S’court fines Ozekhome N40m for filing ‘frivolous suit’ seeking Uzodinma’s sack

The supreme court has imposed N40 million fine against Mike Ozekhome, a senior advocate of Nigeria (SAN), for filing a suit seeking the sack of Hope Uzodinma, governor of Imo state.

The apex court on Tuesday dismissed the application filed by Ozekhome on behalf of Emeka Ihedioha, a former governor of Imo.

The court ruled that the application was “frivolous and highly vexatious”.

The application was raised from the outcome of the governorship election in Imo state.

BACKGROUND

Ihedioha, candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), polled 273,404 votes to win the 2019 governorship election.

However, on January 14, 2020, the apex court voided Ihedioha’s election and declared Uzodinma, who came fourth in the election, as the state’s duly elected governor.

Consequently, the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), whose candidate came third in the election, filed an application contending that Uzodinma’s candidacy should have been nullified since the All Progressives Congress (APC) had given tickets to the governor and Uche Nwosu before he left the party to join Action Alliance (AA).

Nwosu, a governorship aspirant on the platform of APC, is the son-in-law of Rochas Okorocha, who was at the time the governor of Imo.

But Nwosu let the APC when his name did not appear on the list as the governorship candidate despite allegedly winning the primaries.

Ihedioha then applied to be joined as an interested party in the suit.

Ihedioha had premised his application on the ground that the APC did not validly nominate Uzodinma to contest the 2019 election since tickets were given to two different candidates.

The PDP and Ihedioha’s application further sought to invalidate the years that Uzodinma spent in office as the governor of Imo.

On Tuesday, the supreme court ruled that it had no jurisdiction to entertain the application filed by Ihedioha.