The Supreme Court, yesterday, dismissed an application by Emeka Ihedioha of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Imo State, seeking to be issued a certificate of return as rightful governor of the state, stating that Governor Hope Uzodimma wasn’t qualified to run in the first place.
   
A five-man panel of the court, led by Justice Inyang Okoro, dismissed the application that sought the removal of Uzodimma from office on the premise that he was not validly nominated by the All Progressives Congress (APC) to contest the election that led to his first tenure in 2019.
   
The application further sought to invalidate the years that Uzodimma spent in office as the governor of the state. Though the appeal was initially brought before the apex court by Uche Nwosu, who was the governorship candidate of the Action Alliance (AA) in the 2019 election, the PDP and its candidate, Emeka Ihedioha, who won the said contest, applied to be joined as interested parties in the matter. 
  
The PDP and Uzodimma have prayed the Supreme Court to give effect to its 2019 verdict that disqualified Nwosu on the ground that he was nominated by both the AA and the APC to contest the election.
  
The Appellants argued that if the apex court recognised Nwosu as candidate of the APC, there was no legal basis for its subsequent judgement that sacked Ihedioha, declaring Uzodimma, who was also sponsored by the same APC, as the valid winner of the governorship poll.
   
Specifically, the PDP urged the apex court to restore Ihedioha back to office since the APC was precluded from sponsoring two candidates in the election.
  
In an affidavit it filed in support of the application, which was deposed to by a legal practitioner, Adedamola Farokun, PDP said: “The third Respondent/Applicant (PDP) is neither in any way seeking a review of the valid, subsisting and well considered judgement of this court delivered in this appeal in 2019, nor seeking a review of the judgement of this court delivered on January 14, 2020, in SC/462/2019, but humbly seeking that this court give effect to its judgement delivered on December 20, 2019.
  
“That this court has the constitutional, inherent powers and jurisdiction to grant the reliefs sought and give effects to its judgement.
  
“That it is in the interest of justice for this court to exercise its wide discretionary powers in favour of granting this application as prayed.”
   
The deponent, Farokun, averred that Uzodimma was not the candidate of the APC based on the court’s judgement that Nwosu was nominated by both the APC and the AA.