By Akinwale Kasali
Imo State Governor, Hope Uzodinma’s winning string continued Tuesday at the  Supreme Court when the Court chided the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and its Governorship Candidate in the 2019 Governorship Election, The Rt. Honourable Emeka Ihedioha, for seeking to remove the Governor from office. The Supreme Court dismissed their suit which sought to remove the Governor from office and declare Ihedioha as the duly elected Governor.
Ihedioha was, in 2019, declared the Governor of Imo State after the Governorship Election by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC. He was duly sworn-in as Governor. But his tenure in office lasted for only eight months when the Supreme Court sacked him from office on January 15, and declared Uzodinma as the duly elected Governor.
Four years after his sudden removal from office, Ihedioha and the PDP continued their legal battle to reclaim the Governorship seat.
But on Tuesday December 5, 2023, an obviously upset Supreme Court, before which the case had come for the third time, showed its anger. It not only dismissed the case as frivolous, and so, a waste of its time, it fined the appellants’ Counsel, Dr Mike Ozekhome, SAN, a whopping N40 million for bringing such a case before the Court.
Ihedioha had prayed the court to give a consequential order to INEC to issue a Certificate of Return to him as the validly elected governor of Imo state in the 2019 election.
In the judgment delivered by Justice Tijjani Abubakar, the Court said that the application lacked merit, and was frivolous and vexatious.
Justice Abubakar stressed that the Court lacked the jurisdiction to determine the matter, adding that the 60 days stipulated to hear the election matter had since elapsed.
Uzodinma’s forst term as Governor, in the 2019 election would end on January 14, 2024. But he has since, decisively, won a reelection for a second term in office by a landslide. He won in all the 27 Local Government Areas in the State, and left his opponents empty handed.
He will, therefore, be sworn- in for a second term in January, 2024.
