The Supreme Court on Monday fixed July 5 to deliver its judgment in the dispute arising from the September 2018 governorship election in Osun State.
The Peoples Democratic Party and its candidate in the said election, Ademola Adeleke, had filed four separate appeals before the apex court to challenge the Abuja Division Court of Appeal’s decision affirming the All Progressives Congress and its Gov. Adegboyega Oyetola as the winner of the poll.
A seven-man panel of the apex court led by the Acting Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Tanko Muhammad, heard one of the appeals on Monday.
The decision in the particular appeal filed by Adeleke is to be binding on two other appeals, while the fourth appeal will be heard and a judgment delivered on it separately. The seven man-panel rose after hearing the first appeal on Monday.
It should be recalled that the Osun State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal sitting in Abuja Friday has declared Ademola Adeleke winner of the September 22 election. Chairman of the three-man tribunal Ibrahim Sirajo, said in the ruling that the rerun election that held on September 27 was illegal. The tribunal said Adeleke won the election at the first ballot on September 22, and the rerun that INEC devised to reach a final conclusion a week later was illegal.
INEC had declared the September 22 election inconclusive because the margin between the PDP and APC, 353 votes, was less than the number of registered voters, 3,498, in the seven polling units where elections were cancelled.
The APC candidate in the election, Oyetola, who was declared the winner after the rerun, APC and INEC had filed their notices of preliminary objection against Adeleke and PDP’s petition on the grounds that the petition is incompetent adding that the court lacked jurisdiction to entertain the petition. The objections filed by Gov Oyetola, APC and INEC were dismissed by the tribunal; as Sirajo, held that the objections were misconceived and struck them out.
But the Osun APC rejected the verdict of the Election Petition Tribunal that declared Ademola Adeleke the winner of the 2018 governorship election in the state. In a statement signed by the Osun APC director of publicity, research and strategy, Kunle Oyatomi, the APC cast doubts on the verdict, noting it will not hold water when contested. “The verdict cannot stand superior legal scrutiny. Therefore we will appeal against it,” the statement said.
