On Friday, Osun State Governor Adegboyega Oyetola requested that the election of Peoples Democratic Party candidate Ademola Adeleke be declared invalid by the Election Petition Tribunal in Osogbo.
The governor said there were several abnormalities in the election.
He added that Adeleke should not have been proclaimed the winner because, as a result of submitting a falsified certificate to the Independent National Electoral Commission, he was ineligible to run in the election in the first place.
Yesterday, InsightnaijaTV claimed that Adeleke has been declared the winner by the INEC after defeating his closest rival, Oyetola, and 13 other contenders with a combined score of 403, 371.
In order to place second in the election, Oyetola received 375, 027 votes and won in 13 Local Government Areas of the state.
Following the filing of the lawsuit in Osogbo, a member of Oyetola’s legal team, Kunle Adegoke (SAN), stated that the governor had gathered 50 attorneys, including 10 Senior Advocates of Nigeria, and listed 13 grounds for Adeleke’s disqualification in an interview with Saturday PUNCH.
Prince Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), Chief Akin Olujumi (SAN), Prince Biodun Layonu (SAN), and Muritala Abdulrasheed were also important members of the legal team (SAN).
Adegoke said that there were numerous abnormalities in the 749 polling places.
He claimed that the legal team had proven through the petition that there were overvoting anomalies in the 749 polling places spread over the 10 Local Governments of Osun State.
Adegoke said, “We have nothing less than 50 lawyers, including 10 SANs that we cannot list all of them, so we have listed about 20 lawyers in the petition. We have 13 reliefs. What we are contesting is that the election is fraught with certain irregularities by which the person declared winner ought not to have been declared and the petitioner, Alhaji Isiaka Gboyega Oyetola ought to have been declared the winner on the ground that Nurudeen Ademola Adeleke was not qualified to have contested the election in the first place, having submitted forged certificate to INEC.
“The second is that the election in 749 polling units was fraught with irregularities and the election in those units ought to have been nullified. All the polling units mentioned are in 10 Local Governments, out of 30.
“So, if the election in those units is nullified and the votes are cancelled, then Alhaji Isiaka Gboyega Oyetola will have comfortable requirements of the constitution to be declared winner of the election.”
Asked when the trobinal would commence sitting, Adegoke said he does not know.
“We don’t know yet but now that we have filed, it is expected that once the PDP is served, their lawyers will file their own defence then we will file a reply to their defence. That is when the tribunal will be able to give a date.
“Except if either of the two parties have an application that requires urgency, only then can the Tribunal have an emergency sitting but as of now nobody knows the date”, he said.
On July 19, Adegoke had told Newsmen that Oyetola would hire more than 50 attorneys to challenge Adeleke’s declaration as the winner.
He had said, “We are still reviewing documents and the legal team is actually working. In an election of this nature, the documents will be so many; so it is important to look at them critically before we take a decision and that is exactly what we are working on right now.
“Dr Biodun Layonu (SAN), is the leader of the team. The legal team is not complete yet because there are so many others that will still come in.
“In the meantime, the two members of the legal team we can reveal is Dr Biodun Layonu and Kunle Adegoke. Others that may come in are people, we may not know but as soon as we are ready to move, we will notify the press.
“The membership can’t be determined as many lawyers are interested in joining the team. You know election petition is a special case. So, we allow as many lawyers that are interested to come in. We may run into 50 or more membership.”
When asked for comment, Prince Diran Odeyemi, the head of the Osun PDP’s media management team, stated the party was not worried by the petition.
He claimed that several APC officials who advocated for contesting the election’s outcome in front of a tribunal had lost elections in their wards because they believed that the party should have acted with more good sportsmanship in light of the outcome.
“It is so unfortunately that APC did not believe in the spirit of sportsmanship. We would have expected them to congratulate Adeleke. Many of them, who are championing the cause of tribunal lost in their polling units and their wards.
“We wonder what they want to take to the Tribunal now. We are not afraid or losing sleep, Oyetola can’t win. We will meet them at the tribunal. Regarding the allegation of forged certificate, there is nothing like that. They are only looking for an avenue to come back to government through the backdoor. PDP is thorough political party that look at all the certificates presented by the candidates,” Odeyemi concluded.
