The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, on Wednesday gave reasons the Supreme Court should review its earlier ruling that sacked Emeka Ihedioha as governor of Imo State and declared Hope Uzodinma winner of the last governorship election in the State.
HURIWA said the Supreme Court should revisit its earlier ruling for the purpose of Judicial integrity in Nigeria.
Addressing a press conference, the National Coordinator of HURIWA, Emmanuel Onwubiko said judges should exhibit high-level of competence when carrying out their duties.
Onwubiko also charged judges to be fearless and do away with bias or prejudice in the conduct of their responsibilities.
He said: “The reason for this media interface is to appraise the decision of the immediate past Imo State governor Hon. Emeka Ihedioha to return to the Supreme Court of Nigeria to seek for a review of the judgment of the 7 member panel headed by the Honorable the Chief Justice of Nigeria Muhammad Tanko in which the election of Hon. Emeka Ihedioha last year March was overturned by the singular verdict that has become the most dangerous piece of a judicial heist in nearly 100 years of Nigeria’s amalgamation.
“As stakeholders on the democratization process, we have reviewed the ingredients of the process already initiated by Hon. Emeka Ihedioha in which through his team of well-respected lawyers, he is praying the Nation’s highest judicial forum to reverse the horror of a verdict inflicted on millions of the good people of Imo State. Through his legal team headed by erstwhile Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Kanu Agabi (SAN) he has identified some areas he alleged the court was misled into arriving at its decision.
“In his papers before the apex court seeking for setting aside of the judgment, Agabi observed that the beneficiary of the judgment, Governor Hope Uzodinma failed to plead the votes scored by all the parties in the 388 affected polling units, as it was only the votes scored by him that were pleaded – an omission he said, rendered the petition incompetent.
“A judicial office is a trust. In the discharge of this, there are responsibilities that must be discharged.
“In the process of the discharge of these responsibilities, certain attributes must be exhibited. Some of these attributes are competence, diligence, propriety, impartially and objectivity. We the judges of this country must face up to our responsibilities.
“What exactly is the reason for this recklessness is it corruption as alleged in certain quarters or is it lack of competence or diligence, whatever it is, it is giving the Nigerian Judiciary a very bad name, and it must be stopped. Judges must perform their judicial duties without fear or favour, bias or prejudice and ensure that their conduct both in and out of Court maintains and enhances the confidence of the public.”
On failure to review the judgment, Onwubiko stated that subsequent election could be undermined by the judiciary, “civil defence, customs, immigration and prison warders to man polling booths, write results, tendered it and even if INEC rejects it what you need to do is to buy over the judiciary and the person could carry the day. The results tendered were not verified.”
The rights group also urged the apex court not to allow the panel to review the judgment again due to the possibility of bias.
“Panel that sat the judgment must never be allowed to hear the review application. If Trump could have been impeached by the Congress for making a call, how much more we will allow the judiciary to undermine democracy. INEC said the results were cancelled due to over-voting and violence. How can the court be the one to award the result. The panel must never be allowed to sit for the matter,” HURIWA added.
