Judiciary
Xraying the Supreme Court Judgement on Imo by Samson Itodo
While we await the full judgment of the Supreme court on Imo, here are a few posers and questions? In first place, the Returning officer shouldn’t have made a declaration because the PDP candidate didnt fulfill the constitutional requirements. That election was meant to be declared inconclusive but he went ahead to make a declaration.
The Supreme court relied on results from over 300 polling units where INEC declined to certify results due to irregularities, non use of the smart card readers and violence. How come only 2 parties were on the results sheets from the over 366 polling units in an election with 70 candidates? This is official results for the Imo governorship
before the Supreme court judgement
- Total no of polling units= 3,523
- Total no of accredited voters= 823,743
- Total no of valid votes= 714,355
- Total no of rejected votes= 25,130
- Total votes cast= 739,485
The difference between the Total no of accredited voters and Total votes cast is 84,258. This includes cancelled votes and those areas where smartcard readers were not used.
Based on INEC’s results, the gap btw the PDP and APC candidate is 176,946 votes. From the Supreme court’s judgment, its appears the APC candidate secured more than 176,969 votes from the 388 polling units to win the election.
Let’s work with 176,969 pending the release of the Supreme Court results. 176,969 votes + 739, 485 (total votes cast) = 916,431 exceeding the total number of accredited voters in the election which stood at 823,834. Why the difference of 92,597 votes?
In Zamfara, the SC declared APC’s votes as wasted & ordered INEC to collate the valid votes & determine the winners where the thresholds were met. Why did the SC proceed to collate & declare a winner in Imo?
Can the SC tell us the no of accredited voters, rejected & cancelled votes.
Lastly, can the SC tell us the locations of the 388 PUs where results were not reflected so a comparison can be made with the original results declared by INEC?