Imo: Oshiomhole blames confusion trailing Supreme Court’s decision on INEC

The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, has said Hon. Emeka Ihedioha was not supposed to have been declared governor of Imo State from the onset.

The Chairman of the ruling party also placed the blame for the initial confusion and questions that trailed the Supreme Court judgement on the Imo State governorship election on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for flouting the provisions of the Constitution.

Comrade Oshiomhole stated these on Friday while addressing the State House Press Corps after presenting the Imo State governor, Senator Hope Uzodinma, to President Muhammadu Buhari for the first time as a governor on the platform of the ruling party.

According to the party Chairman, besides the fact that the INEC chose to exclude a huge number of validly cast votes in its final collation of the Imo State governorship election, the ground on which the Supreme Court eventually based its final decision, the decision of the electoral umpire to declare the People’s Democratic Party’s (PDP) candidate, Ihedioha, who failed to meet the constitutional condition of meeting a quarter of votes cast in two-thirds of the council areas of the state was a violation of the Constitution.

“I think there’s something the media has strictly refused to focus on and with respect, I think that a lot of the views that people parade are derived from what I call the electronic media lawyers.
Is here any of us in this room, who is not aware that at the time Emeka Ihedioha was declared, even the returning officer could not show that he scored the constitutional requirement of at least one quarter of the total votes cast, in at least two-thirds of the local government areas.

“On that criterion alone, there is no question that in the eyes of the law, Emeka Ihedioha ought not to have been declared because he had those numbers only in nine local government areas and of course you know the state has about 27 local government areas. So as journalists, is nine a two-thirds of 27?

“INEC completely and irresponsibly misbehaved by using a professor who seemed to be so senile that he didn’t know that nine is not two-thirds and. This is very serious and because they take advantage of the fact that once the INEC makes a pronouncement, even if the pronouncement is made by a lunatic in INEC, you can’t reverse it, you’ll have to go to court and this fits into PDP’s fixation; they’ll always say go to court.