The supreme court says it admitted election materials that Hope Uzodinma and the police tendered in the appeal against the Imo governorship election result because the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and Emeka Ihedioha failed to disprove them.

INEC had declared Ihedioha of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as candidate with the highest number of votes in the March 8 election, but Uzodinma challenged that decision from tribunal till the supreme court.

The apex court had annulled the victory of Ihedioha, candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) , affirming Uzodinma, his All Progressives Congress (APC) rival, as the duly elected governor.

The judgment had sparked different reactions as the full text of the verdict was not made public.

But in a copy of the judgment obtained by TheCable, the apex court said while INEC argued the documents tendered by the APC candidate were falsified, it could not establish enough evidence to prove this.

Uzodinma’s main argument was that his votes from 388 polling units were excluded at the collation stage. To argue this, he tendered some election materials including documents said to be duplicate of the original election result.

In the judgement, the apex court said: “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.”

ON ADMITTING THE DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED BY POLICE

The appeal court had in its ruling held that the election documents tendered as exhibits by PW54, a deputy commissioner of police, cannot be admitted as evidence.

But the supreme court overruled the lower court.

It agreed with Uzodinma’s counsel that contrary to the decision of the appellate court, the documents tendered “being duplicate originals” do not require any certification.

“The tendering of exhibits PPP1 – PPP366 through PW54 was to show that the scores recorded therein were excluded from from the forms EC8B (ward collation results).

“The respondents failed to prove that the documents were fake or forged.”

https://www.thecable.ng/scourt-why-we-accepted-materials-tendered-by-uzodinma-police

You can download the full judgment here

https://f5p3e9e4.stackpathcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Hope-Uzordima-v.-Emeka-Ihedioha-SC-Judgement.pdf

My take is that INEC deliberately refused to provide strong evidence to prove that the results were fake in order to pave way for the embarrassing judgement by the supreme court..

The desperation of the Supreme court to give IMO state back to APC is a pointer to the fact that the North is not ready to relinquish power in 2023. Instead they are strategizing to form alliance with the South East in 2023. They will dangle the carrot of VP to Southeast who will be willing to take anything to spite the Southwest.

The Southwest Politicians are not sleeping, they came up with Amotekun in preparation for 2023. The North Strategists are aware of the politics behind Amotekun that is why they are crying foul.

There are difficult times ahead.........Things are falling apart!

Hahahaha “the respondents failed to prove that fake documents tendered were fake”

Onus is no longer on the people presenting fake documents to prove that such records existed in the original results presented by the electoral body

Nigeria we hail thee...

Its okay, we know you’ve fulfilled your mission as CJN. Next...

INEC has the constitutional powers to conduct election and not the police or any other body .... any result that didn't emanate from inec shouldn't have been admitted let alone anyone proving it... the herder cjn and co are disgrace to modern day judiciary and should be sacked and locked up.

INEC which conducted the election said the result is fake with evidence, but the supreme court which had no business in the election said it's not fake and the evidence submitted would not stand even with votes count more than accredited voters...

Supreme ice-cream indeed.

truthfulparrot:
My take is that INEC deliberately refused to provide strong evidence to prove that the results were fake in order to pave way for the embarrassing judgement by the supreme court..

The desperation of the Supreme court to give IMO state back to APC is a pointer to the fact that the North is not ready to relinquish power in 2023. Instead they are strategizing to form alliance with the South East in 2023. They will dangle the carrot of VP to Southeast who will be willing to take anything to spite the Southwest.

The Southwest Politicians are not sleeping, they came up with Amotekun in preparation for 2023. The North Strategists are aware of the politics behind Amotekun that is why they are crying foul.

There are difficult times ahead.........Things are falling apart!

So if you’re challenging the results produced by the electoral body, the onus is no longer on you to prove that your fake results are real abi?

But the onus goes back to you if you were challenging Buhari’s election at the court abi?

It’s well

An already closed issue

This technicality Sharia judge is a scam!

Esseite:
INEC which conducted the election said the result is fake with evidence, but the supreme court which had no business in the election said it's not fake and the evidence submitted would not stand even with votes count more than accredited voters.Supreme ice-cream indeed.

Abetting & legalizing electoral fraud.This is the abracadabra Supreme Court have turned itself into in our time.

You need to download and read the judgement to appreciate this landmark ruling. The judges tried make sense in the midst of nonsense, to create a semblance of order in the midst disorder. Until electronic voting becomes LEGALLY part of our electoral process, politicians will always make it hard for our judges to adjudicate on the confusion they desperately created in selfish quest for power.

More questions than answers

The custodian of sensitive materials declared that the said results didn't emanate from them, why not cancelled and ordered rerun ?

Then how did the Supreme Judges know that the result was original and went ahead using bogus figures more than accredited over voters ?

Sadly, fraud is gradually being legitimized.

The Police is not Your Friend.

truthfulparrot:
My take is that INEC deliberately refused to provide strong evidence to prove that the results were fake in order to pave way for the embarrassing judgement by the supreme court..

The desperation of the Supreme court to give IMO state back to APC is a pointer to the fact that the North is not ready to relinquish power in 2023. Instead they are strategizing to form alliance with the South East in 2023. They will dangle the carrot of VP to Southeast who will be willing to take anything to spite the Southwest.

The Southwest Politicians are not sleeping, they came up with Amotekun in preparation for 2023. The North Strategists are aware of the politics behind Amotekun that is why they are crying foul.

There are difficult times ahead.........Things are falling apart!

let me categorically tell you that Tanko supreme Court has just opened the Pandora's box. No need for Inec to conduct elections anymore, just prepare your results yourself and prove it in court. With time you will remember this thing I told you.
Even the face of the Inec officials sums it up

Maxymilliano:
More questions than answers

The custodian of sensitive materials declared that the said results didn't emanate from them, why not cancelled and ordered rerun ?

Then how did the Supreme Judges know that the result was original and went ahead using bogus figures more than accredited over voters ?

Sadly, fraud is gradually being legitimized.

But INEC was unable to prove it.

Ok

;Dq

kahal29:
The supreme court says it admitted election materials that Hope Uzodinma and the police tendered in the appeal against the Imo governorship election result because the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and Emeka Ihedioha failed to disprove them.

INEC had declared Ihedioha of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as candidate with the highest number of votes in the March 8 election, but Uzodinma challenged that decision from tribunal till the supreme court.

The apex court had annulled the victory of Ihedioha, candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) , affirming Uzodinma, his All Progressives Congress (APC) rival, as the duly elected governor.

The judgment had sparked different reactions as the full text of the verdict was not made public.

But in a copy of the judgment obtained by TheCable, the apex court said while INEC argued the documents tendered by the APC candidate were falsified, it could not establish enough evidence to prove this.

Uzodinma’s main argument was that his votes from 388 polling units were excluded at the collation stage. To argue this, he tendered some election materials including documents said to be duplicate of the original election result.

In the judgement, the apex court said: “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.”

ON ADMITTING THE DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED BY POLICE

The appeal court had in its ruling held that the election documents tendered as exhibits by PW54, a deputy commissioner of police, cannot be admitted as evidence.

But the supreme court overruled the lower court.

It agreed with Uzodinma’s counsel that contrary to the decision of the appellate court, the documents tendered “being duplicate originals” do not require any certification.

“The tendering of exhibits PPP1 – PPP366 through PW54 was to show that the scores recorded therein were excluded from from the forms EC8B (ward collation results).

“The respondents failed to prove that the documents were fake or forged.”

https://www.thecable.ng/scourt-why-we-accepted-materials-tendered-by-uzodinma-police

Fraud

Nonsense!

Nigeria keeps sinking lower with each passing day. Some idiots will sit somewhere in Abuja and plant a stooge in a state that is hundreds of killometers away.

Anyone still defending these irresponsible and shameless so-called supreme court Judges on this charade should have his or her head reexamined.

These old and shameless appology of judges fabricated hundreds of thousands of votes from their smelling anuses and gave it to Uzodinma just to ensure they fulfil the instructions given to them by aso rock.

In their haste to satisfy the executive, they ended up messing everything up and disgracing both their families and the law profession.

Why on Earth would the court accept Uzodinma's fictitious figures when summing it up showed a higher number than the total number of accredited voters in the state during the election?

If they were really out to be fare and not to fulfill a prearranged outcome in cahoot with the executive, why didn't they order for a return in the so-called affected 388 polling units? The answer is simple, they knew that Ihedioha will still win in a rerun which will ruin their evil plans.

Also, why did they keep changing judges until they arrived at a select few that agreed to conduct this voodoo, the worst judgement in the history of this country.

Every single judge that presided over this judgement should bow their heads in shame because posterity will never judge them well.

The inec woman's face that presented the unmerited certificate to Uzodinma sums it up.

Shameless people!!!

Ok

Corrupt judges.
When were the police and Uzodinma empowered to conduct and tender election results?
You accepted a document tendered by a litigant as valid without questions and still has the
gut to give "reasons".
Shame on the supreme court.

Staro:

TANKO is a disgrace to
Nigeria's judiciary

rubbish

GenBuhari:

But INEC was unable to prove it.

INEC disprove the mutilated results because it fell short of expectations.

Least the Supreme Court could have done for justice to prevail was to have ordered a rerun.

Same scenario happened in Akwa ibom where Akpabio bandied mutilated results from Essien Udim LGA, claiming to have scored 60,000 votes. It took the bravery of the REC, Mike Igini to disprove the false results and ordered a rerun

I said this before.

The Documents tendered were original duplicate copies of INEC issued Forms, filled and signed by INEC official representative at the Polling Units concern. The Coalition Officers looking at the figures strongly believed the figures were cooked and allocated, then, using his/her personal intuition, experience, and judgment, s/he cancelled the results of APC from 388 polling units under contention.

Hope went to court to challenge that the cancellation has no legal backing, instead of PDP to counter the application and show evidence that the votes allocated to APC were fraudulent, they did not even challenge the petition at all. The Supreme Court accepted APC evidence as it was original duplicate copy from INEC. The 7 SC judges hold that the (fraudulent) votes were illegally cancelled and there was no single evidence to show it was fraudulently allocated.

Personally, I believed the votes were fraudulent and on moral grounds should be cancelled as done by the INEC coalition center. Unfortunately, the court will and should never rule base on moral grounds or perceptions but on the letters of the Law. So, morally, the cancellation was correct but legally wrong.

To those people blaming Supreme Court, they should know that legality is different from morality. It is just like rape cases, it must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt that a crime has actually been committed. The responsibility to proved otherwise rest on every interested party that believes otherwise as far the evidence from the petitioner emanated from legally recognised and authorised sources. In this case, the provision of evidence rest solely on PDP and her candidates and not INEC. The role of INEC in any election matter is to provide evidences at their custody and testify in election matter and not to prove that elections were fairly or fraudulently conducted. In this case, INEC should have tendered the Original Form for which duplicates were presented to prove that the figures were altered or incorrect. Unfortunately, there is no need to do that as all parties involved know that the presented evidences (Original Duplicate Forms) by Hope were original without alterations, so presentations will only support Hope's application. Therefore, INEC should not be blame for not presenting the original forms even though they suppose to. They choose not to because they knew it will give strong evidence to support for Hope and APC application.

PDP failed woefully in their defence, they should learn their lessons and move on. We should not be cloud by our emotions, moral stands, or political affiliates by blackmailing the judiciary for upholding the law of the land, instead, we should work towards changing the law that make criminals and fraudsters get away with their crimes.