Imo State Governor, Senator Hope Uzodinma, has expressed dissatisfaction over the label of ‘Supreme Court Governor’ continuously allegedly used by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) loyalists in the state.
To this end, the governor has petitioned the National Judicial Council (NJC), the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice (AGF), Mr. Abubakar Malami; the leadership of the National Assembly among others to prosecute those behind the alleged act.
In a document circulating in the local tabloid in the state tagged: ‘Petition against Mr. Ogubundu Nwadike, the Imo State Publicity Secretary for the PDP’, and signed by the Special Adviser to the state governor on Political Matters, Chief Batos Chikezie, he demanded that Nwadike and his cohorts should desist from making such “wicked propaganda and blackmail characteristically designed to incite and delude the people of the state thereby misdirecting them to disregard the judiciary.”
The governor called on the NJC through the Registrar of the Supreme Court to require Nwadike to stand trial for contempt for, according to him, “persistently making mockery of the decision and proceeding of the Supreme Court on the Imo State gubernatorial election, thereby making them look compromised and biased in the eyes of the public which is a dent on their integrity and pedigree.
“We call on the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) to quickly clampdown on Nwadike as a practicing journalist, and require that all media outlets blacklist him from their stables, blogs, pages and airtime in referencing a duly elected government as an ‘Abuja/Supreme Court Government’, which is a calculated attempt to incite the people of the state and dent the image of the most esteemed judiciary arm of government.”
The political adviser to the governor maintained that “since January 14, 2020, when the Supreme Court in a monumental judgment on the state gubernatorial election declared Uzodinma as the duly elected governor of the state and asked the authorities to issue him a certificate of return and to be sworn in accordingly, Nwadike continued to refer to Uzodimma as the ‘Supreme Court Governor’ and Chief Emeka Ihedioha as the elected governor of the state in the print, electronic and social media.”
In his reaction, Nwadike dismissed the petition against him, noting that the special adviser to the governor “is known for his noise-making that nobody takes him seriously.”
He, however, alleged that his (Batos) action had actually exposed the nuances of the present administration of Uzodinma by “indirectly telling Nigerians and Imo citizens in particular that the governor is a ‘Supreme Court Governor’.”
