Wild jubilation in Osogbo, the Osun State capital on Friday greeted a ruling by the Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Osun that the state governor, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, actually won the 19th August governorship election in Osun State.
The Tribunal also dismissed the petition filed governorship candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Senator Iyiola Omisore, seeking to nullify the result of the election.
Aregbesola had defeated PDP’s Senator Iyiola Omisore during the polls with 392, 284 votes to 292, 742 votes.
Omisore had, on August 29, petitioned the Tribunal, challenging the victory of Aregbesola and seeking the Tribunal to nullify the election on grounds of alleged irregularities.
Both Aregbesola and Omisore were absent in court but were ably represented by agents from their parties.
Justice Elizabeth Ipejime who headed the Tribunal that sat at the High Court in Osogbo, declared Aregbesola winner after the Tribunal held that the witnesses called by the petitioner, in this case, Iyoola Omisore of the PDP, did not show compelling evidence to support the petitioner’s claim of corrupt practices during the exercise at the polling units.
The Tribunal also held that there was no proof that the exercise was conducted without substantial compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act just as Justice Ikpejime declared: “the testimonies of these witnesses are unsatisfactory and PDP forensic analyst did not show that ballot papers were not used accordingly.
“As such, their testimonies failed to support their claims. None of them gave evidence on the issue of multiple voting, which they earlier claimed.
“The panel also held that issue of multiple voting was not found in his examination. On allegations of over-voting, no single evidence of over voting was proved.
“Similarly, on the allegations that O’Yes was used as INEC officials, there is no such evidence.”
The Tribunal said there was no evidence to prove that security men compromised their stands at polling units.
The court also said there was no proof that officials of the O-YES, an agency of the state, were used as INEC’s ad-hoc staff as alleged by the petitioner.
