Former Imo State Governor Rochas Okorocha has credited President Bola Tinubu with breaking what he called the shackles on Imo State, hours after a Federal High Court in Abuja declared him the All Progressives Congress candidate for Imo West Senatorial District. The judgment, delivered on Thursday by Justice Obiora Egwuatu, removes Governor Hope Uzodimma from a ticket the Independent National Electoral Commission had published in his name on August 1. It also opens a fresh chapter in a rivalry that has shaped Imo politics for most of the past decade.
Justice Egwuatu held that the evidence before the court showed that Okorocha, not Uzodimma, won the party’s May 18 primary. He set aside INEC’s publication of Uzodimma’s name, ordered the commission to restore Okorocha’s, and directed the APC to forward the former governor’s name as its candidate. The judge also barred Uzodimma from presenting himself as the party’s candidate for the January 16, 2027 election, holding that his nomination breached Sections 29 and 32 of the Electoral Act and the APC’s own guidelines for primaries.
Hosting his legal team on Thursday, Okorocha thanked the judiciary for “standing on the side of justice” and described the outcome as a victory for Imo people. He went further, linking the judgment to the shackle symbol on Tinubu’s traditional cap. “By this judgment, the shackle on Imo State has been broken, and it is also evident that the President is tired of this nonsense and that he is not in support of it,” he said. Okorocha did not offer any evidence that the President intervened in the dispute or influenced the court.
The figures at the heart of the case could hardly be further apart. According to the result INEC says was submitted to its headquarters, the party’s returning officer declared Uzodimma winner with 230,464 votes against Okorocha’s 1,098. That would leave the former governor with less than half of one per cent of the votes cast. Okorocha’s side, in an affidavit filed in the suit, claimed he actually won with 150,780 votes to Uzodimma’s 102,158.
Okorocha on Thursday also questioned the documents relied on to support Uzodimma’s nomination. He asked how the governor could be said to have emerged by consensus when individual scores were recorded, and pointed to a document he said dated the primary May 16 rather than May 18. “So which one did the court really dwell on?” he asked.
The dispute turned sharper this month. In letters dated October 5 and October 8, INEC’s Resident Electoral Commissioner in Imo, Chukwuemeka Ibeziako, asked the Department of State Services and the state police command to investigate a document circulating online that named Okorocha the winner, insisting that the authentic May 18 report named Uzodimma. Police spokesperson, CSP Anietie Iniedu, later said Okorocha was arrested at an Abuja hotel on October 12 over alleged criminal conspiracy, forgery and impersonation, and released on self-recognisance after about an hour. Okorocha, through his media aide Sam Onwuemeodo, has denied that he was ever arrested or granted bail.
The two men have traded places in Imo politics before. Uzodimma represented Imo West, also known as Orlu zone, in the Senate from 2011 to 2019, and Okorocha took over the seat in 2019 after serving two terms as governor. Uzodimma became governor in January 2020 through a Supreme Court judgment and won a second term in 2023. Okorocha’s suit, filed on August 13, also asked the court to consider whether a serving governor could be published as a senatorial candidate under Section 183 of the Constitution.
The judgment may not settle the matter. Uzodimma and the APC can challenge it at the Court of Appeal, and the Constitution allows 14 days for appeals in pre-election cases. The police investigation into the disputed document also remains open. For now, the APC ticket in Imo West stays contested with less than three months to the election.