Senator Chuba Okadigbo of the blessed memory once said that it will take a political Maradona to understand political arithmetics. From the stand point of most Imolites, Nigerians and lots of comments from the international community, the judgment of Nigerian Apex court on Imo gubernatorial race on Tuesday, January 14, 2020 which sacked the Governor of Imo State, Rt. Hon. Emeka Ihedioha and declared the candidate of the All Progressives Congress- APC, Senator Hope Uzodimma Governor of the state has remained a tintinnabulation of a discordant locomotive or platter clatter of an unceremonious downpour on the roof. In fact, the decision has been crowned as one of the most controversial judgments in Nigerian history.
Permit me to classify my source audience as schools of thought. The first school of thought that the independent National Electoral Commission was supposed to be the major witness of the so mentioned 388 polling units that the results of the elections were said to be wrongly excluded in their collation of results of the election being the major petition of Senator Hope Uzodinma. This school of thought expected the Apex court to summon INEC to appear before the court to set records correct because it was constitutionally established for the purpose. This school of thought was shocked to the marrow that out of the 54 witnesses, 28 of them were polling agents and the question here is where are the presiding officers of these polling units? 
Another school of thought expressed much displeasure with the judgment saying that it did not reflect the proceedings of the court. Come to think of it in a situation where all the prosecution witnesses consented during the cross examination that the result sheets brought to the court were not legible and did not contain the scores of all the political parties that were parts and parcel of the March 9 2019 election. Again, the witnesses declared that the result sheets did not contain any entry to show the number of ballot papers issued to the respective polling units, number used and those not used. Most of the sheets did not show the names and signatures of the presiding officers and the date of issuance. In some, the dates written on them were before or after the real election and some of the results showed over voting etc. Even the Deputy Commissioner of Police who brought the results had no idea about the contents of the result. The legal team of the respondents refuted it but the apex Court admitted them. This school of thought were amazed that even when the DCP admitted that he knew nothing about the content and scores he brought, the apex court still upheld such document. This means that Supreme Court rendered judgment on a result sheet that no one could demystify the content. Strange indeed! In view of this, the Imo State Police Command was contacted, the Commissioner of Police said there was no record of the said documents as exhibits in custody of the Police.
Another school of thought expressed confusion with discrepancy between the declared result at the court and the content of the original certified results. According to this school one of the 388 polling units, Eziama/Okpala Umuogba village square, in Ngor Okpala village square- boot 008 has 492 as registered voters but the result, as declared by the Supreme Court is 819. Another is Umuchoko Town Hall – 006, the total number of registered voters, according to INEC records is 367, while the declared result said that PDP scored 2, while AOPC scored 369 totaling 369. Again, Umunkwo Community Primary School, Umuopara- 006 boot, where the total number of registered voters was 526 and it was declared that APC scored 526 and the PDP 2. So there is no scores for other 66 political parties such as the Action Alliance, which came second at the polls, All Progressives Grand Alliance that came third, Accord Party others. Further verifications from this school of thought declared that some of the boots recorded did not exist. Come to think of it, APC did not win any single seat at the State House of Assembly, bearing in mind that the elections were conducted on the same day and at the same time. Very strange judgment indeed!
The next school of thought queried the result calculation from the Supreme court saying that one of the documents submitted by the Independent National Electoral Commission- INEC to the Tribunal shows that the total number of accredited voters at the election was 823,743. Total votes cast during the election was 739,435, while total rejected votes was 25,130. Total valid votes cast was 714,355 and Supreme Court added 213,695 votes to APC from the strange 388 units and 1,903 votes to PDP, thereby making the total votes scored at the election to be 953,083. How can anyone reconcile that figure with the total accredited votes which was tendered as 823,743? Mathematically, it means that 129,340 votes were added from nowhere to APC. This is really a Guinness book of record computation from Nigeria’s highest court.
For the sake of space, we will leave the concerns of other schools of thought for the second volume of this report. We are still looking up to Supreme Court to review their decision for the sake of posterity and the judgment has further battered the image of Nigeria among the League of Nations. Again, reactions that trailed the judgment on social media shows that Nigerians have lost hope in the judiciary as the last hope of the people.
