to take seriously or acknowledge or even counter. They held on to the fact that based on the final result, Ihedioha was still leading and as such remained the legitimate Governor of the State.
Well, the Supreme Court in following due process, negated the cancellation of the Electoral Officer on-site and attributed the votes at the polling units which were in this case not cancelled at the state level, in breach of the Electoral Act thus making Hope Uzodinma the legitimate winner of the Imo State Elections.
Could this have turned out differently, probably so if Ihedioha’s lawyers requested that a forensic analysis be carried out on the undeclared votes at the said 388 polling units, bringing the efficacy of each vote into scrutiny but alas, Supreme Court, which is at the highest level in Nigeria has given its ruling which cannot in the legal terms be contested.