The Supreme Court of Nigeria has blamed the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and Rt. Hon. Emeka Ihedioha for the court’s controversial judgement of January14, 2020 removing Ihedioha as Imo State Governor.
INEC had declared Ihedioha of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as candidate with the highest number of votes in the March 9, 2019 election, but Senator Hope Uzodinma of the All Progressives Congress (APC) challenged the decision, losing at the election tribunal and Appeal Court but triumphed at the apex court despite having finished fourth during the election.
The judgment has attracted widespread condemnation and nationwide street protests by PDP faithful on the argument that the cancelled votes from 388 polling units which the Supreme Court validated took the total number of votes to over 100,000 above the INEC accredited voters for the election.
The apex court, according to a copy of the judgment published late yesterday by TheCable, “said while INEC argued the documents tendered by the APC candidate were falsified, it could not establish enough evidence to prove this.”
The online daily quoted the Supreme Court as saying a certified true copy of the judgement: “Having pleaded that the documents are false, the respondents made allegation of criminal nature against the appellants.
“They were required to plead the specific elements of fraud and lead evidence showing the genuine results. Not only must the allegation be proved beyond doubt, it must also be proved that the appellants personally committed the forgery or aided and abetted the commission of the crime or that they procured the commission of the crime through their agents or officials.
“Although they relied heavily on the assertion that exhibits PPP1 – PPP366 were fake, no evidence was adduced to prove the assertion at all, let alone beyond any reasonable doubt.”
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