Imo Supreme Court Judgements: APC Bigwigs In Marathon Meetings

By Uche Mbah

There has been marathon meetings of the leaders of the ruling party, APC, over the appeal for the review of the supreme court judgement that sacked the former Imo state governor, Emeka Ihedioha, by the same court, with the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP sources claiming that they are worried stiff over the shoddy way the judgement was handled.

Recall that the supreme court judgement had generated unprecedented backlash because of the clerical errors found in the judgement, and because many saw it as a miscarriage of justice. But all parties have accepted it since the judgement was given by the apex court. Protests followed, both locally and internationally, over the issue.

Clerical errors are errors that bring contradictions within the written judgement.

Part of the clerical errors was the fact that the judgement given in the open court differs from the written judgement handed over to counsels as copies of the judgement.

The pronouncements of the open court is regarded as valid judgement.

The Judgement had elicited unprecedented criticisms that resulted in the physical protests by opposition party members against the supreme court-a precedent that shocked even the judiciary and party bigwigs.

Although the APC chairman, Adams Oshiomhole was ecstatic that finally the ruling party has an inroad into the south east, sources indicate that he was summoned to a meeting in Aso Rock where he met with President Buhari last week in the presence of the Imo state governor, Hope Uzodinma.

Details of the meeting is not known, but there were speculations that it dwelt on how to get out of the credibility crisis the supreme court has been thrown into by the judgement.

Besides this, there has also been the marathon nocturnal meetings that allegedly goes on at the residence of the Chief of staff to the president.  Several key figures of the ruling party are said to be constant visitors to the man adjudged to be one of the most powerful in the country currently.

Early this week,  there was reportedly a meeting between the presidential hopeful, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, Mohammed Tanko, Katsina state governor, Amino Masari on the issue. Part of the worry was that the Supreme Court has agreed to revisit the case, which implies that all supreme court judges will go through the judgement and write their own reports. There may be minority reports.

There has always been unanimous judgements under the current CJN.

The CJN has last week allegedly met with President Buhari on that issue.

Meanwhile, governor Hope Uzodinma has upped his performance at the state level to silence critics that he is there as a stooge of the northern elites. He has reportedly bought cars from Innoson motors for his permanent secretaries and continued to pay pensioners their emoluments, Pensioners had been neglected by the government of Rochas Okorocha. He is also trying to distance himself from Senator Okorocha, who has fallen into disrepute with the indigenous people of the state.