A STATEMENT ON THE SUPREME COURT’S JUDGMENT ON THE IMO STATE GOVERNORSHIP ELECTIONS AND THE DETERMINATION OF DEMOCRATIC EXERCISES BY TECHNICALITIES OF LAW
Statement It is a matter of concern to the Fatherland Group that the Supreme Court, by its decision of 14 January 2020, endorsed an outcome in which the choice of the five million people of Imo State as to the Governorshi p of their state for the next four years was determined by a presumption of law that elections took place in 388 polling units within the State regardless of the reality. The Fatherland Group believed that it is in the field of democratic rights that society can least afford for disputes to be determined by legal technicalities of presumptions of law and facts, burdens of proof and points of pleadings. The group notes that the outcome of this case, and therefore the elections, turned on different views taken by different judges of the pleadings prepared by the lawyers for the parties. Substantive justice…