In a six-to-one judgment, the Supreme Court on Tuesday, March 3rd, 2020 dismissed former Imo State Governor Emeka Ihedioha’s application for a review of the January 14th judgment, which ordered his removal from office.

The apex court had ordered that the All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship candidate Hope Uzodimna, be sworn in, but Ihedioha and his political party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) petitioned the Supreme Court to reverse that verdict.

The Supreme Court, while dismissing the application, held that its decision is final.

Justice Olukayode Ariwoola, who read the judgment, stated that the apex court lacked the jurisdiction to review its own judgment.

But Justice Centus Nweze gave a dissenting opinion that the Supreme Court could change its ruling on any decision, since it had previously done so.

According to him, the court did not resolve a section of the Court of Appeal judgment, which dismissed Uzodinma’s petition.

Ihedioha’s lawyer, Kanu Agabi (SAN), prayed the court to reverse its January 14th, 2020 judgment and restore the Court of Appeal’s verdict, which the Supreme Court voided.

He had argued that the Supreme Court was misled, adding that it was in the best interest of Imo State people to fix the error by reviewing the judgment rather than retaining it.

Uzodinma’s lawyer, Damian Dodo (SAN), had prayed the court to retain its judgment on the grounds that there was no error and hence no correction was required.

Justice Ariwoola held:

The judgment is a final judgment of the court as prescribed in Section 235 of the Constitution.

The appeal was adjudged meritorious and was allowed, and the judgment of the lower court (the Court of Appeal), which affirmed the judgment of the Governorship Election Tribunal was set aside.

Generally, by the provision of the Rules of this court, it shall not review any judgment once delivered by its save to correct any clerical mistake or some errors arising from any accidental slip or omission or to vary the judgment or order, so as to give effect to its meaning or intention.

A judgment or order shall not be varied when it correctly represents what the court decided nor shall the operative and supportive part of it be varied and a different form substituted. (See Order 8 Rule 16 of the Rules of this court).

The general law is that the court has no power to alter or vary a judgment or order after delivery, except (a) so far as it is necessary to correct errors in expressing the intention of the court or (b) to correct clerical mistakes or some errors arising from accidental slip or omission, that is the slip rule or (c) an order which is a nullity owing to failure to comply with an essential provision, such as the service of process, can be set aside by the court which made the order and (e) a judgment or an order made against a party in default (may also be set aside.).

It is settled law that this court has no power to change or alter its own judgment or sit as an Appeal Court over its own judgment.

There is no doubt that the court has inherent powers in respect of matters within its jurisdiction. It certainly has no inherent power to assume jurisdiction in respect of the matter not within its jurisdiction.

It is clear from the tone and the wording of the instant application that what is being sought is asking the court to sit over its own judgment already delivered and executed. That is certainly beyond the competence of this court.

The Supreme Court stated that it derived its jurisdiction from the Nigerian Constitution and an Act of the National Assembly.

Justice Ariwoola added:

There is no constitutional provision for the review of the judgment of the Supreme Court by itself.

Therefore, once it delivers its final judgment, the Supreme Court, subject, of course, to the slip rule principle, it becomes functus officio in respect thereof.

Justice Ariwoola recalled that on Wednesday, February 26th, 2020 the apex court was confronted with a similar application in relation to the judgment it gave on February 13th on the Bayelsa governorship dispute.

He noted that the Supreme Court, while rejecting that application, relied on its Order 8, Rule 16, which prohibits a review of the apex court’s judgment.

Justice Ariwoola held that the implication was that the court

does not have the competence and lacks the required jurisdiction to review its own judgment, except, as earlier stated, in the circumstances set out in the Rules of this court.

He noted that the court has held in cases that

the finality of the Supreme Court is entrenched in the Constitution.

Therefore, once the decision of the court is clear, it is final in the sense that the thrust of the ratio decidendi is manifest in it.

Inherent powers of the court can only be invoked if there is a missing link in the main body of the judgment. And some steps must be taken to fill in the gap or ambiguity so that the justice of the issue will be clear.

That is why this court can sometimes be called upon to dot the Is and fill in the gaps in the slip apparent in the judgment. Otherwise, the court cannot, under any guise or so-called inherent powers, alter or has to clear an unambiguous judgment once given,

the Justice said.

Justice Ariwoola relied heavily on another earlier judgment of the Supreme Court, where it was held that the finality of the apex court decision in civil proceedings is absolute, unless a later legislation specifically sets it aside.

He added,

The justices that man the court are of course fallible, but their judgments are, as the Constitution intends, infallible.

Therefore, any ingenious attempt by counsel to set aside or circumvent the decision of the Supreme Court will be met with stiff resistance.

Without any further ado, this application is considered lacking in merit and is liable to be dismissed.

To ask us to set aside the judgment of this court delivered on the 14th of January 2020 is an invitation to ask us to sit on appeal over our own judgment. We cannot do so.

To set aside the judgment in this circumstance is to open the floodgate for applications by parties to review the judgments of this court. To do that will, to say the least, bring the court to disrepute and ridicule.

In the circumstance, this application is accordingly dismissed.

Justice Ariwoola rejected to award cost against either party.

Other five (5) members of the panel who were in agreement with the lead ruling were: Chief Justice Ibrahim Muhammad, Justices Uwani Abba-Aji, Sylvester Ngwuta, Amina Augie and Kudirat Kekere-Ekun.

In his dissenting ruling, Justice Nweze said there was a couple of reasons for the apex court to have granted Ihedioha’s application.

He was in agreement with Agabi that the Supreme Court didn’t have the necessary jurisdiction when it sat and considered the appeal on which its January 14th, 2020 verdict was given.

He held that the Court of Appeal’s judgment, which dismissed Uzodinma’s petition at the tribunal for being incompetent, was still subsisting, because it raised the issue of jurisdiction, which the Supreme Court did not resolve in its judgment.

Referring to the court’s past decisions in Johnson vs Lawanson, Adegoke Motors vs Adesanya, amongst others, Justice Nweze disagreed with the majority decision.

This court has the power to overrule itself and has done so in the past,

Justice Nweze said.

He also held that it was wrong for the apex court to have awarded electoral victory to Uzodinma, who had argued that the election was a nullity on grounds of non-compliance.

Justice Nweze also faulted the results Uzodinma claimed at the tribunal and was surprised why he omitted to include the other candidates’ scores in the election.

He added,

Having thus failed, neglected or omitted to bring the scores of other candidates in the election, this court wrongly declared him as duly elected.

Justice Nweze was also of the view that the highest court was not supposed to have upheld the results Uzodinma claimed because he had, while testifying at the tribunal, conceded that the results were more than the number of accredited voters and that he was the person who compiled the results.

He held that Uzodinma misled the court to accept the “ubiquitous and fake results” which he admitted to have compiled.

Justice Nweze noted that, in accepting the results claimed by Uzodinma, the court was misled into emerging with total votes in excess of the total number of accredited voters in Imo State, which was 823,743.

He also held that the court was misled to declare Uzodinma the winner, when it did not find that the APC candidate met the constitutional requirement to be so declared.

Justice Nweze upheld Ihedioha’s application, granted his reliefs, and set aside his removal from office by the Supreme Court judgment.

Justin Nwosu

Justin Nwosu is the founder and publisher of Flavision. His core interest is in writing unbiased news about Nigeria in particular and Africa in general. He’s a strong adherent of investigative journalism, with a bent on exposing corruption, abuse of power and societal ills.